专八必备 英美文学名词

1. Allegory: A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings

represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

2. Alliteration:The repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry.

11. Antagonist: A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a

rival of the hero or heroine.

12. Antithesis:(a figure of speech) The balancing of two contrasting ideas,

words phrases, or sentences. An antithesis is often expressed in a balanced sentence, that is, a sentence in which identical or similar grammatical structure is used to express contrasting ideas.

Aside: In drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the

audience. An aside is meant to be heard by the other characters onstage.

Ballad: A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung. In many countries,

the folk ballad was one of the earliest forms of literature. Folk ballads have no known authors. They were transmitted orally from generation to generation and were not set down in writing until centuries after they were first sung. The subject matter of folk ballads stems from the everyday life of the common people. Devices commonly used in ballads are the refrain, incremental repetition, and code language. A later form of ballad is the literary ballad, which imitates the style of the folk ballad.

Biography:A detailed account of a person’s life written by another person. Blank verse: Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Classicism:A movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects

the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance, and order. Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.

Climax:The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a gogotory’s

turning point. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increase of tension in the plot are known as the rising action. All action after the climax is referred to as the falling action, or resolution. The term crisis is sometimes used interchangeably with climax.

Comedy: in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable

armistice between the protagonist and society.

Conceit: A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly

different things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit.

Conflict: A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story,

novel, play, or narrative poem. Usually the events of the story are all related to the conflict, and the conflict is resolved in some way by the story’s end.

Couplet:Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. A heroic couplet is an

iambic pentameter couplet.

Critical Realism:The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the

fouties and in the beginning of fifties. The realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils.

Dramatic monologue:A kind of narrative poem in which one character

speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in t he speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem.

Elegy: A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is

a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.

Enlightenment: With the advent of the 18th century, in England, as in other

European countries, there sprang into life a public movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment on the whole, was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeois against feudalism. The egogo inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. The attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people.

Epic: A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and

reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down.

Essay:A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a

limited way and expresses a particular point or view.

Free Verse: Verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern. Hyperbole: A figure of speech using exaggeration, or overstatement, for special

effect.

Iamb抑扬格: It is the most commonly used foot in English poetry, in which an

unstressed syllable comes first, followed by a stressed syllable.

Iambic pentameter: A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot

an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry.

Irony: A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really

meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. Three kinds of irony are (1) verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says one thing and means something entirely different; (2) dramatic irony, in which a reader or an audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know; (3) irony of situation, in which the writer shows a discrepancy between the expected results of some action or situation and its actual results.

Lyric: A poem, usually a short one, that expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts

or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the lyric.

Morality play: An outgrowth of miracle plays. Morality plays were popular in

the 15th and 16th centuries. In them, virtues and vices were personified.

Myth: A story, often about immortals and sometimes connected with religious

rituals, that is intended to give meaning to the mysteries of the world. Myths make it possible for people to understand and deal with things that they cannot control and often cannot see. A body of related myths that is accepted by a people is known as its mythology. A mythology tells a people what it is most concerned about.

Narrator: One who narrates, or tells, a story. A story may be told by a

first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or minor character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator, someone who is not in the story at all. The word narrator can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience through the play, often commenting on the action and sometimes participating in it.

Naturalism:An extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict

the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity.

Neoclassicism: A revival in the 17th agogo of order, balance, and harmony in

literature.

Ode: A complex and often lengthy lyric poem, written in a dignified formal style

on some lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written for a special occasion, to honor a person or a season or to commemorate an event.

Pathos:The quality in a wo rk of literature or art that arouses the reader’s

feelings of pity, sorrow, or compassion for a character. The term is usually used to refer to situations in which innocent characters suffer through no fault of their own.

Poetry: The most distinctive characteristic of poetry is form and music. Poetry

is concerned with not only what is said but how it is said. Poetry evokes emotions rather than express facts. Poetry means having a poetic experience. Imagination is also an essential quality of poetry. Poetry often leads us to new perceptions, new feelings and experiences of which we have not previously been aware.

Protagonist: The central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative

poem. The protagonist is the character on whom the action centers and with whom the reader sympathizes most. Usually the protagonist strives against an opposing force, or antagonist , to accomplish something.

Renaissance:The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and

Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism.

Romance: Any imagination literature that is set in an idealized world and that

deals with a heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters.

Satire: A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses

and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter. Song: A short lyric poem with distinct musical qualities, normally written to be set to music. In expresses a simple but intense emotion.

Sonnet: A fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic

pentameter. A sonnet generally expresses a single theme or idea.

Spenserian stanza: A nine-line stanza with the following rhyme scheme:

ababbabcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line

is written in iambic hexameter and is called an alexandrine.

Stanza:It’s a st ructural division of a poem, consisting of a series of verse lines

which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and thyme.

Stream of consciousness:“Stream-of-Consciousness” or “interior

monologue”, is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them.

Wit:A brilliance and quickness of perception combined with a cleverness of

expression. In the 18th century, wit and nature were related-nature provided the rules of the universe; wit allowed these rules to be interpreted and expressed.