英国文学名词解释

Modernism is vague term referring to the art, poetry, literature, architecture, and philosophy of Europe and America in the early twentieth-century. In general, modernism is marked by the following characteristics: (1) the desire to break away from established traditions, (2) a quest to find fresh ways to view man's position or function in the universe, (3) experiments in form and style, particularly with fragmentation--as opposed to the "organic" theories of literary unity appearing in the Romantic and Victorian periods. The writers are like D.H. Lawrence, V.S. Naipaul, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot.

Sonnet is the most numerous, representative, and distinctive of the forms of Elizabethan lyric. A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric divided, both formally and by content, into two parts. In English, it is generally in iambic pentameter. There are two kinds of sonnet: the Petrarchan sonnet and the English sonnet. Personal relationships mostly about love are natural subjects for sonnet sequence. A good sonnet characteristically presents a delicately achieved balance of contrasted states of feeling. Dante, Petrarch, Spenser and Shakespeare are some of the greatest sonnet writers.

Stream of Consciousness is the continuous flow of sense-perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and memories in the human mind. In literary works, it refers to the literary method of representing such a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. The writers are like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson.

Post-colonialism: Postcolonial literature is literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of people formerly subjugated in colonial empires, and the literary expression of post-colonialism. It re-examine classic literature with a particular focus on the social "discourse" that shaped it. It can be identified by its discussion of cultural identity. The piece of literature, like a novel, poem, short story etc. may be about the change that has taken place or question the current change. The examples of Postcolonial literature are like “The Life and Surprising Adventure of Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe and “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens. Realism refers generally to any artistic or literary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. It is a theory or tendency in writing to depict events in human life in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner. It is an attempt to reflect life "as it actually is"--a concept in some ways similar to what the Greeks would call mimesis. In general, realism seeks to avoid supernatural, transcendental, or surreal events. The writers are like Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and George Eliot.

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. It is