英美文学术语terms
1.alliteration：It is the repetition of the same sound or sounds at the beginning of two or more
words that are next to or close to each other. It is a form of initial rhyme, or head rhyme.
2.caesura：a pause in a line of verse, often coinciding with a break between clauses or
sentences. It is usually placed in the middle of the line, but may appear near the beginning or towards the end.
3.Sonnet - a lyric poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to certain definite patterns. It usually expresses a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment.
4.Free verse: a kind of poetry that does not conform to any regular metre: the length of its lines is irregular, as is its use of rhyme.
5. heroic couplet: a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines.
6. Paradox: a statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true.
7. Conceit: An unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings.
8. Mock epic: a poem employing the lofty style and the conventions of the epic poetry to describe a trivial or undignified series of events; thus a kind of satire that mocks its subject by treating it in an inappropriately grandiose manner, usually at some length. One of the outstanding examples in English is Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
9. Satire: a mode of writing that exposes the failings of individuals, institutions or societies to ridicule and scorn. Satire is often an incidental element in literary works that may not be wholly satirical, especially in comedy. Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal is a bitter satire on the policy of the English government towards the Irish people.
10. Epigram：a short poem with a witty turn of thought, or a wittily condensed expression in prose. Originally a form of monumental inscription in ancient Greece, the epigram was developed into a literary form by poets.
11. Allegory:Allegory is a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. The principal technique of allegory is personification, whereby abstract qualities are given human shape.
12. Simile:A figure of speech in which two things, essentially different but thought to be alike in one or more respects, are compared using “like,” “as,” “as if,” or “such” for the purpose of
explanation, allusion, or ornament.
13. metaphor: the most important and widespread figure of speech, in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two. In metaphor, this resemblance is assumed as an imaginary identity rather than directly stated as a comparison.
14. verbal irony: it involves a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant, as in its crude form, sarcasm..
15. dramatic irony:the audience knows more about a character’s situation than the character does, foreseeing an outcome contrary to the character’s expectations, and thus ascribing a sharply different sense to some of the character’s own statements.
英美文学名词解释总结.doc
英美文学名词解释总结 Romance:Anyimaginationliteraturethatissetinanidealizedworldandth atdealswithaheroicadventuresandbattlesbetweengoodcharactersandvi llainsormonsters.传奇故事：指以理想化的世界为背景并且描写主人公的英雄冒险事迹和善与恶的斗争的想象文学作品。 Alliteration:Therepetitionoftheinitialconsonantsoundsinpoetry.头韵：诗歌中单词开头读音的重复。 Couplet:Itisapairofrhymingverselines,usuallyofthesamelength;oneoft hemostwidelyusedverse-sinEuropeanpoetry.Chaucerestablishedtheus eofcoupletsinEnglish,notablyintheCanterburyTales,usingrhymingiam bicpentameterslaterknownasheroiccoupletsBlankverse:Versewritteni nunrhymediambicpentameter.素体诗：用五音步抑扬格写的无韵诗。 Conceit:Akindofmetaphorthatmakesacomparisonbetweentwostartlin glydifferentthings.Aconceitmaybeabriefmetaphor,butitusuallyprovid estheframeworkforanentirepoem.Anespeciallyunusualandintellectual kindofconceitisthemetaphysicalconceit.新奇的比喻：将两种截然不同的食物进行对比的一种隐喻。 它虽被视为是一种隐喻，但是它往往构建了整首诗的框架，
英美文学术语(英文版)_literary_terms
英国文学 Alliteration:押头韵repetition of the initial sounds（不一定是首字母） Allegory:寓言a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Allusion:典故a reference in a literary work to person, place etc. often to well-known characters or events. Archetype:原型 Irony:反讽intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated Black humor:黑色幽默 Metaphor: 暗喻 Ballad: 民谣about the folk loge Epic:史诗in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. Romance: 罗曼史/骑士文学is a popular literary form in the medieval England./Chivalry Euphuism: 夸饰文体This kind of style consists of two distinct elements. The first is abundant use of balanced sentences, alliterations and other artificial prosodic means. The second element is the use of odd similes and comparisons. Spenserian stanza: It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter. 斯宾塞诗节新诗体，每一节有9排，前8排是抑扬格五步格诗，第9排是抑扬格六步格诗。The Faerie Queene Conceit:奇特的比喻is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. 不像的事物 Sonnet: 十四行诗a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. Blank verse: 无韵体诗written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Elegy 挽歌 The Heroic Couplet:英雄对偶句 Lyric:抒情诗is a short poem that expresses the poet’s thoughts and emotion or illustrates some life principle. often concerns love. A red, red Rose. Byronic Hero: refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. Stream of Consciousness:意识流the author tells the story through the freely flowing thoughts and associations of one of the characters. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are two major advocates of this technique. Renaissance:文艺复兴14-15th, originated in Italy, encouraged the reformation of the Church and humanism. Humanism: 人文主义it is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Metaphysical poetry:玄学派诗歌it is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With the rebellious spirit, they tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. The diction is simple. John Donne, George Herbert. The Enlightenment Movement:启蒙运动18th century flourished in France. Enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. reason, rationality, equality and science and universal education. John Dryden, Alexander Pope. Neoclassicism:新古典主义17-18th centuries of classical standards of standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson. Sentimentalism:感伤主义18世纪60-80年代，came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the part of certain enlighteners i n social reality. use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by “pathetic” indulgence. The Graveyard School: 墓畔派whose poems are mostly devote to sentimental lamentations or meditation on
英美文学术语
1. Allusion （典故）is a reference without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage. Most literary allusions are intended to be recognized by the generally educated readers of the aut hor’s time, but some are aimed at a special group. 2. Atmosphere（氛围）: the prevailing mood or feeling of a literary work. Atmosphere is often developed, at least in part, through descriptions of setting. Such descriptions help to create an emotional climate to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes. 3. Climax：as a rhetorical device it means an ascending sequence of importance. As a literary term, it can also refer to the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story’s turning poi nt. 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. 4. Anticlimax（突降）：it denotes a writer’s deliberate drop from the serious and elevated to the trivial and lowly, in order to achieve a comic or satiric effect. It is a rhetorical device in English. 5. Characters（人物）are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from the dialogues, actions and motivations. E. M. Forster divides characters into two types: flat character, which is presented without much individualizing detail; and round character, which is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity. 6. Comedy:（喜剧）in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society. 7. Farce （闹剧）is a type of comedy designed to provoke the audience to simple and hearty laughter. To do so it commonly employs highly exaggerated types of characters and puts them into improbable and ludicrous situations. of other meters. 8. Hyperbole（夸张）:this figure of speech called hyperbole is bold overstatement, or the extravagant exaggeration of fact or of possibility. It may be used either for serious or ironic or comic effect. 9. Understatement（轻描淡写）：this figure of speech deliberately represents something as very much less in magnitude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be. The effect is usual ly ironic. 10. Irony（反讽）：This term derives from a character in a Greek comedy. In most of the modern cr itical uses of the term “irony”, there remains the root sense of dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however, in order to deceive, but to achieve rhetorical or artistic effects. 11. Theme（主题）：The term is usually applied to a general concept or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an imaginative work is designed to incorporate and make persuasive to the reader. 12. Multiple Point of View （多重视角）：It is one of the literary techniques William Faulkner used, which shows within the same story how the characters reacted differently to the same person or the same situation. The use of this technique gave the story a circular form wherein one event was the center, with various points of view radiating from it. The multiple points of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment. 13. Flashback（闪回）：interpolating narratives or scenes which represent events that happened before the time at which the work opened; for example, it is used in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. 14. Plot（情节）：The plot in a dramatic or narrative work is constituted by its events and actions, as these are rendered and ordered toward achieving particular artistic and emotional effects.
英美文学专有名词术语解释
Literary Terms（文学术语解释） *Legend（传说）: A song or narrative handed down from the past, legend differs from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain. *Epic（史诗）: 1)Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. 2)Beowulf is the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. John Milton wrote three great epics: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. *Romance（罗曼史/骑士文学）: 1)Romance is a popular literary form in the medieval England. 2)It sings knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. 3)Chivalry(such as bravery, honor, generosity, loyalty and kindness to the weak and poor) is the spirit of romance. *Ballad（民谣）: 1)Ballad is a story in poetic form to be sung or recited. 2)Ballads were passed down from generation to generation. 3)Robin Hood is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood. Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 19th century English ballad. *The Heroic Couplet（英雄对偶句）:1)It means a pair of lines of a type once common in English poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines. 2)The rhyme is masculine. 3)Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer. *Humanism（人文主义）:1)Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. 2)Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to prefect himself and to perform wonders. *Renaissance（文艺复兴）:1)It refers to the transitional period from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy in the 14th century. 2)The Renaissance means rebirth or revival. 3)It was stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classics, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. 4)Humanism is the essence of Renaissance. 5)The English Renaissance didn’t begin until the reign of Henry Ⅷ. It was reg arded as England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. 6)The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama. 7)This period produced such literary giants as Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, Bacon, Donne and Milton, etc. *University Wits（大学才子）: 1)It refers to a group of scholars during the Elizabethan age who graduate from either Oxford or Cambridge. They came to London with the ambition to become professional writers. Some of them later become famous poets and playwrights. 2)Thomas Greene, John Lily and Christopher Marlowe were among them. 3)They paved the way, to some degree, for the coming of Shakespeare. *Blank verse（无韵体）:1)It is verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 2)It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton. *Spenserian Stanza（斯宾塞诗节）:1)It is the creation of Edmund Spenser. 2)It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter（六音步）,r hyming ababbcbcc. 3)Spenser’s The Faerie Queene was written in this kind of stanza. *Sonnet(十四行诗)1)It is the one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in English.2)A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.3)Shakespeare’s sonnets are well-known. *Soliloquy(独白)1)Soliloquy, in drama, means a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud. 2)In the line “To be, or not to be, that is the question”, which begins the famous soliloquy from Act3, Scene1 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this soliloquy Hamlet questions whether or not life is worth living and speaks of the reasons why he does not end his life. *Metaphysical Poets（玄学派诗人）：They refer to a group of religious poets in the first half of the 17th century whose works were characterized by their wit, imaginative picturing, compressions, often cryptic expression, play of paradoxes and juxtapositions of metaphor. *Enlightenment Movement(启蒙运动)1)It was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through Western Europe in the 18th century.2)The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from 14th century to the mid-17th century.3)Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas.4)It celebrated reason or nationality, equality and science. It advocated universal education. Literature at the time became a very popular means of public education.5)Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Sheridan, etc. Neoclassicism(新古典主义)1)In the field of literature, the 18th century Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism.2)The neoclassicists hold that forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of the contemporary French ones.3)They believed that the artistic ideas should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity *Sentimentalism(感伤主义文学)1)It is a pejorative term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain.2)In literature it denotes overmuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by pathetic indulgence.3)The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith is a case in point. *The Graveyard School(墓地派诗歌)1)It refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as theams.2)Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is its most representative work. *Epistolary novel(书信体小说)1)It consists of the letters the characters write to each other. The usual form is the letter, but diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.2)The epistolary novel’s reliance on subjective poi nts of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel.3)Samuel Richardson’s Pamela is typical of this kind. *Gothic Romance(哥特传奇)1)A type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century in England.2)Gothic romances are mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they are usually against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. *Picaresque novel(流浪汉小说)1)It is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society. 2)As indicated by its name, this style of novel originated in Spain, flourished in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, and continues to influence modern literature. *English Romanticism(英国浪漫主义文学)1)The English Romantic period is an age of poetry. Poets started a rebellion against the neoclassical literature, which was later regarded as the poetic revolution. They saw poetry as a healing energy; they believed that poetry could purify both individual souls and the society.2)The Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798 acts as a manifesto for the English Romanticism.3)The Romantics not only eulogize the faculty of imagination, but also stress the concept of spontaneity and inspiration, regarding them as something crucial for true poetry.4)The natural world comes to the forefront of the poetic imagination. Nature is not only the major source of poetic imagery, but also provides the dominant subject matter. *Ode(颂歌)1)Ode is a dignified and elaborately lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.2)John Keats wrote great odes. His Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in point. *Lake Poets(湖畔派诗人)They refer to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District. They came to be known as the Lake School or “Lakers”. *Byronic hero（拜伦式英雄）: It refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, this Byronic hero would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with
英美文学四大思潮名词解释(全英)
Romanticism began in the mid-18th century and reached its height in the 19th century.It was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe.The ideologies and events of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution laid the background for Romanticism. The Enlightenment also had influence on Romanticism .It was a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe.The Romantic literature of the nineteenth century concentrating on emotion, nature, and the expression of "nothing".famous romanticism writers are such as william Wordsworth:lyrical ballods、william whitman ：leaves of grass Realism beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-19th- and early-20th-century .It was a reaction againest romanticism and paved the way to modernism.the realism is product of europe capitalist system?s establishment and development.the philosophy and science of europe in 19th century has promated its production authors trend to depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is. In the spirit of general "realism" ,realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized
英美文学术语
Humanism is both the keynote of the Renaissance and the intellectual liberation movement. Humanists took interest in human life and human activities and gave expression to the new feeling of admiration for human beauty, human achievements and human reason and passion. The English humanists in this period are Thomas More(Utopia) and dramatists such as Christopher Marlowe( The Jew of Malta),William Shakespeare(The Merchant of Venice) and Ben Jonson(Volpone). The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them, and whose work was characterized by inventiveness of metaphor (these involved comparisons being known as metaphysical conceits). The term 'metaphysical poetry' is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne(1572-1631),the author of A Valediction:Forbidding Mourning. English Romanticism，as a literary movement,took place in Britain and then throughout the whole Europe between 1770 and 1832,emphasized the individual, the subiective, the irrational, the imaginative,the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary and the transcendental.English romantic poets are Byron,Shelley(Ode to the West Wind) , Keats(Ode to a Nightingale) and so on. Critical Realism Critical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early20th centuries.It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between1875and1920to apply the methods of realistic fiction to the criticism of society and the examination of social issues.Realist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.The most important critical realist is Charles Dickens(Oliver Twist). Theater of the Absurd It is famous for its anti-drama qualities. It has no main plot. The characters lack a necessary social and personal background. They are deprived of any personality. Language fails to act as a means of true communication. These broken images reflect the debased position of modern man in the post-industrial society in a symbolic way.The representative is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Transcendentalism is the summit of the Romantic Movement in the history of American literature in the 19th century. In a literal sense, it means the belief that knowledge and principles of reality can be obtained by studying thought, not necessarily by practical experiences.The most important representatives are Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature) and Henry David Thoreau (Walden).