英国文学开卷资料名词解释

英国诗歌术语解释

Accent（重音）Another word for stress. The emphasis placed on a syllable. Accent is frequently used to denote stress in describing verse.

Aestheticism（唯美主义） A literary movement in the 19th century of those who believed in “art for art?s sake” in opp osition to the utilitarian doctrine that everything must be morally or practically useful. Key figures of the aesthetic movement were Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. Allegory（讽喻）A pattern of reference in the work which evokes a parallel action of abstrac t ideas. Usually allegory uses recognizable types, symbols and narrative patterns to indicate that the meaning of the text is to be found not in the represented work but in a body of traditional thought, or in an extra-literary context.Rrepresentative wor ks are Edmund Spenser?s The Faerie Queene, John Bunyan?s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Alliteration（头韵） A rhyme-pattern produced inside the poetic line by repeating consonantal sounds at the beginning of words. It is also called initial rhyme.

Allusion（引喻）A passing reference in a work of literature to something outside itself. A writer may allude to legends, historical facts or personages, to other works of literature, or even to autobiographical details. Literary allusion requires special explanation. Some writers include in their own works passages from other writers in order to introduce implicit contrasts or comparisons. T.S. Eliot?s The Waste Land is of this kind.

Analogy（类比）The invocation of a similar but different instance to that which is being represented, in order to bring out its salient features through the comparison.

Anapest（抑抑扬格）A trisyllabic metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

Apostrophe（顿呼） A rhetorical term for a speech addressed to a person, idea or thing with an intense emotion that can no longer be held back, often placed at the beginning of a poem or essay, but also acting as a digression or pause in an ongoing argument.

Assonance（半谐音）The repetition of accented vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds.

Aubade（晨曲） A song or salute at dawn, usually by a lover lamenting parting at daybreak, for example, John Donne?s “The Sun Rising”.

Augustan Age: may refer to 1) The period in Roman history when Caesar Augustus was the first emperor; 2) The period in the history of the Latin language when Caesar Augustus was emperor and Golden-age Latin was in use; 3) Augustan literature and Augustan poetry, the early 18th century in British literature and poetry, where the authors highly admired and emulated the original Augustan Age.

Ballad（民谣）A narrative poem which was originally sung to tell a story in simple colloquial language.

Ballad metre (民谣格律）A quatrain of alternate four-stress and three-stress lines, usually roughly iambic.

Ballad stanza（民谣体诗节）A quatrain that alternates tetrameter with trimeter lines, and usually rhymes a b c b.

Blank verse（无韵诗）Verse in iambic pentameter without rhyme scheme, often used in verse drama in the sixteenth century and later used for poetry.

Burlesque（诙谐作品）An imitation of a literary style, or of human action, that aims to ridicule by incongruity style and subject. High burlesque involves a high style for a low subject, for instance, Alexander Pope?s The Rape of the Lock.

Byronic hero（拜伦式英雄）A character type portrayed by George Lord Gordon Byron in many of his early narrative poems, especially Child Harold’s Pilgrimage. The Byronic hero is a brooding solitary, who seeks exotic travel and wild nature to reflect his superhuman passions. He is capable of great suffering and guilty of some terrible, unspecified crime, but bears this guilt with pride, as it sets him apart from society, revealing the meaninglessness of ordinary moral values. He is misanthropic, defiant, rebellious, nihilistic and hypnotically fascinating to others.

Canto（诗章）A division of a long poem, especially an epic. Dante?s Divine Comedy, Byron?s Don Juan and Ezra Pound?s The Cantos are all divided into these chapter-length sections.

Carpe Diem（及时行乐）A poem advising someone to “seize the day” or “seize the hour”. Usually the genre is addressed by a man to a young woman who is urged to stop prevaricating in sexual or emotional matters.

Cavalier poets（骑士诗人）English lyric poets during the reign of Charles I. Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller and Robert Herrick are the representatives of this group. Cavalier poetry is mostly concerned with love, and employs a variety of lyric forms. Cockney school of poetry （伦敦佬诗派）A derisive term for certain London-based writers, including Leigh Hunt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Hazlitt and John Keats. This term was invented by the Scottish journalist John Gibson Lockhart in an anonymous series of article on The Cockney School of Poetry, in which he mocked the supposed stylistic vulgarity of these writers.

Complaint （怨诗）A poetic genre in which the poet complains, often about his beloved. Geoffery Chaucer?s “Complaint to His Purse”, Edward Young?s “The Complaint”, or “Night Thoughts”are examples.

Conceit（奇思妙喻）Originally it meant simply a thought or an opinion. The term came to be used in a derogatory way to describe a particular kind of far-fetched metaphorical association. It has now lost this pejorative overtone and simply denotes a special sort of figurative device. The distinguishing quality of a conceit is that it should forge an unexpected comparison between two apparently dissimilar things or ideas. The classic example is John Donne?s The Flea and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.

Didactic poetry（说教诗）Poetry designed to teach or preach as a primary purpose.

Dirge （挽歌）Any song of mourning, shorter and less formal than an elegy. Shakespeare?s Full Fathom Five in The Tempest is a famous example.

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Eclogue （牧歌）A pastoral poem, especially a pastoral dialogue, usually indebted to the Virgillian tradition.

Elegy（挽诗）A poem of lamentation, concentrating on the death of a single person, like Alfred Tennyson?s “In Memoriam”, Thomas Gray?s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, or W. B. Yeats?s “In Memory of Major Robert Gregory”.

Epic（史诗）A long narrative poem in elevated style, about the adventures of a hero whose exploits are important to the history of a nation. The more famous epics in western literature are Homer?s Iliad, Virgil?s Aeneid, Dante?s Divine Comedy and John Milton?s Paradise Lost.

Epigram（警句诗）A polished, terse and witty remark that packs generalized knowledge into short compass.

Epigraph（铭文） A short quotation cited at the start of a book or chapter to point up its theme and associate its content with learning. Also an inscription on a monument or building explaining its purpose.

Epitaph（墓志铭）An inscription on a tomb or a piece of writing suitable for that purpose, generally summing up someone?s life, sometimes in praise, sometimes i n satire. John Keats wrote an Epitaph for himself. It says, “Here lies one whose name is writ in water.”

Epithet（表述词语）From Latin epitheton, from Greek epitithenai meaning “to add”, an adjective or adjective cluster that is associated with a particular person or thing and that usually seems to capture their prominent characteristics. For example, “Ethelred the unready”, or “fleet-footed Achilles” in Alexander Pope?s version of The Iliad.

Folk ballad（民间歌谣）A narrative poem designed to be sung, composed by an anonymous author, and transmitted orally for years or generations before being written down. It has usually undergone modification through the process of oral transmission.

Foot（音步） a unit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Free verse（自由诗）Verse released from the convention of meter, with its regular pattern of stresses and line length.

Georgian Poetry： the title of a series of anthologies showcasing the work of a school of English poetry that established itself during the early years of the reign of King George V of the United Kingdom. Edward Marsh was the general editor of the series and the centre of the circle of Georgian poets, which included Rupert Brooke. It has been suggested that Brooke himself took a hand in some of the editorial choices.

Graveyard poets（墓园诗人）Several 18th century poets wrote mournfully pensive poems on the nature of death, which were set in graveyards or inspired by gloomy nocturnal meditations. Examples of this minor but popular genre are Thomas Parnell?s “Night-Piece on Death”, Edward Young?s “Night Thoughts” and Robert Blair?s “The Grave”. Thomas Gray?s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” owes something to this vogue.

Haiku（俳句） A Japanese lyric form dating from the 13th century which consists of seventeen syllables used in three lines: 5/7/5. Several 20th century English and American poets have experimented with the form, including Ezra Pound.

Heroic couplet（英雄双韵体）Lines of iambic pentameter rhymed in pairs. Alexander Pope brought the meter to a peak of polish and wit, using it in satire. Because this practice was especially popular in the Neoclassic Period between 1660 and 1790, the heroic couplet is often called the “neoclassic couplet” if the poem originates during this time period.

Heroic quatrain（英雄四行诗）Lines of iambic pentameter rhymed abab, cdcd, and so on. Thomas Gray?s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a notable example.

Hexameter（六音步） In English versification, a line of six feet. A line of iambic hexameter is called an Alexanderine.

Iamb（抑扬格）The commonest metrical foot in English verse, consisting of a weak stress followed by a strong stress.

Iambic-anapestic meter（抑扬抑抑扬格） A meter which freely mixes iambs and anapests, and in which it might be difficult to determine which foot prevails without actually counting.

Iambic hexameter（六音步抑扬格）A line of six iambic feet.

Iambic pentameter（五音步抑扬格）A line of five iambic feet. It is the most pervasive metrical pattern found in verse in English.

Iambic tetrameter（四音步抑扬格）A line of four iambic feet.

Idyll（田园诗）A poem which represents the pleasures of rural life.

Image, imagery（意象）A critical word with several different applications. In its narrowest sense an …image? is a word-picture, a description of some visible scene or object. More commonly, however, …imagery? refers to figurative language in a piece of literature; or all the words which refer to objects and qualities which appeal to the senses and feelings.

Imagism（意象派）A self-conscious movement in poetry in England and America initiated by Ezra Pound and T.E. Hulme in about 1912. Pound described the aims of Imagism in his essay “A Petrospect”as follows:1) Direct treatment of the …thing? whether subjective or objective. 2) To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation. 3) As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome. Pound defined an …Image? as …that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time?. His haiku-like two-line poem In a Station of the Metro is often quoted as the quintessence of Imagism.

Irony（反讽） The expression of a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.

Lake poets（湖畔派诗人） The three early 19th century romantic poets, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, who lived in the Lake District of Cumbria in northern England. This term was often applied in a derogatory way, suggesting the provincialism of their themes and interests.

Lyric（抒情诗） A poem, usually short, expressing in a personal manner the feelings and thoughts of an individual speaker. The typical lyric subject matter is love, for a lover or deity, and the mood of the speaker in relation to this love.

Metaphysical poets （玄学派诗人） Metaphysics is the philosophy of being and knowing, but this term was originally applied to a group of 17th century poets in a derogatory manner. The representatives are John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Richard Crashaw and John Cleveland, Andrew Marvell and Abraham Cowley. The features of metaphysical poetry are arresting and original images and conceits, wit, ingenuity, dexterous use of colloquial speech, considerable flexibility of rhythm and meter, complex themes, a liking for paradox and dialectical argument, a direct manner, a caustic humor, a keenly felt awareness of mortality, and a distinguished capacity for elliptical thought and tersely compact expression. But for all their intellectual robustness the metaphysical poets are also capable of refined delicacy, gracefulness and deep feeling, passion as well as wit. They had a profound influence on the course of English poetry in the 20th century.

Meter（格律）The regular pattern of accented and unaccented syllables. The line is divided into a number of feet. According to their stress pattern the feet are classed as iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic, spondaic or pyrrhic.

Metonymy（借代）A figure of speech: the substitution of the name of a thing by the name of an attribute of it, or something closely associated with it.

Monometer（单音步诗行）A metrical line containing one foot.

Monologue（独白） A single person speaking, with or without an audience, is uttering a monologue. The dramatic monologue is the name given to a specific kind of poem in which a single person, not the poet, is speaking.

Dramatic Monologue（戏剧独白）A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length. It is similar to the soliloquy in theater, in that both a dramatic monologue and a soliloquy often involve the revelation of the innermost thoughts and feelings of the speaker. Two famous examples are Browning?s “My Last Duchess”.

Interior Monologue: A type of stream of consciousness in which the author depicts the interior thoughts of a single individual in the same order these thoughts occur inside that character's head. The author does not attempt to provide (or provides minimally) any commentary, desc ription, or guiding discussion to help the reader untangle the complex web of thoughts, nor does the writer clean up the vague surge of thoughts into grammatically correct sentences or a logical order. Indeed, it is as if the authorial voice ceases to exis t, and the reader directly “overhears” the thought pouring forth randomly from a character?s mind. An example of an interior monologue can be found in James Joyce?s Ulysses. Here, Leopold Bloom wanders past a candy shop in Dublin, and his thoughts wander back and forth.

The Movement：A term coined by J. D. Scott, literary editor of The Spectator, in 1954 to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Donald Davie, D.J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, Thom Gunn, and Robert Conquest. The Movement was essentially English in character; poets in Scotland and Wales were not generally included. The Movement poets were considered anti-Romantic, but we find many Romantic elements in Larkin and Hughes. We may call The Movement the revival of the importance of form. To these poets, good poetry meant simple, sensous content, and traditional, conventional and dignified form. Neoclassicism（新古典主义） This word refers to the fact that some writers, particularly in the 18th century, modeled their own writing on classical, especially Roman literature. Neoclassicism is applied to a period of English literature lasting from 1660, the Restoration of Charles II, until about 1800. The following major writers flourished then, in poetry, John Dryden, Alexander Pope and Oliver Goldsmith; in prose, Jonathan Swift, Addition, Samuel Johnson. Neoclassical writers did not value creativity or originality highly. They valued the various genres, such as epic, tragedy, pastoral, comedy. The meter for most of Neoclassic writings was the heroic couplet.

Octameter（八音步诗行）A metrical line containing eight feet; only occasionally attempted in English verse.

Octave（八行体）An eight-line stanza or the first eight lines of a sonnet, especially one structured in the manner of an Italian sonnet.

Ode（颂歌）A form of lyric poem, characterized by its length, intricate stanza forms, grandeur of style and seriousness of purpose, with a venerable history in Classical and post-Renaissance poetry.

Onomatopoeia（拟声词）The use of words that resemble the sounds they denote, for example, …hiss?, …bang?, …pop? or …smack?.

Oxford Movement: A movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, the members of which were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology. They conceived of the Anglican Church as one of three branches of the Catholic Church.

Oxymoron（逆喻）A figure of speech in which contradictory terms are brought together in what is at first sight an impossible combination. It is a special variety of the paradox.

Paradox（悖论） An apparently self-contradictory statement, or one that seems in conflict with all logic and opinion; yet lying behind the superficial absurdity is a meaning or truth. It is common in metaphysical poetry.

Parody（嘲仿）An imitation of a specific work of literature or style devised so as to ridicule its characteristic features. Exaggeration, or the application of a serious tone to an absurd subject, are typical methods. Henry Fielding?s Shamela,Samuel Richardson?s Pamela,and Lewis Carroll?s version of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?s Hiawatha are examples.

Pastoral（田园诗）An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a simple, rural existence. It usually idealizes shepherds? lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. More generally, pastoral describes the simplicity, charm, and serenity attributed to country life, or any literary convention that places kindly, rural people in nature-centered activities. The pastoral is found in poetry, drama, and fiction. Many subjects, such as love, death, religion, and politics, have been presented in pastoral settings.

Pattern poetry（拟形诗）The name for verse which is written in a stanza form that creates a picture or pattern on the page. It is a precursor of concrete poetry. George Herbert?s “Easter Wings” is a typical example.

Pentameter（五音步诗行）A poetic line of five feet and the most common poetic line in English.

Personification（拟人） A figure of speech in which things or ideas are treated as if they were human beings, with human attributes and feeling.

Poem（诗）An individual composition, usually in some kind of verse or meter, but also perhaps in heightened language which has been given some sense of pattern or organization to do with the sound of its words, its imagery, syntax, or any available linguistic element.

Poet （诗人）Originally from the Greek poiein, a person who …makes?.

Poet laureate （桂冠诗人） A laurel crown is the traditional prize for poets, based on the myth in which Apollo turns Daphne into a laurel tree. Poet laureates have been officially named by the British monarch since John Dryden?s app ointment in 1668 by Charles II. They are supposed to stand as the figurehead of British poetry, but in the two centuries after John Dryden, with the exceptions of William Wordsworth and Alfred Tennyson, most were minor poets. Some indeed were poets of no significance whatever. The poets laureate in the 20th century have been less negligible. Ted Hughes is the present incumbent.

Poetic licence（诗的破格） The necessary liberty given to poets, allowing them to manipulate language according to their needs, distorting syntax, using odd archaic words and constructions, etc. It can also refer to the manner in which poets, sometimes through ignorance, or deliberately, make mistaken assumptions about the world they describe.

Prosody（韵律学）The technical study of versification, including meter, rhyme, sound effects and stanza patterns.

Psalm（赞美诗）A sacred song or hymn, especially one from the Book of Psalms in the Bible. Pun（双关语）A figure of speech in which a word is used ambiguously, thus, invoking two or more of its meanings, often for comic effect.

Pyrrhic（抑抑格）A metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables. As with the spondee, from a linguistic point of view it is doubtful if the pyrrhic is necessary in English scansion, as two successive syllables are unlikely to bear exactly similar levels of stress.

Quatrian（四行诗节）A stanza of four lines. A very common form in English, used with various meters and rhyme schemes..

Refrain（叠句）Words or lines repeated in the course of a poem, recurring at intervals, sometimes with slight variation, usually at the end of a stanza. Refrains are especially common in songs and ballads.

Rhyme（诗韵） The pattern of sound that established unity in verse forms. Rhyme at the end of lines is …end rhyme?; inside a line it is …internal rhyme?. End rhyme is clearly the most emphatic and usually relies on homophony between final syllables.

Rhyme scheme（韵式）The pattern of rhymes in a stanza or section of verse, usually expressed by an alphabetical code.

Rhythm（韵律） Rhythm refers to any steady pattern of repetition, particularly that of a regular recurrence of accented or unaccented syllables at equal intervals.

Romance（传奇故事） Primarily medieval fiction in verse or prose dealing with adventures of chivalry and love. Notable English romances include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Thomas Malory?s Le Morte d’Arthur.

Romanticism（浪漫主义）A word used in an appallingly large number of different ways in different contexts.(1) Romantic in popular sense means idealized and facile love. (2) The Romantic Period.A term used to refer to the period dating from 1789 to about 1830 in English literature. Novelists of the period include Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen; essayists such as Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt and Thomas De Quincey are notable for their contributions to the fast-developing literary magazines. There were two generations of Romantic poets: the first included William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southy; the second were George Gordon Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. (3) Romanticism. It was in contrast to neoclassical literature. Writers showed their concern for feeling and emotion rather than the human capacity to reason. William Wordsworth?s The Prelude is the foremost text of Romanticism. The romantic poets were interested in nature. They saw nature as a way of coming to understand the self and made use of their imagination to create harmony. They also showed their disapproval toward neoclassical rules of poetry.

Scansion（韵律分析）Scansion is the process of measuring the stresses in a line of verse in order to determine the metrical pattern of the line. It starts with identifying the standard of its prevailing meter and rhythm.

Sestet（六行诗）The last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet which should be separated by rhyme and argument from the preceding eight lines, called the octave.

Sestina（六节诗）A rare and elaborate verse form, consisting of six stanzas, each consisting of six lines of pentameter, plus a three-line envoi. The end words for each stanza are the same, but in

a different order from stanza to stanza. An example is Ezra Pound?s Sestina, Altaforte.

Song（歌）A short lyric poem intended to be set to music, though often such poems have no musical setting.

Sonnet（十四行诗）A lyric poem of fixed form: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhymed and organized according to several intricate schemes. Three patterns predominate: (1) The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is divided into an octave which rhymes abba abba, and a sestet usually rhymes cde cde, or cdc dcd. The sestet usually replies to the argument of the octave. (2) Spenserian sonnet is a nine-line stanza of iambics rhymed abab bcbc cdc dee. The first eight lines are pentameters; the final line is a hexameter; (3) Shakespearean sonnet has three quatrains and a final couplet which usually provides an epigrammatic statement of the theme. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.

Spenserian Stanza（斯宾塞诗节） A nine-line stanza rhyming in an ababbcbcc pattern in which the first eight lines are iambic pentameter and the last line is an iambic hexameter line. The name Spenserian comes from the form?s most famous user, Spenser, who used it in The Fairie Queene. Other examples include Keat?s “Eve of Saint Agnes” and Shelley?s “Adonais.” The Spenserian stanza is probably the longest and most intricate stanza generally employed in narrative poetry.

Spondee（扬扬格）A metrical foot consisting of two long syllables or two strong stresses, giving weight to a line.

Stanza（诗节）A unit of several lines of verse. Much verse is split up into regular stanzas of three, four, five or more lines each. Examples of stanza forms include ottava rime, quatrain, rhyme royal, Spenserian stanza, terza rime.

Stress（重读音节） In any word of more than one syllable, more emphasis or loudness will be given to one of the syllables in comparison with the others.

Syllable（音节） Sounds in language uttered with a single effort of articulation.

Symbol（象征） A symbol is something which represents something else by analogy or association. A symbol may be seen as a species of metaphor in which the exact subject of the metaphor is not made explic it, and may even be mysterious.

Symbolism（象征主义）The Symbolist Movement usually refers to French poets of the second half of the 19th century, whose poems exploited the mysterious suggestiveness of private symbols. They concentrated on achieving a musical quality in their poems and believed that through blurring the senses and mixing images they depicted a higher reality. Many modern American and British poets were deeply influenced by French symbolism, and many of the most famous works of the modernist movement, such as T. S. Eliot?s The Waste Land and James Joyce?s Ulysses, are symbolist in technique.

Synecdoche（提喻）A figure of speech in which a part is used to describe the whole of something, or vice versa.

Synaesthesia（通感）A technique common in symbolist verse whereby the writer tries to bring many senses into play, for example, describing sounds as colors, or colors as tastes.

T ercet（三行押韵诗节）A three-line stanza. When all three lines rhyme the tercet is a triplet.

Terza rime（三行诗节隔句压韵法）A rhyme scheme as used by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy.A tercet is interlocked in the following way, aba, bcb, cdc, and so on. A typical example is Percy Bysshe Shelley?s “Ode to the West Wind”.

Tetrameter （四音步诗行） A metrical line containing four feet. Iambic and trochaic tetrameter are common in English verse.

Tone（强调）The writer?s or speaker?s attitude toward his subj ect, his audience, or himself. Trimeter（三音步诗行）A metrical line containing three feet.

Trochee, trochaic（扬抑格）A foot consisting of a strongly stressed syllable followed by a weakly stressed syllable.

University wits（大学才子）The name given to a group of Elizabethan poets and playwrights who had all been educated at Oxford or Cambridge. Their leader was John Lyly, originator of euphuism. Other members include George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge and Thomas Nash. Christopher Marlowe is sometimes considered the leading representative.

Zeugma（轭式搭配） A figure of speech in which words or phrases with widely different meanings are …yoked together? with comic effect by being made syntactically dependent on the same word, often a verb.

Critical Realism (批判现实主义) Critical realism is one of the literary genres that flourished mainly in the 19th century. It reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash upon human nature. Here lies the essentially democratic and humanistic character of critical realism. The English critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people. In their best works, they used humor and satire to contrast the greed and hypocrisy of the upper classes with the honesty and good-heartedness of the obscure “simple people” of the lower classes. Humorous scenes set off the actions of the positive characters, and the humor is often tinged with a lyricism which serves to stress the fine qualities of such characters. At the same time,bitter satire and grotesque is used to expose the seamy side of the bourgeois society. The critical realists, however, did not find a way to eradicate the social evils they knew so well. They did not realize the necessity of changing the bourgeois society through conscious human effort. Their works do not point toward revolution but rather evolution or reformism. They often start with a powerful exposure of the ugliness of the bourgeois world in their works, but their novels usually have happy endings or an impotent compromise at the end. Here are the strength and weakness of critical realism.

Modernism（现代主义）: Around the two world wars, many writers and artists began to suspect and be discontent with the capitalism. They tried to find new ways to express their understanding of the world. It was a movement of experiments in techniques in writing. It flourished in the 20s and 30s in English literature.They turned their interest to describing what was happening in the minds of their characters. Because of their emphasis on the psychological activities of the characters, their writings are also called psychological novels. The Representatives are W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot,D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

[5] Renaissance（文艺复兴）: Renaissance marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy in the 14th century and gradually spread all over Europe. The word “Renaissance” means rebirth or revival. In essence, it is a historical period in wh ich the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe and introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to lift the restriction in all areas placed by the Roman Catholic Church authorities. Two features of renaissance: It is a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature. People learned to admire the Greek and Latin works as models of literary form. It is the keen interest in the activities of humanity.

[9] Enlightenment （启蒙运动）: The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th century. It was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation,

prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They thought the chief means for bettering the society was "enlightenment" or "education" for the people. The English enlighteners were bourgeois democratic thinkers. They set no revolutionary aim before them and what they strove for was to bring it to an end by clearing away the feudal ideas with the bourgeois ideology.

[10] Classicism（古典主义）: A movement or tendency in art, music, and literature to retain the characteristics found in work originating in classical Greece and Rome. It differs from Romanticism in that while Romanticism dwells on the emotional impact of a work, classicism concerns itself with form and discipline.

[11] Sentimentalism（伤感主义；温情主义）: Sentimentalism appeared in the middle of the 18th century, as a reaction against commercialism and the cold rationalism. Sentimentalists emphasize “the human heart” and show sympathy to the poor. This trend marks the transition form neoclassicism to romanticism in English poetry. Thomas Gray is one of the models. Another sentimentalist poet is Oliver Goldsmith (The Disserted Village). The most outstanding figure of English sentimentalism is Laurence Sterne.

[15] Gothic novel（哥特式小说）: The term "Gothic" derived from the frequent setting of the tales in the ruined, moss-covered castles of the Middle Ages. Gothic novel exploits the possibilities of mystery and terror. These novels, in rebellion against the increasing commercialism and rationalism, opened up to later fiction the dark, irrational side of human nature - the savage egoism, the perverse impulses, and the nightmarish terror that lie beneath the controlled and ordered surface of the conscious mind. The gothic novel exhibits the gothic qualities of doom and gloom as well as an emphasis on chivalry and magic. Gothic heroes and heroines tend to the equally mysterious, with dark histories and secrets of their own. Exaggeration and emotional language are frequently employed by gothic writers, who typically emphasize story line and setting over character and characterization. They seek to evoke an atmosphere of terror, often from an unidentifiable source.

[16] Stream-of-consciousness（意识流）: Stream of consciousness, which presents the thoughts of a character in the random, seemingly unorganized fashion in which the thinking process occurs, has the following characteristics. First, it reveals the action or plot through the mental processes of the characters rather than through the commentary of an omniscient author. Second, character development is achieved through revelation of extremely personal and often typical thought processes rather than through the creation of typical characters in typical circumstances. Third, the action of the plot seldom corresponds to real, chronological time, but moves back and forth through present time to memories of past events and drams of the future. Fourth, it replaces narration, description, and commentary with dramatic interior monologue and free association.

[22] Realism:（写实主义） A term used in literature and art to present life as it really is without sentimentalizing or idealizing it. Realistic writing often depicts the everyday life and speech of ordinary people. This has led, sometimes to an emphasis on sordid details.

[23] Allegory:（寓言） A story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on symbolic meanings. In Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy," Dante, symbolizing mankind, is taken by Virgil the poet on a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in order to teach him the nature of sin and its punishments, and the way to salvation.

[24] Characterization(人物刻画）: The method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character in a literary work: Methods may include (1) by what the character says about himself or herself; (2) by what others reveal about the character; and (3) by the character's own actions. [25] Comedy（喜剧）: A literary work which is amusing and ends happily. Modern comedies tend to be funny, while Shakespearean comedies simply end well. Shakespearean comedy also contains items such as misunderstandings and mistaken identity to heighten the comic effect. Comedies may contain lovers, those who interfere with lovers, and entertaining scoundrels. In modern Situation Comedies, characters are thrown into absurd situations and are forced to deal with those situations, all the while reciting clever lines for the amusement of a live or television or movie audience.

[27] Euphemism（委婉语）: A mild word of phrase which substitutes for another which would be undesirable because it is too direct, unpleasant, or offensive. The word "joint" is a euphemism for the word prison. "W. C." is a euphemism for bathroom.

[28] Fable（寓言）: A brief tale designed to illustrate a moral lesson. Often the characters are animals as in the fables of Aesop.

[31] Naturalism（自然论，自然主义）: it first appeared in France, there naturalists including Zola turned especially to “slum life”, in England flourished in the 2nd half of 19th century; naturalists argued that literature reflect life, be “true to life”, writer must reproduce in his writings life exactly as it is, (including all details without any selection), theory of “a slice of life”; However, a fallacy, for impossible to include all the details in real life; only give the appearance of life but not its essence. In England, two outstanding writers in the last decades: George Gissing, George Moore.

[33] Symbolism（象征）: Symbolism works under the surface to tie the story's external action to the theme. It was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), the well-known symbolic poet (who studied Blake?s symbolism). T.S. Eliot (1887-1965), poet, playwright, critic, an American, later a British citizen, important as the representative of modern symbolist—metaphysical school. The Waste Land, his representative.

[35] Modernism（现代主义）: Around the two world wars, many writers and artists began to suspect and be discontent with the capitalism. They tried to find new ways to express their understanding of the world. It was a movement of experiments in techniques in writing. It flourished in the 20s and 30s in English literature.They turned their interest to describing what was happening in the minds of their characters. Because of their emphasis on the psychological activities of the characters, their writings are also called psychological novels. The Representatives are W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot,D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

[36] Metaphysical Poetry（玄学派诗歌）: The poetry of John Donne and other seventeenth-century poets who wrote in a similar style. Metaphysical poetry is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborates imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas.

[38] Mystery play（神秘剧）: The Mystery plays of the Middle Ages were based on the bible and were particularly concerned wit h the stories of man?s creation, Fall and Redemption. They antedate Miracle Plays.Mystery Plays developed out of the Liturgy of the church and in particular out of the Quem Quaeritis trope of Easter Day. The earlier dramatizations were presented on the greater festivals of the church: Christmas, Easter,, Pentecost and Corpus Christi. At first they were in Latin and performed by the clergy in the church. There then came an increasing admixture of the vernacular, and lay folk also performed in them. This gradual secularization of the religions drama was accompanied by a corresponding physical move. The drama moved out of the church through the west door. Thus, what had been sacred drama became, literally, profane. From the church yard to the market place was the next logical step.

[41] Miracle Play（神迹剧，传奇剧）: A popular religious drama of medieval England. Miracle plays were based on stories of the saints or on sacred history.

[42] Morality Play（道德剧，寓意剧）: A form of religious allegorical drama dates from 15th century. Moralities differed from mystery plays in that whereas the latter dramatized known episodes from the Bible or from the lives of the saints, the former dramatized the life of man by personifying the forces of good and evil, such as the seven deadly sins and the corresponding virtues or some representative crisis in his life such as his encounter with the fact of death. [44] Ode（赋，颂歌）: It is a long, stately lyric poem in stanzas of varied metrical pattern, 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 commemorate an event. Two famous odes are Percy Bysshe Shelley?s “Ode to the West wind” and John Keats?s Ode on a Grecian Urn.” [45] Comedy of manners（风尚喜剧）: Its concern is to bring the moral and social behavior of its characters to the test of comic laughter. The male hero lives not for military glory but for pleasure and the conquests that he can achieve in his amorous campaigns. The object of his very practical game of sexual intrigue is a beautiful, witty, pleasure loving, and emancipated lady, every bit his equal in the strategies of love. The two are distinguished not for virtue but for the true wit and well-bred grace with which they conduct the often complicated intrigue that makes up the plot.

[47] Assonance（元韵，腹韵，半谐音）: Repetition of middle vowel sounds: fight, hive; pane, make. Assonance, most effective on stressed syllables, is often found within a line of poetry; less frequently it substitutes for end rhyme.

[48] Consonance（尾韵）: Repetition of inner or end consonant sounds, as, for example, the r and s sounds from Gerard Manley Hopkins's God's Grandeur: "broods with warm breast." (2) In a broader sense, a generally pleasing combination of sounds or ideas; things that sound well together.

[50] Genre（流派，类型，风格）: A term often applied loosely to the larger forms of literary convention, roughly analogous to "species" in biology. The Greeks spoke of three main genres of poetry-lyric, epic, and drama. Within each major genre, there are sub-genres. In written forms dominated by prose, for example, there is a broad distinction between works of fiction (e.g., the novel) and thematic works (e.g., the essay). Within the fictional category, we note a distinc tion between novel and romance, and other forms such as satire and confession. The object of making these distinctions in literary tradition is not simply to classify but to judge authors in terms of the conventions they themselves chose.

[53] Tragedy（悲剧）: Fundamentally, a serious fiction involves the downfall of a hero or heroine. It is a literary form, a basic mode of drama. Tragedy often involves the theme of isolation, in which a hero, a character of greater than ordinary human importance, becomes isolated from the community. Then there is the theme of the violation and reestablishment of order, in which the neutralizing of the violent act may take the form of revenge. Finally, a character may embody a passion too great for the cosmic order to tolerate, such as the passion of sexual love. Renaissance tragedy seems to be essentially a mixture of the heroic and the ironic. It tends to center on heroes who, though they cannot be of divine parentage in Christianized Western Europe, are still of titanic importance, with an articulateness and social authority beyond anything in our normal experience.

[54] The Angry Young men: In the mid-1950s and early 1960s, there appeared a group of young playwrights and novelists with lower-middle class or working-class background; who were greatly discontented with the corruption of the upper-class society. These writers, known as "the Angry Young Men", demonstrated a particular disillusion over the depressing situation in Britain and launched a bitter protest against the outmoded social and political values in their society. [56] Parody（戏仿）: Originally, "a song sung beside" another. From this idea of juxtaposition arose the two basic elements of parody, comedy and criticism. As comedy, parody exaggerates or distorts the prominent features of style or content in a work. As criticism, it mimics the work, borrowing words or phrases or characteristic turns of thought in order to highlight weaknesses of conception or expression.

[58] Byronic hero（个人英雄主义）: is an idealized but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron. It first appears in Byron's semi-autobiographical epic narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18). The Byronic hero typically exhibits the following characteristics: high level of intelligence and perception; cunning and able to adapt; criminal tendencies; sophisticated and educated; self-critical and introspective; mysterious, magnetic and charismatic; struggling with integrity; power of seduction and sexual attraction; social and sexual dominance; emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness; a distaste for social institutions and norms; being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw; "dark" attributes not normally associated with a hero; disrespect of rank and privilege; a troubled past; cynicism; arrogance; self-destructive behavior; a good heart in the end.

A soliloquy（独白）: A speech in which a character, alone on the stage, addresses himself or herself; a soliloquy is a “ thinking out aloud,” a dramatic means of letting an au dience know a character?s thoughts and feelings.

Utilitarianism（功利主义；实用主义）: It is a theory formulated in England in the 18th century by Jeremy Bentham who believed that the test of ethical concerns was their usefulness to society. He defined utility as “ the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. The theory was advanced and modified in the 19th century by his disciples. It was widely accepted and practiced. Almost everything was put to test by the criterion of utility, that is, by the extent to which it could promote the material benefit. It held a special appeal to the middle-class industrialists who used it as an excuse for their exploitation of the vast working class men, women and children.

Determinism（宿命论）: It refers to the belief or theory that human actions and events are controlled by and result from causes that determine them. According to Karl Marx, a man?s economic environment determines his actions and life; according to Charles Darwin, it is the scientific laws governing evolution; according to Sigmund Freud it is the human unconsciousness; and according to some religious and theologians it is the will of a god or gods. Fictional characters that illustrate determinism usually act with their free will not in accordance with forces beyond their control.

George Eliot?s determinism is made up of two factors: the inside and the outside. She believes that one?s destiny is determined by the combined forces of his own character and the social circumstances. If one fails in life, he himself is as much to blame as the society. Besides, vulnerability in human character and limitation of the social environment is inevitable; failures, disappointments or tragedies must be the natural result.

英国文学选读

1.William Shakespeare was born in _Stratford-on-Avon,Warwickshire__, central England.

2.The four great tragedies by William Shakespeare are _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, Mac beth.

3.John Milton was a _radical puritan in politics and religion.

4.John Milton?s three great poems are _Paradise Lost__, _Paradise Regained_, _Samson Agoni stes.

5.Daniel Defoe?s first novel was _Robinson Crusoe_, which made him the first important English novelist.

6.The name “Yahoo” originates from the novel _Gulliver's Travels_, by Jonathan Swift__.

7.Fielding is chiefly noted for his four great novels, __Joseph Andrews_, _Jonatan Wild the Gr eat_, _Tom Jones,a Foundling_, and _Amelia_.

8.Robert Burns wrote his poems in _Scottish_ dialect. His themes included _love and friendship , _the natural beauty of his native Scotland__, __the life and labor of the common people__, __the patriotism of his compatriots and their struggle for liberty, _satire on the corruption a nd hypocrisy of the clergy and high society_.

9.William Blake was a precursor of Romanticism in English poetry. His most famous works are _ Songs of Innocence__ and __Songs of Experience_.

10.Jane Austen?s novels, in order of publication, are _Sense and Sensibility__, _Pride and Preju dice_, _Mansfield Park__, _Emma_, __Northanger Abbey_, _Persuasion_.

11.Jane Austen?s subject matter was restricted to a narrow range of society and events, _a quiet, p rosperous,middle-class circle_ in _provincial_ surroundings.

12.George Gordon Byron?s masterpiece is _Don Juan , published in _1824_.

13.P. B. Shelly?s Ode to the West Wind is in the form of _terza rima_, whose rhyme scheme is _ aba,bcb,cbc,ded_.

14.John Yeats?s many odes are looked upon as the greatest achievement in the history of English l iterature; among them are _Ode to a Nightingale_, _Ode to Autumn_, _Ode on a Grecian Urn_ .

15.Charles Dickens is regarded as a _oritical_ __realistic__ novelist. His autobiographical novel i s _David Copperfield.

16.Western drama originated in the Greek city _Atlens_, there were three kinds of plays, _traged y_, _comedy_ and __satyr play_.

17.The great comedian in Elizabethan Age is _Ben Johnson_, whose master piece is _Volpone th

e Fox.

18.The greatest dramatist in 20th century is _George Bernard , whose Pygmalion has been put on stage for times.

19.Waiting for Godot is a representative play of the new post-

modernist school called _Theater of Absurb.

20.D. H. Lawrence had travelled to many places, among them are _Italy_, _Australia_, _New Ze aland_, _the South Seas_, _California_, _New Mexico_,Mexico ect.

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/9c6524249.html,wrence wrote chiefly about _the relationship between parents and children_, _the passio n between men and women_, _the ugliness_, _mammonism_, _sham morality_ of the modern

industrialized society.

22.James Joyce?s _Ulysses and _Finnegans Wake revolutionized the form and structure of the n

ovel in the development of the stream-of-consciousness technique.

23.Virginia Woolf concentrated on revealing her character?s inner essence, and his or her though

ts and feelings and _thoughts and feelings_ at the time the story takes place.

24. Daniel Defoe: An Essay Upon Projects Robinson Crusoe

25. William Wordsworth: romanticism

y William Shakespeare are _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, Macbeth.

3.John Milton was a _radical purritan in politics and religion.

4.John Milton?s three great poems are _Paradise Lost__, _Paradise Regained_, _Samson Agonistes.

5.Daniel Defoe?s first novel was _Robinson Crusoe_, which made him the first important English nov elist.

6.The name “Yahoo” originates from the novel _Gulliver's Travels_, by Jonathan Swift__.

7.Fielding is chiefly noted for his four great novels, __Joseph Andrews_, _Jonatan Wild the Great_, _Tom Jones,a Foundling_, and _Amelia_.

8.Robert Burns wrote his poems in _Scottish_ dialect. His themes included _love and friendship , _th

e natural beauty o

f his native Scotland__, __the life and labor of the common people__, __the pat riotism of his compatriots and their struggle for liberty, _satire on the corruption and hypocrisy of the clergy and high society_.

9.William Blake was a precursor of Romanticism in English poetry. His most famous works are _Song s of Innocence__ and __Songs of Experience_.

10.Jane Austen?s novels, in order of publication, are _Sense and Sensibility__, _Pride and Prejudice _, _Mansfield Park__, _Emma_, __Northanger Abbey_, _Persuasion_.

11.Jane Austen?s subject matter was restricted to a narrow range of society and events, _a quiet, prosp erous,middle-class circle_ in _provincial_ surroundings.

12.George Gordon Byron?s masterpiece is _Don Juan , published in _1824_.

13.P. B. Shelly?s Ode to the West Wind is in the form of _terza rima_, whose rhyme scheme is _aba,b cb,cbc,ded_.

14.John Yeats?s many odes are looked upon as the greatest achievement in the history of English literat ure; among them are _Ode to a Nightingale_, _Ode to Autumn_, _Ode on a Grecian Urn_.

15.Charles Dickens is regarded as a _oritical_ __realistic__ novelist. His autobiographical novel is _D avid Copperfield.

16.Western drama originated in the Greek city _Atlens_, there were three kinds of plays, _tragedy_, _ comedy_ and __satyr play_.

17.The great comedian in Elizabethan Age is _Ben Johnson_, whose master piece is _Volpone the Fo x.

18.The greatest dramatist in 20th century is _George Bernard , whose Pygmalion has been put on stag

e for times.

19.Waiting for Godot is a representative play of the new post-

modernist school called _Theater of Absurb.

20.D. H. Lawrence had travelled to many places, among them are _Italy_, _Australia_, _New Zealan d_, _the South Seas_, _California_, _New Mexico_,Mexico ect.

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/9c6524249.html,wrence wrote chiefly about _the relationship between parents and children_, _the passion bet ween men and women_, _the ugliness_, _mammonism_, _sham morality_ of the modern industriali zed society.

22.James Joyce?s _Ulysses and _Finnegans Wake revolutionized the form and structure of the novel in the development of the stream-of-consciousness technique.

23.Virginia Woolf concentrated on revealing her character?s inner essence, and his or her thoughts an

d feelings and _thoughts and feelings_ at th

e time the story takes place.

24. Daniel Defoe: An Essay Upon Projects Robinson Crusoe

25. William Wordsworth: romanticism

.