英国文学最全名词解释

名词解释

1、Alliteration(头韵) It refers to a repeated initial consonant to successive words and it is the most striking feature in its poetic form. In alliterative verse, certain accented words in a line begin with the same consonant sound. It usually have a caesura in the middle and two stresses (or accents) in each half. The number of unstressed syllables in the two halves may vary. Yet, the same consonant is repeated at the beginning of the accented syllables, either twice in the first half of the verse line and once in the second half, or vice versa. Or we can say there are generally 4 accents in a line, three of which show alliteration, and it is the initial sound of the third accented syllable that normally determiners the alliteration. Alliteration makes Anglo-Saxon poetry very musical in sound and acts almost the same part that rhyme plays in later poetry. English poets till today still love to use alliteration

e.g. “True is the tale (caesura) I tell of my travels,/ Sing of my seafaring (caesura) sor rows and woes.

2、Blank verse无韵诗，素体诗（不押韵的五音步诗行）: also called unrhymed poetry, has been the dominant verse form of English drama and narrative poetry since the mid-sixteenth century. In 1540, from Italy, this verse form was brought into English literature by the poet Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey), who first used it in his translation of The Aeneid.

Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. It is a very flexible English verse form which can attain rhetorical grandeur while echoing the natural rhythms of speech. It was first used by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and soon became a popular form for narrative and dramatic poetry.

E.g. Paradise Lost by Milton

3、Comedy of humours: The comedy of humours is a genre of dramatic comedy that focuses on a character or range of characters, each of whom exhibits two or more overriding traits or 'humours' that dominates their personality, desires and conduct. the English playwrights Ben Jonson and George Chapman popularized the genre in the closing years of the sixteenth century. In the later half of the seventeenth century, it was combined with the comedy of manners in Restoration comedy.In which the prevailing eccentricities and ruling passions of character are exposed to ridicule and satire

E.g. Every Man in His Humour

Every Man out of His Humour

4、Dramatic monologue：a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent ‘audience’of one or more persons. Such poems reveal not the poet‘s own thoughts; this distinguishes a dramatic monologue from a lyric，while the implied presence of an auditor distinguishes it from a soliloquy.

E.g. My Last Duchess by Browning

5、Epic (史诗)appeared in the the Anglo-Saxon Period It is a narrative of heroic action, often with a principal hero, usually mythical in its content, grand in its style, offering inspiration and ennoblement within a particular culture or national tradition. A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, like Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey. It usually celebrates the feats of one or more legendary or traditional heroes. The action is simple,

but full of magnificence. Today, some long narrative works, like novels that reveal an age & its people, are also called epic.

E.g. Beowulf ( the pagan异教徒secular(非宗教的) poetry)

Iliad 《伊利亚特》Odyssey《奥德赛》Paradise Lost 《失乐园》The Divine Comedy《神曲》6、Gothic Novels tales of macabre, fantastic and supernatural happenings, set in haunted castles, graveyards, ruins and wild landscapes and often with a weak or innocent heroine going through some horrible experiences. Derives its name from similarities to Medieval(中古的,中世纪) Gothic architecture.A thriller designed not only toterrify or frighten the audience, but to convey a sense of moral failure or spiritual darkness. The Gothic in England begins with The Castle of Otranto in 1760, by Horace Walpole, which emphasized the supernatural mixed with the grotesque in a medieval setting.

E.g. Anne Radcliffe in Mysteries of Udolpho

Frankenstein(1817) by Mary Shelley

7、Heroic Couplet(英雄双韵体)Heroic couplet refers to the rhymed couplet in iambic pentameter Heroic couplets are lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme in pairs (aa, bb, cc). The Heroic Couplet: 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.

E.g. Cooper's Hillby by John Denham(德纳姆)

8、Iambic pentameter: a verse lines of feet of the iambic rhythm

Iambic(adjective of iambus): a metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. (cf. Trochaic/trochee: a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one)

Pentameter: a verse line of 5 feet.

E.g. sonnet 18 by Shakespeare

9、Ode：a poem intended or adapted to be sung in the ancient time, but a rhymed lyric poem often of an address in the modern times, with dignified and exalted or simple and familiar subjects. a long lyric poem, serious and dignified in subject, tone and style, sometimes with an elaborate stanzaic structure, often written to commemorate or celebrate an event or individual. Representative poets: Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats

Representative：Ode to Psyche, Ode to a Nightingale

10、Romance: a medieval tale based on legend, chivalric love and adventures, or a prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved heroic, adventurous, or mysterious events remote in time and place. It became a popular form of literature. The plots of romance tend to be complex, with uprising and even magical actions common.

e.g. The Tempest by Shakespeare

11、Sonnet：a poem consisting of 14 lines of 10 syllables each in English (11 syllables in Italian and

12 syllables in French)

The English sonnet: a sonnet of 14 iambic pentameter lines divided into an octave and sestet rhyming abba abba cde cde (or other rhymes in the sestet)

The Shakespearian sonnet: a sonnet of 14 iambic pentameter lines divided into a 12-line unit followed by a 2-line conclusion rhyming abab cdcd efef gg

E.g. sonnet 18 by Shakespeare

12、Three unities （三一律）: referring to the rules set by Aristotle for tragedy which are observed

in Greek tragedies and Neoclassic drama, that is a tragedy must have one single action which takes place within one day and in one place. It required that the events of a play not exceed

a single day (time), be confined to a single location or to several locations within a small area (pla ce), and not have subplots (action). It is term given by Aristotle and strictly adhered in 17th Franc e and then over Europe.

e.g. Cid by Pierre Corneille

13、Topographical poetry: a local poetry focusing on the presentation of landscapes and praising particular parks, estates and gardens. The emergence of this kind of poetry of which can be traced to the 1730s and was defined by Dr Johnson as “local poe try, of which the fundamental object is some particular landscape.

e.g. The Seasons by James Thomson

14、Graveyard Poets: This group of poets mainly comprises Thomas Parnell, Edward Young, Robert Blair and Thomas Gray. They wrote melancholy poems, often with the poet meditating on human mortality problems at night or in a graveyard. Gray is the most representative and successful among them and his poem Elegy written in a Country Church-yard is partly responsible for this group to be named graveyard poets.

15、Metaphysical Poetry: Metaphysical poetry is defined as poetry dating from the 17th century in Britain that has an abstract and ethereal style. Such poetry used a variety of form and structures, but employed similar styles. The term was first coined by John Dryden in 1693 when he described a poem by John Donne as affecting “the metaphysical.” It was later popularized by Samuel Johnson in 1781.

e.g. The flea by John Donne

16、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.

Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does nor have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to teh eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of mimetic, or represent are.

The etylmological meaning of the word is broader than the common use of the word. Though it is similar to other rhetorical comparisons. An allegory is sustained lnger and more fully in its details than a metaphor, and appeals to imagination, while an analogy appeals to reason or logical. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one definite moral.

E.g. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

英国文学名词解释

Allegory is a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. Thus, an allegory is a story with two meaning, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Bildungsroman: a novel that traces the initiation, development, and education of a young person. Examples are Dickens’s David Copperfield and James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Byronic hero is a character-type found in Byron’s narrative Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He is a boldly defiant but bitterly self-tormenting outcast, proudly contemptuous of social norms but suffering for some unnamed sin. Emily Bronte’s Heath cliff is a later example. Conceit: a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things. A conceit usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit, used by certain 17th-century poets, such as John Donne.. Comedy of manners is a kind of comedy representing the complex and sophisticated code of behavior current in fashionable circles of society, where appearances count for more than true moral character. Its humor relies chiefly on elegant verbal wit and repartee. In England, the comedy of manners flourished as the dominant form of Restoration comedy in the works of Etheredge, Wycherley and Congreve. It was revived in a more subdued form in the 1770s by Goldsmith and Sheridan, and later by Oscar Wilde. An epic is a long narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating and celebrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the past history of a nation. Epiphany(顿悟）: a sudden revelation of truth about life inspired by a seemingly trivial incident Heroic couplet is the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter. Intrusive narrator: an omniscient narrator who, in addition to reporting the events of a novel’s story, offers further comments on characters and events, and who sometimes reflects more generally upon the significance of the story. Iambic pentameter: a poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry. Metaphysical poetry: the poetry of John Donne and other 17th-century poets who wrote in a similar style. It is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas . Metaphysical Poetry Metaphysical Poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets try to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. They are characterized by mysticism in content and fantasticality in form. John Donne is the lead ing figure of the “metaphysical school.” Naturalism: a post--Darwinian movement of the late 19th century that tried to apply the laws of scientific determinism to fiction. The naturalists went beyond the realists’ insistence on the objective presentation of the details of everyday life to insist that the materials of literature

(完整word版)吴伟仁--英国文学史及选读--名词解释

①Beowulf: The national heroic epic of the English people. It has over 3,000 lines. It describes the battles between the two monsters and Beowulf, who won the battle finally and dead for the fatal wound. The poem ends with the funeral of the hero. The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use if alliteration. Other features of it are the use of metaphors(暗喻) and of understatements(含蓄). ②Alliteration: In alliterative verse, certain accented(重音) words in a line begin with the same consonant sound(辅音). There are generally 4accents in a line, 3 of which show alliteration, as can be seen from the above quotation. ③Romance: The most prevailing(流行的) kind of literature in feudal England was the Romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse(诗篇), sometimes in prose(散文), describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, usually a knight, as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournament(竞赛), or fighting for his lord in battle and the swearing of oaths. ④Epic: An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significantly to a culture or nation. The first epics are known as primacy, or original epics. ⑤Ballad: The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad which is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas(诗节), with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the struggle of young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of jealousy, the criticism of the civil war, and the matters and class struggle. The paramount(卓越的) important ballad is Robin Hood(《绿林好汉》). ⑥Geoffrey Chaucer杰弗里.乔叟: He was an English author, poet, philosopher and diplomat. He is the founder of English poetry. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. His best remembered narrative is the Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), which the Prologue(序言) supplies a miniature(缩影) of the English society of Chaucer’s time. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism”. Chaucer affirms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes(反对) the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached(鼓吹) by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. Chaucer’s contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the “heroic couplet”) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. ⑦【William Langland威廉.朗兰: Piers the Plowman《农夫皮尔斯》】

英国文学名词解释及课后答案

名词解释 Renaissance:The Renaissance indicates a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world. Sonnet: A fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter and most often in one of the two rhyme schemes: the Italian(or Petrarchan) or Shakes pearean ( or English ). A sonnet is a 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and meter .It has two main forms :the shakespearean sonnet and the Italian sonnet. Shakespeare Sonnet: a lyric with three quatrains and one couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg, consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter restricted to a definition rhyme scheme. A Shakespearean sonnet consists of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet. Enlightenment: the movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centries, a progressive intellectual movement, reason (rationality), equality & science (the 18th century) The Age of Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason) refers to the 18th_ century England.The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement.It celebrated reason (rationality), equality, science and human beings’ ability to perfect themselves and their society and it aimed to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern ,philosophical and artistic ideas. Romanticism: it flourished in literature, philosophy, music, and art in Western culture during most if the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. In it, emotion over reason, spontaneous emotion, a change from the outer world of social civilization to the inner world of the human spirit, poetry should be free from all rules, imagination, nature, commonplace. Dramatic monologue: A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in poem. The occasion is a crucial one in the speaker’s life, and the dramatic monologue reveals the speaker’s personality as

英国文学名词解释

课件上找的 1)classicism 2)realism 3)sentimentalism 1.Epic: 史诗 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 form and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. 2.Alliteration: 头韵 A rhetorical device, meaning some words in a sentence begin with the same consonant sound（头韵）. 3.Kenning:比喻的复合辞(=metaphor) A figurative, usually compound expression used in place of a name or noun, especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry; for example, storm of swords is a kenning for battle. 4.Understatement: expressing something in a controlled way. 5.Romance:传奇 A long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero. 6.Renaissance文艺复兴（欧洲14至16世纪） Renaissance in European history, refers to the period between 14th century to 17th century. “Renaissance” means “revival”, the revival of interest in and getting rid of conservatism in feudalist Europe and introducing new ideas that express the interests of the rising bourgeoisie. The Renaissance, which means “rebirth” or “revival”, is actually an intellectual

英国文学选读上名词解释(中英文版)

Byronic hero A proud, mysterious, rebellious, gloomy figure of noble origin, with fiery passions and unbending will, expresses Byron’s own ideal of freedom. He rises against tyranny and injustice, but he’s merely a lone fighter striving for personal freedom. Sonnet A sonnet is a 14-line lyric poem with a single theme. Sonnets vary but are usually written in iambic pentameter, following one of two traditional patterns: the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet and the Shakespearean or English sonnet. A sonnet generally expresses a single theme or idea. Sonnet是一种欧洲传统的非常有影响力的诗歌形式。从形式上来说它有14行诗构成，通常是五步抑扬格，有着严格的特定的押韵方式。莎士比亚的十四行诗非常出名。 Lake Poets The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known, although their works were uniformly disparaged by the Edinburgh Review. They are considered part of the Romantic Movement 早期浪漫主义诗人Wordsworth，Coleridge和Southey，也被称为湖畔派诗人。他们都住在英国西北部的湖区，并且在文学和社会见解上有着一致性。湖畔派诗人主要回忆快乐的旧英格兰时代，把自然看作是精神上的避难所，因为他们惧怕即将到来的工业化和城市化。 Metaphysical poetry（玄学派诗歌） Metaphysical poetry is commonly used to name the work of the17t

英国文学史-名词解释

名词解释 1．Romance: a long composition, in verse or in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, especially for the knight. The most popular theme employed was the legend of King Arthur and the round table knight. 2．Ballad: a story told in song, usually in four-line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines rhymed. 3．Heroic Couplet: a couplet consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter, and written in an elevated style. 4．Renaissance: a revival or rebirth of the artistic and scientific revival which originated in Italy in the 14th century and gradually spread all over Europe. It has two features: a thirsting curiosity for the classical literature and keen interest in activities of humanity. 5．Sonnet: 14-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter. 6．Blank verse: poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 7．Enlightenment: a revival of interest in the old classical works, logic, order, restrained emotion and accuracy. 8．Neoclassicism: the Enlightenment brought about a revival of interest in Greek and Roman works. This tendency is known as Neoclassicism. 9．Sentimentalism:it was one of the important trends in English literature of the later decades of the 18th century. It concentrated on the free expression of thoughts and emotions, and presented a new view of human nature which prized feeling over thinking, passion over reason. 10．Romanticism: imagination, emotion and freedom are certainly the focal points of romanticism. The particular characteristics of the literature of romanticism include: subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism; freedom from rules; solitary life rather then life in society; the beliefs that imagination is superior to reason; and love of and worship of nature. 11．Lake Poets: the English poets who lived in and drew inspiration from the Lake District at the beginning of the 19th century. 12．Byronic Heroes: a variant of the Romantic heroes as a type of character( enthusiasm, persistence, pursuing freedom), named after the English Romantic Poet Gordon Byron. 13．Realism: seeks to portray familiar characters, situations, and settings in a realistic manner. This is done primarily by using an objective narrative point of view and through the buildup of accurate detail. 14．Aestheticism: an art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, music and other arts. 15．Stream-of-Consciousness: it is a literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur without any clarification by the author. It is a narrative mode. 16．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. 17．Iambic Pentameter: a poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, that is, with each foot an iamb. 18．Epic: a long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. 19．Elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual; may also be a lament over the passing of life and beauty or a meditation of the nature of death; a type of lyric poem. 20．Canto: a section of a long poem. The cantos can be a great poem

英国文学史及选读--复习要点总结

《英国文学史及选读》第一册复习要点 1. : ; ; , （此处可能会有填空，选择等小题） 2. （名词解释） 3. “ ”: a ’s 4. （名词解释） 5. 6. : ; ( ; 124 , 24 ; ; ; : ) 7. (名词解释)8. （名词解释）9 —— 10. （名词解释）11. （名词解释）12. “ ” 13. “” . “ ”（推荐阅读，学习写正式语体的英文文章的好参照，本文用词正式优雅，多排比句和长句，语言造诣非常高，里面很多话都可以引用做格言警句，非常值得一读） 14. 四大悲剧比较重要，此外就是罗密欧与朱立叶了，这些剧的主题，背景，情节，人物形象都要熟悉，当然他最重要的是这是肯定的。他的也很重要，最重要属18。（其戏剧中著名对白和几首有名的十四行诗可能会出选读） 15. 三大史诗非常重要，特别是和。对于需要知道它是写成的，故事情节来自，另外要知道此书和的形象。 16. ——’s 17. —— ; : , . 18. （名词解释） 19. （名词解释） 20. ——“ ”

21. ——“ ”这个比上面那个要重要，注意这个报纸和我们今天的报纸不一样，它虚构了一系列的人物，以这些人物的口气来写报纸上刊登的散文，这一部分要仔细读。 22. ’s ’s 23. : “ ”, “ ”, “ ”, “ ”; () 24. : “’s ”此书非常重要，要知道具体内容，就是游历过的四个地方的英文名称，和每个部分具体的讽刺对象; （我们主要讲了三个地方）“A ”比较重要，要注意作者用的也就是反讽手法。 25. 18 . 26. : “ ”, “ ”, 当然是比较重要，剧情要清楚，的形象和故事中蕴涵的早期黑奴的原形，以及殖民主义的萌芽。另外注意的和，另外是。 27. ——“” ( ), “ ”, “ ” 28. : “ ”, “ ”, “ ”第一个和第三个比较重要，需要仔细看。他是一个比较重要的作家，另外也被称为 . 29. ——“ ”项狄传 30. ——“ ” 31. ——“ ”(), “ ” () ( ), “ ” (), “ ” (), “ ” (), “ ” ( ) 32. （名词解释） 33. ——“ a ”（英国诗歌里非常著名的一首，曾经被誉为“有史以来英国诗歌里最好的一首”）(a 墓园派诗人) * / ”: A , a , , . , ’s

英国文学史名词解释

1. Ballad(民谣) A ballad originally is a song intended as an accompaniment to a dance or a popular song. In the relatively recent sense, now most widely used, a ballad is a single, spirited poem in short stanzas, in which some popular story is graphically narrated. The ingredients of ballads usually include a refrain, stock descriptive phrases, and simple, terse dialogue. 2. Alliteration(头韵) It refers to a repeated initial consonant to successive words and it is the most striking feature in its poetic form. In alliterative verse, certain accented words in a line begin with the same consonant sound. There are generally 4 accents in a line, three of which show alliteration, and it is the initial sound of the third accented syllable that normally determiners the alliteration. In old English verse, alliteration is not an unusual or expressive phenomenon but a regular recurring structural feature of the verse. 3. Sonnet (十四行诗) It is a poem of 14 lines (of 11 syllables in Italian and 10 in English), typically in rhymed iambic pentameter. Sonnets characteristically express a single theme or idea. The sonnet was introduced to England by Sir T. Wyatt and developed Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) and was thereafter widely used notably in the sonnet sequences of Shakespeare, Sidney, and Spenser. 4. Tragedy(悲剧) The word is applied broadly to dramatic works in which events move to a fatal or disastrous conclusion. It is concerned with the harshness and apparent injustice of life. Often the hero falls from power and his eventual death leads to the downfall of others. The tragic action arouses feelings of awe in the audience. 5. Lyric(抒情诗) As a genre, it was the tradition of popular song flourishing in all the medieval literatures of Western Europe. In England lyric poems flourished in the Middle English period, and in the 16th century, heyday of humanism. This tradition was enriched by the direct imitation of ancient models. During the next 200 years the links between poetry and music was gradually broken, and the term “lyric” came to be applied to short poems expressive of a poet’s thoughts or feelings. 6. Epic(史诗) It is a poem that celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic personages of history or tradition. Among the great epics of the world may be mentioned the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, and Paradise Lost. 7. Renaissance(文艺复兴) The word “renaissance” means rebirth or revival. It is commonly applied to the movement or period of great flowering of art, architecture, politics, and the study of literature, usually seen as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern worn world. It came about under the influence of Greek and Roman models. It began in Italy in the late 14th century, reached the highest development in the early 16th century, and spread to the rest of Europe in the 15th century and afterwards. Its emphasis was humanist: that is , on regarding the human figure and reason without a necessary relating of it to the superhuman.

英国文学中的名词解释

Part One: Early and Medieval English Literature 1. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements 3. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”: a famous roman about King Arthur’s story 4. Ballad（名词解释） 5. Character of Robin Hood 6. Geoffrey Chaucer: founder of English poetry; The Canterbury Tales (main contents; 124 stories planned, only 24 finished; written in Middle English; significance; form: heroic couplet) 7. Heroic couplet (名词解释) Part Two: The English Renaissance 8. The Authorized Version of English Bible and its significance9. Renaissance（名词解释） 10.Thomas More??Utopia 11. Sonnet（名词解释） 12. Blank verse（名词解释） 13. Edmund Spenser “The Faerie Queene”; Amoretti (collection of his sonnets) Spenserian Stanza（名词解释） 15. Christopher Marlowe (“Doctor Faustus” and his achievements) Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic poem of unknown authorship, dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between the 8th[1] to the early 11th century,[2] and relates events described as having occurred in what is now Denmark and Sweden. Commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature, Beowulf has been the subject of much scholarly study, theory, speculation, discourse, and, at 3182 lines, has been noted for its length. 3 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. In the tale, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his beard and skin. The "Green Knight" offers to allow anyone to strike him with his axe if the challenger will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts, and beheads him in one blow, only to have the Green Knight stand up, pick up his head, and remind Gawain to meet him at the appointed time 4 A ballad is a poem usually set to music; thus, it often is a story told in a song[1]. Any myth form may be told as a ballad, such as historical accounts or fairy tales in verse form. It usually has foreshortened, alternating four-stress lines ("ballad meter") and simple repeating rhymes, often with a refrain 5