英国文学复习整理 名词解释-推荐下载

英国文学复习整理 3

名词解释

1，Dramatic Monologue 戏剧独白

a poem delivered in a dramatic manner by a single persona speaker who is not identified with the poet usually to achieve an ironical effect.

2, Aestheticism 美学主义（唯美主义）

Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic Movement) is an intellectual and

art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values more than

social-political themes for literature, fine art, music and other arts. The Pygmalion Effect 皮格马利翁效应

The Pygmalion Effect is that people tend to behave as you expect they will. If you expect a person to take responsibility, they probably will. If you expect them not to even try, they probably won’t.

Mordenism

A general term applied to the experimental and avant-grade trends in

literature and other arts of the early 20th century.

Discontinuity and fragmentation

Juxtaposition (并列) and multiple points of view （多重视角）Lack of a unitary self

线弯管线，应采题电源资料试运行作为调试卷情况与要避电力术是指料试卷

Modernism Literature (1918~45)

In the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, both natural and social sciences in Europe had enormously advanced. The two world wars destroyed people’s faith in the Victorian values and gave rise to all kinds of philosophical ideas in Western Europe. Modernism become the mainstream literature during that period. Drama is the most famous form in modernism. And dramatic monologue was famous at that period. Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw pioneered the modern drama. Oscar Wilde is be well known for his master work--The Importance of Being Earnest. George Bernard Shaw's works are examples of the play inspired by social criticism. His master work is Widower’s Houses. Furthermore, David Herbert Lawrence was a great writer during this period, too. His master work, Sons and Lovers, is famous all over the world.

Modernist fiction

crisis

attempts to represent the underlying truths of consciousness & psyche(心智)

rejection of external, unitary, coherent appearance of realist conventions

lack of causality(因果性)

insufficiency of language

oppositional relations between the individual and the social,

alienation

first person narrator, often unreliable

A sense of urban dislocation and alienation

works by male writers tend to be misogynistic （厌恶女人的人）

Colonialism

one country’s domination of another country or people —usually

achieved through aggressive, often military actions ，and the territory

acquired in this manner.

Post-colonial theory

is a multicultural theory which mainly studies relations of cultural

discourse power between the colonist and the colonized as well as

racism (种族主义), cultural imperialism

（文化帝国主义）,

national culture and culture power identity after colonial period

Representatives 后殖民理论的“圣三位一体”

Edward Said(萨义德)

Gayatri C. Spivak(斯皮瓦克)

Homi K. Bhabha(霍米·巴巴

)

Imagism 意象主义

The body of theories of a group of anti-Romantic and anti-Georgian British and American poets (1912-18) who aimed at simplicity and detachment in poetic expression by the clear presentation of visual images.

Imagery 意象

Words or phrases that create picture, or images, in the reader’s mind.

Images are primarily visual.

Images can appeal to other senses as well: touch, taste, smell and hearing.

Symbolism 印象主义

Epiphany 顿悟

An experience of sudden and striking realization.顿悟

Epiphany is an appearance or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, which is adapted by James Joyce to describe the sudden revelation of whatness of a thing, the moment in which the soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.

Stream of Consciousness 意识流

It is a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind. Lacking chronological order, the events in a stream of consciousness narrative are presented from the character’s point of view, mixed in with the character’s on going

feelings and memories. Developed by writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, stream of consciousness writing is used to reveal a character’s complex psychology and to present it in realistic detail.

Feminist Criticism 女性主义

Feminism refers to movements aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, social rights and opportunities for women.

Bloomsbury Group 布鲁姆斯伯里文化圈

The Bloomsbury Group —or Bloomsbury Set —was an influential group of associated Englishwriters, intellectuals, philosophers and artists,the best known members of which included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.

This loose collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied together near Bloomsbury, London, during the first half of the 20th century. Their works and outlook deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism,

习题到理利用；对设过关最大限，要求

pacifism (反战论), and sexuality.

布鲁姆斯伯里团体(the bloomsbury group),是一个英国二十世纪初号称“无限灵感，无限激情，无限才华”知识分子的小团体。其实没有很多成员，最初成立时有点像Cambridge同学会，一帮玩的好的朋友聚在一起吃吃喝喝的。但因为他们中有画家艺术家作家历史学家经济学家且在今天听来都是鼎鼎大名

英国文学期末考试题目(英语专业必备)

.. ;.. 一．中古英语时期 Beowulf is the oldest poem in the English language, and the most important specimen (范例、典范)of Anglo-Saxon literature, and also the oldest surviving epic in the English language. The romance is a popular literary form in the medieval period（中世纪）. It uses verse or prose to sing knightly a dventures or other heroic deeds. Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the greatest English poets, whose masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales（《坎特伯雷故事集》）,was one of the most important influences on the development of English literature. Chaucer is considered as the father of English poetry and the founder of English realism. 二．文艺复兴Renaissance Renaissance r efers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It marks a transition(过渡) from the medieval to the modern world. It started in Italy with the flowering of painting, sculpture（雕塑）and literature, and then spread to the rest of Europe. Humanism is the essence of Renaissance -----Man is the measure of all things. This was England’s Golden Age in literature. Queen Elizabeth r eigned over the country in this period. The real mainstream of the English Renaissance i s the Elizabethan drama. The most famous dramatists in the Renaissance E ngland are Christopher Marlowe and W illiam Shakespeare. The greatest of the pioneers of English drama was Christopher Marlowe. Francis Bacon was the best known essayist of this period. “Of Studies” is the most popular of Bacon’s 58 essays. Thomas More ——Utopia Edmund Spenser——The Faerie Queene 相关练习 1. Which is the oldest poem in the English language? A. Utopia B. Faerie Queene C. Beowulf D. Hamlet 2. _____ is the father of English poetry. A. Edmund Spenser B. William Shakespeare C. Francis Bacon D. Geoffrey Chaucer 3. ____ is not a playwright during the Renaissance period on England. A. William Shakespeare B. Geoffrey Chaucer C. Christopher Marlowe D. Ben Johnson 三．莎士比亚William Shakespeare “All t he world 's a stage, a nd all the men and women merely p layers.”——William Shakespeare William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright in the world and the finest poet who has written in the English language. Shakespeare understood people more than any other writers. He could create characters that have

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

法国文学史笔记整理

法国文学史 一、十六世纪法国文学—文艺复兴时期15-16 La renaissance 七星诗社Le pléiade 修辞学派les Grandes Rhétoriques ●弗朗索瓦·拉伯雷 Francois Rebelais 《巨人传》Gargantua et Pantagruel长篇小说 ●杜贝莱Joachim du Bellay 《橄榄集》Olive ●龙沙Pierre de Ronsard（十四行诗） ●蒙田Michel Eyquem Montaigne 《随笔集》Les Essais 二、十七世纪的法国文学—古典主义17 Classicisme ●笛卡尔René Descartes 古典主义哲学自然与理性 《方法论》 Discours De La Méthode ●高乃依 Pierre Corneille 古典主义悲剧 《熙德》 Le cid ●莫里哀Molière 古典主义喜剧 《伪君子》Tartuffe ou l’imposteur ●拉封丹 Jean de La Fontaine 寓言《寓言诗》 Les fables ●拉辛 Jean Racine 《费德尔》Phèdre古典主义悲剧 《安德洛玛克》Andromaque ●布瓦洛 Nicolas Boileau 《诗的艺术》L’art poétique 三、十八世纪的法国文学（启蒙时代 Le siècle des Lumières） ●勒萨日 Le sage 《杜卡雷》Turcaret 《瘸腿魔鬼》Le diable

●马里沃 Pierre Carlet de Marivaux 《爱情与偶然游戏》Le jeu de l’amour et du hasard ..... ●孟德斯鸠 Montesquieu 《波斯人信札》Les lettres persanes 《论法精神》l'esprit des lois三权分立 ●伏尔泰 Voltaire 《哲学通信》Les lettres philosophiques 《中国孤儿》l’orphelin de la Chine 《老实人》Candide ●狄德罗 Denis Diderot 《百科全书》Encyclopédie ●卢梭 JeanJacques Rousseau 《忏悔录》Les Confessions 《新爱洛依丝》La nouvelle Hélo?se ●博马舍 Beaumarchais 《回忆录》Mémoires 《费加罗的婚礼》Le mariage de Figaro ●布封Buffon 《博物史》Histoire naturelle ●尼埃AndréChénier 《颂歌集》odes ●拉克洛 Laclos 《危险关系》les liaisons dangereuses ....... 五、十九世纪法国浪漫主义文学 Le Romantisme ●斯塔尔夫人 Madame de Sta?l

英国文学期末考试题目(英语专业必备)

一．中古英语时期 ?Beowulf is the oldest poem in the English language, and the most important specimen (范例、典范)of Anglo-Saxon literature, and also the oldest surviving epic in the English language. ?The romance is a popular literary form in the medieval period（中世纪）. It uses verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. ?Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the greatest English poets, whose masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales（《坎特伯雷故事集》）,was one of the most important influences on the development of English literature. ?Chaucer is considered as the father of English poetry and the founder of English realism. 二．文艺复兴Renaissance ?Renaissance refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It marks a transition(过渡) from the medieval to the modern world. ?It started in Italy with the flowering of painting, sculpture（雕塑）and literature, and then spread to the rest of Europe. ?Humanism is the essence of Renaissance -----Man is the measure of all things. ?This was England’s Golden Age in literature. Queen Elizabeth reigned over the country in this period. The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama. The most famous dramatists in the Renaissance England ? ?“Of Studies” is the most popular of Bacon’s 58 essays. ?Thomas More ——Utopia ?Edmund Spenser——The Faerie Queene 相关练习 ? 1. Which is the oldest poem in the English language? ? A. Utopia B. Faerie Queene ? C. Beowulf D. Hamlet ? 2. _____ is the father of English poetry. ? A. Edmund Spenser B. William Shakespeare ? C. Francis Bacon D. Geoffrey Chaucer ? 3. ____ is not a playwright during the Renaissance period on England. ? A. William Shakespeare B. Geoffrey Chaucer ? C. Christopher Marlowe D. Ben Johnson 三．莎士比亚William Shakespeare ?“All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”——William Shakespeare ?William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright in the world and the finest poet who has written in the English language. Shakespeare understood people more than any other writers. He could create characters that have

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. Beowulf: national epic of the English people; Denmark story; alliteration, metaphors and understatements （此处可能会有填空，选择等小题） 2. Romance （名词解释） 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)8. Renaissance（名词解释）9.Thomas More——Utopia 10. Sonnet（名词解释）11. Blank verse（名词解释）12. Edmund Spenser “The Faerie Queene” 13. Francis Bacon “essays” esp. “Of Studies”（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. William Shakespeare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Hamlet这是肯定的。他的sonnet也很重要，最重要属sonnet18。（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. John Milton 三大史诗非常重要，特别是Paradise Lost和Samson Agonistes。对于Paradise Lost需要知道它是blank verse写成的，故事情节来自Old Testament，另外要知道此书theme和Satan的形象。 16. John Bunyan——The Pilgrim’s Progress 17. Founder of the Metaphysical school——John Donne; features of the school: philosophical poems, complex rhythms and strange images. 18. Enlightenment（名词解释） 19. Neoclassicism（名词解释） 20. Richard Steele——“The Tatler” 21. Joseph Addison——“The Spectator”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. Steel’s and Addison’s styles and their contributions 23. Alexander Pope: “Essay on Criticism”, “Essay on Man”, “The Rape of Lock”, “The Dunciad”; his workmanship (features) and limitations 24. Jonathan Swift: “Gulliver’s Travels”此书非常重要，要知道具体内容，就是Gulliver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 Modest Proposal”比较重要，要注意作者用的irony 也就是反讽手法。 25. The rise and growth of the realistic novel is the most prominent achievement of 18th century English literature. 26. Daniel Defoe: “Robinson Crusoe”, “Moll Flanders”, 当然是Robinson Crusoe比较重要，剧情要清楚，Robinson Crusoe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Defoe的style和feature，另外Defoe是forerunner of English realistic novel。 27. Samuel Richardson——“Pamela” (first epistolary novel), “Clarissa Harlowe”, “Sir Charles Grandison” 28. Henry Fielding: “Joseph Andrews”, “Jonathan Wild”, “Tom Jones”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Fielding也被称为father of the English novel. 29. Laurence Sterne——“Tristram Shandy”项狄传 30. Richard Sheridan——“The School for Scandal” 31. Oliver Goldsmith——“The Traveller”(poem), “The Deserted V illage” (poem) (both two poems were written by heroic couplet), “The Vicar of Wakefield” (novel), “The Good-Natured Man” (comedy), “She stoops to Conquer” (comedy),

郑克鲁《外国文学史》笔记整理

郑克鲁《外国文学史》笔记 第一章古代文学 西方古代文学包括：古希腊罗马文学和早期基督教文学。(它们是氏族社会向奴隶制过渡时期的产物)。古希腊罗马文学和早期基督教文学中分别体现出来的世俗与人本色彩和神圣与超越色彩共同构成西方文学(和文化)的两个源头。恩格斯说："没有希腊文化和罗马帝国的基础，也就没有现代的欧洲"。 第一节古代文学 一古代希腊文学 (一)主要成就：神话、史诗和戏剧，此外还有寓言、抒情诗和文艺理论等 (二)主要特征： 1 鲜明的人本色彩，命运观念.从诸神的恣情纵欲，到盗火者的狂热殉情；从阿喀琉斯的冲天怒火，到美狄亚的残忍复仇。一切都是世俗，活生生的。绝无宗教恐怖的压抑和彼岸天国的诱惑 2 现实主义和浪漫主义并存。古希腊文学的许多篇章从不同程度，不同侧面反映了当时社会。为后人提供了第一手资料，也有相当一部分作品充满了神奇的想象、怪诞色彩、表现出浓厚的浪漫主义色彩 3 种类繁多，且具有开创性除神话，史诗外还有悲剧，喜剧、寓言、故事、教谕诗、抒情诗、散文、小说 (三)古希腊文学的发展状况分为三个时期： 第一时期公元前12世纪到公元前8世纪(由氏族社会向奴隶社会过渡时期)史称"荷马时代"(英雄时代)： 主要成就：神话、史诗代表作家赫西俄德 教谕诗《工作与时日》：现存最早一部以现实生活为题材的诗作。 叙事诗《神谱》：最早一部比较系统地叙述宇宙起源和神的谱系的作品。 第二时期公元前8世纪到公元前4世纪中叶(奴隶制社会形成至全盛时期)史称"古典时期"：主要成就：戏剧成就最大，另外还有抒情诗、散文、寓言、悲剧、喜剧、文艺理论。萨福：柏拉图称她为"第十位文艺女神"。寓言：《伊索寓言》(散文体主要反映奴隶制社会劳动人民的思想感情，是劳动人民生活教训和斗争经验的总结(《农夫和蛇》《乌龟和兔子》等。全盛时期欧洲文学史上著名的三大悲剧诗人：埃斯库罗斯、索福克勒斯、欧里庇得斯.喜剧诗人：阿里斯托芬"喜剧之父"：希罗多德《希腊波斯战争史》雄辩家：苏克拉底和狄摩西尼。文艺理论家：柏拉图(西方客观唯心主义的始祖)反对民主制，创立"理念论"。代表作《对话录》。亚里斯多德：代表作《诗学》 第三时期从公元前4世纪末到公元前2世纪中叶(奴隶制衰亡时期)史称"希腊化"时期主要成就：新喜剧：不谈政治，以描写爱情故事和家庭关系为主要内容。又称"世态喜剧" 最著名的新喜剧作家：米南德(雅典人)田园诗(牧歌)：主要作家：忒俄克里托斯二古罗马文学(连接古希腊文学和欧洲近代文学的桥梁) 恩格斯说"没有希腊文化和罗马帝国所奠定的基础，也就没有现代的欧洲"。

英国文学试题

Instructions： This examination consists of 5 parts， and the total time for the examination is 2 hours. All the answers should be entered onto the Answer Sheet. Part I：Multiple Choices （10%） Choose the best answer to the following sentences. 1.Which of the following is NOT a feature of Beowulf？ A. Alliteration B. Anglo-Saxons’ early life in England C. Germanic language D. The national epic of Anglo-Saxon people 2.English Renaissance Period was an age of. A. prose and novel B. poetry and drama C. essays and journals D. ballads and songs 3.The main literary form of the early 17th century was poetry. John Milton was acknowledged as the greatest. Besides him， there were two groups of poets. They were the Cavalier poets and. A. the lake poets B. the university wits C. the Metaphysical poets D. the Romantic poets 4. Pamela is widely considered to be the first novel and was written by ___________. A. Thomas Hardy B. James Joyce C. Samuel Richardson D. Henry Fielding 5.The publication of， which was the joint work of William Wordsworth and Samuel T. Coleridge， marked the beginning of the Romantic Age in England. A. Don Juan B. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner C. Lyrical Ballads D. Queen Mab 6.Among the most famous realistic novelists of the Victorian age are， W. M. Thackeray， Bronte sisters， etc. A. Joseph Conrad B. Henry Fielding C. Charles Dickens D. D. H. Lawrence 7.In James Joyce’s ____________ the story “Eveline” paints a portrait of a young woman from Dublin deciding whether or not to leave her hometown. A. Ulysses B. Orlando C. Dubliners D. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 8.In the 18th century England， satire was much used in writing. Literature of this age produced some excellent satirists， such as Jonathan Swift， Henry Fielding and.

(完整版)英国文学名词解释

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》】