优质英国文学第一学期名词解释

1、英国文学第一学期名词解释Allegory:a story or descripti on in which the characters and events symbolize somedeeper un derly ing meaning, and serve to spread moral teach ing.Alliterati on:A poetic device where the first consonant sounds or any vowel sounds inwords or syllables are repeated.Allusion:A reference to

2、a familiar literary or historical person or event, used to make anidea more easily un derstood.Ballad: A short poem that tells a simple story and has a repeated refrain. Ballads were origi nally inten ded to be sung. Early ballads, known as folk ballads, were passed dow n through gen erati ons, so t

3、heir authors are often unknown. Later ballads composed by known authors are called literary ballads.Blank Verse: un rhymed lines of iambic pen tameter.Carpe Diem : A Latin term meaning seize the day. This is a traditionaltheme of Poetry ,especially lyrics. A carpe diem poem advises the reader or the

4、 person it addresses to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the mome nt.Two celebrated carpe diem poems are An drew Marvells To His Coy Mistress and Robert Herricks poem beg inning Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.Con ceit: an unu sually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile prese nting a

5、 surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings.Conno tati on:The impressi on that a word gives bey ond its defi ned meaning.Couplet: Two lines of Poetry with the same rhyme and Meter, often expressing a complete and self-c ontained thought.Deno tati on:The defi niti

6、on of a word, apart from the impressi ons or feeli ngs it creates inthe reader.Dramatic Mono logueEpic: A long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero of great historic or legendary importance. The setting is vast and the action is often given cosmic significance through the in terve nti on of

7、 super natural forces such as gods, an gels, or dem ons. Epics are typically written in a classical style of grand simplicity with elaborate Metaphor s and allusions that enhance the symbolic importa nce of a heros adve ntures.tale withinFrame story:a story in which ano ther story is en closed or em

8、bedded as atale ” , or which contains several such tales.Foot: The smallest un it of rhythm in a line of Poetry .In En glish-la nguage poetry, a foot is typically one acce nted syllable comb ined with one or two un acce nted syllables.There are many different types of feet. When the accent is on the

9、 second syllable of a two syllable word (con- tort), the foot is an iamb; the reverse accentual pattern (tor-ture) is atrochee. Other feet that com monly occur in poetry in En glish are an apest, two un acce nted syllables followed by an acce nted syllable as in in-ter-cept, and dactyl, anacce nted

10、syllable followed by two un acce nted syllables as insu-i-cide.Grub Street Writers:Hack writers in the Eightee nth Cen tury En gla nd. Many of themlived on Grub Street. They took writ ing as a professi on.Heroic Couplet:A rhyming couplet written in iambic pentameter (aVerse with fiveiambic feet).Hum

11、a ni sm:A philosophy that places faith in the dig nity of huma nkind and rejects themedieval percepti on of the in dividual as a weak, falle n creature. Huma ni sts typically believe in the perfectibility of huma n n ature and view reas on and educati on as the means to that end.Iambic pen tametre:I

12、f a line of a poem has five feet, and in each foot there are twosyllables, the first being un stressed, the sec ond, stressed, the line is an iambic pen tameter line.Irony: In literary criticism , the effect of Ianguage in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated.Metaphysical Poe

13、try: The body of poetry produced by a group of seventeenth-centuryEn glish writers called the Metaphysical Poets. The group in cludes Joh n Donne andAn drew Marvell. The Metaphysical Poets made use of everyday speech, in tellectual analysis, and unique imagery . They aimed to portray the ordinarycon

14、flict s andcontradictions of life. Their poem s often took the form of an argument , and many of them emphasize physical and religious love as well as the fleeting nature of life.Elaborate conceit s are typical in metaphysical poetry.Metaphysical Poets: a group of 17 th century En glish poets whose

15、work is no table for its ingenious use of intellectual concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes, and far-fetched imagery.Meter: In literary criticism , the repetiti on of sound patter ns that creates a rhythm in Poetry . The patter ns are based on the nu mber of syllables and the prese nee

16、 and absenee of accent s. The unit of rhythm in a line is called a Foot. Types of meter are classified accord ing to the nu mber of feet in a line. These are the sta ndard En glish lin es: Mono meter, one foot; Dimeter, two feet; Trimeter, three feet; Tetrameter, four feet;Pen tameter, five feet; He

17、xameter, six feet (also called the Alexa ndrin e); Heptameter, seve n feet (also called the Fourtee ner whe n the feet are iambic).The most com mon En glish meter is the iambic pen tameter, i n which each line contains tensyllables, or five iambic feet, which individually are composed of an unstress

18、ed syllable followed by an acce nted syllable.Oedipus Complex:A sons amorous obsessi on with his mother. The phrase is derivedfrom the story of the ancient Theba n hero Oedipus, who unknowin gly killed his father and married his mother.Oxym oron: A phrase comb ining two con tradictory terms. Oxym or

19、ons may be inten ti onal or uninten ti on al.Paradox: A stateme nt that appears illogical or con tradictory at first, but may actually point to an un derly ing truth.Poetic License:Distortions of fact and literaryconvention made by a writer not alwaysa poet for the sake of the effect gain ed. Poetic

20、 lice nse is closely related to the con cept of artistic freedom.Ren aissa nee:The period in Europea n history that marked the end of the Middle Ages. Itbega n in Italy in the late fourtee nth cen tury .In broad terms, it is usually see n as spa nning the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuri

21、es, although it did not reach Great Britain, for example, un til the 1480s or so. The Ren aissa nee saw an awake ning in almost every sphere of huma n activity, especially scie nee, philosophy, and the arts. The period is best defi ned by the emerge nee of a gen eral philosophy that emphasized the i

22、mporta nee of the in tellect, the in dividual, and world affairs. It con trasts stron gly with the medieval worldview, characterized by the dominant concerns of faith, the social collective, and spiritual salvati on.Rhyme: When used as a noun in literary criticism , this term gen erally refers to a

23、poem in which words sound ide ntical or very similar and appear in parallel positi ons in two or more lines. Rhymes are classified into different types according to where they fall in a line or sta nza or accord ing to the degree of similarity they exhibit in their spell ings and soun ds.Some major

24、types of rhyme are masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme, and triple rhyme.In a masculine rhyme, the rhyming sound falls in a single accent ed syllable, as with heat and eat. Fem inine rhyme is a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one un stressed, as with merry and tarry. Triple rhyme matches the so

25、und of the acce nted syllable and the two un acce nted syllables that follow: n arrative and declarative.Roma nee : is a tale in verse, embody ing the life and adve ntures of kni ghts. Roma nee was characteristic of the early feudal age, as it reflected the spirit of chivalry, i. e., the quality and

26、 ideal of kni ghtly con duct. The content of roma nee was usually about love, chivalry, and religi on. It gen erally concerns kni ghts and in volves a large amount of fighti ng as well as a nu mber of miscella neous adve ntures;Scansion: The analysis or seanning of a poem to determine its Meter and

27、often its rhyme scheme. The most com mon system of sea nsion usesacce nt s (sla nted linesdraw n above syllables) to show stressed syllables, breves (curved lines draw n above syllables) to show un stressed syllables, and vertical li nes to separate eachFoot.In the first line of Joh n KeatssEn dym i

28、on,A thing of beauty is a joy forever: the word th in g, the first syllable of beauty, the word joy, and the sec ond syllable of forever are stressed, while the words A and of, the sec ond syllable of beauty, the word a, and the first and third syllables of forever are un stressed. In the sec ond li

29、ne: Its loveli ness in creases; it will n ever a pair of vertical li nes separate the foot ending with in creases and the one begi nning with it.Soliloquy:A monologue in a drama used to give the audienee information and to developthe speakers character . It is typically a project ion of the speakers

30、 inn ermost thoughts.Usually delivered while the speaker is alone on stage, a soliloquy is inten ded to prese nt an illusi on of un spoke n reflect ion.Sonnet: A fourteen-line poem , usually composed in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes. There are three major types of sonnets

31、, upon which all other variations of the form are based: the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, theShakespearea n or E nglish sonn et, and the Spe nseria n sonn et. A Petrarcha n sonnetcon sists of an octave rhymed abbaabba and a sestet rhymedeither cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. The octave poses a question

32、or problem, relates a n arrative , or puts forth a propositi on; the sestet prese nts a soluti on to the problem, comme nts upon the n arrative, or applies the propositi on put forth in the octave. The Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a couplet rhymed abab cdcd efef gg. The c

33、ouplet provides an epigrammatic comment on the narrative or problem put forth in the quatra ins. The Spen seria n sonnet uses three quatra ins and a couplet like the Shakespearean, but links their three rhyme schemes in this way:abab bcbc cdcd ee. TheSpenserian sonnet develops its theme in two parts

34、 like the Petrarchan, its final six lines resolv ing a problem, an alyz ing a n arrative, or appl ying a propositi on put forth in its first eight lin es.Spen seria n sta nza:a group of eight li nes of iambic pen tameter followed by a six-stressiambic line, with a rhyme scheme ababbcbcc.Theme: The main point of a work of literature . The term is use