英美文学考试

1、Epic: 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 tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down.Romance: Any imaginary literature that describ

2、ed the idealism world and that deals with heroic and adventures or battles between good characters and villains or monsters. In general it was a medieval tale which involve with lovers and adventures of Kings, Queens, Knights, and Ladies, and including some unlikely or supernaturalism happenings.Ver

3、se: Form of writing, arranged in lines, each containing a pattern of accented and unaccented syllables, all groups of lines forming a unit of rhyme scheme. John Dryden: English poetry and dramatists, also considered the father of English literature criticism, he became the Poet Laureate in 1668.Blac

4、k Verse: Blank verse is a verse that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, used in Shakespeare's dramas and Milton's Paradise Lost, is one of the most common metrical patterns in English poetry.Gothic novelsAnd from the middle part to the end of the century there was also an apparent shi

5、ft of interest from the classic literary tradition to originality and imagination, from society to individual, and from the didactic to the confessional（忏悔的）, inspirational and prophetic. Gothic novelsmostly stories of mystery and horror which take place in some haunted or dilapidated（荒废的，破旧的） and M

6、iddle Age castles were turned out profusely（丰富的） by both male and female writers; works such as The Castle of Otranto（1765）by Horace Walpole, The mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797) by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe，The Champion of Virtue， a Gothic Story (1777) by Clara Reeve, and The Monk (1796)

7、 by M.G.Lewis became very popular. Eulogizing（颂扬，称赞） or lamenting （挽歌，哀掉）lyrics by nature poets like James Thomson, William Collins, and William Cowper, and by such sentimentalists（多愁善感的人） as the "Graveyard School" were widely read. The romantic poems of the Scottish peasant poet, Robert B

8、urns and William Blake also joined in, paving the way for the flourish of Romanticism early the next century.Modernism rose out of skepticism（怀疑主义）and disillusion（使醒悟） of capitalism（资本主义）. The appalling（可怕的）shock of the First World War severely destroyed people's faith in the Victorian values; a

9、nd the rise of the irrational（荒谬的） philosophy and new science greatly incited（煽动，激励） writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships. The French symbolism（象征主义）, appearing in the late 19th century, heralded（预示着，先驱） modernism. After the First World War, all kinds of literatu

10、re trends of modernism appeared: expressionism, surrealism, futurism, Dadaism（达达主义 崇尚虚无的艺术派别）, imagism and stream of consciousness. Towards the 1920s, these trends converged（聚合） into a mighty torrent of modernist movement, which swept across the whole Europe and America. The major figures that were

11、associated with this movement were Kafka, Picasso, Pound, Webern, Eliot, Joyce and Virginia woolf. Modernism was somewhat curbed（抑制） in the 1930s. But after the Second World War, a variety of modernism, or post-modernism, like existentialist literature, theater of the absurd, new novels and black hu

12、mor, rose with the spur of the existentialist idea that " the world was absurd, and the human life was an agony（苦恼）." Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted（扭曲的）, al

13、ienated（疏远的） and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than on the objective. They are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. There

14、fore, they pay more attention to the psychic（精神的，灵魂的） time than the chronological （按时间顺序的）one. In their writings, the past, the present and the future are mingled （混合）together and exist at the same time in the consciousness of an individual. Modernism is, in many aspects, a reaction against realism.

15、 It rejects rationalism, which is the theoretical base of realism; it excludes from its major concern the external, objective, material world, which is the only creative source of realism; by advocating a free experimentation（实验） on new forms and new techniques in literary creation, it casts away al

16、most all the traditional elements in literature such as story, plot, character, chronological narration, etc., which are essential to realism. As a result, the works created by the modernist writers are often labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry and anti-drama. Page 12The period of Old English literat

17、ure extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England. The Germanic tribes from the Northern Europe brought with them not only the Anglo-Saxon language, the basis of Modern English, but also a specific poetic tradition, which is both bold and strong, mournful(悲哀的) and elegia

18、c（哀伤的） in spirit. Generally speaking, the Old English poetry that has survived can be divided into two groups: the religious group and the secular（世俗的） one. The poetry of the religious group is mainly on biblical（圣经的） themes. Genesis A, Genesis B and Exodus are poems based on the Old Testament（旧约）;

19、Whereas（然而） The Dream of the Rood （基督受难的十字架）comes from the New Testament（新约. In this poem, Christ is portrayed（描绘） as the young warrior striding（大步行走） to embrace death and victory, while the rood (cross) itself takes on the burden of his suffering. In addition to these religious compositions, Old En

20、glish poets produced the national epic poem, Beowulf, and a number of more or less lyrical （抒情的）poems of shorter length, which do not contain specific Christian doctrines （教义，信条）, but evoke（唤起） the Anglo-Saxon sense of the harshness（严酷的） of circumstance and the sadness of the human lot. The Wanderer

21、，Deor，The seafarer, and the Wife's complaint are among the most beautiful in this secular group. The harsh climate of North Sea strongly affected the tone or mood of the poets. The life is sorrowful, and the speakers are fatalistic（宿命论的）, though at the same time courageous and determined.Page 82

22、Neoclassicists（新古典主义） had some fixed laws and rules for almost every genre（流派） of literature. Prose（散文） should be precise, direct, smooth and flexible. Poetry should be lyrical, epical, didactic（说教的）, satiric（讽刺的） or dramatic, and each class should be guided by its own principles. Drama should be wr

23、itten in the Heroic Couplets（英雄双韵体） (iambic pentameter （抑扬格五音步）rhymed in two lines); The three unities of time, space and action should be strictly observed; regularity in construction should be adhered to, and type characters rather than individuals should be represented.Page 83And from the middle

24、part to the end of the century there was also an apparent shift of interest from the classic literary tradition to originality and imagination, from society to individual, and from the didactic to the confessional（忏悔的）, inspirational and prophetic. Gothic novelsmostly stories of mystery and horror w

25、hich take place in some haunted or dilapidated（荒废的，破旧的） and Middle Age castles were turned out profusely（丰富的） by both male and female writers; works such as The Castle of Otranto（1765）by Horace Walpole, The mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797) by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe，The Champion of Virt

26、ue， a Gothic Story (1777) by Clara Reeve, and The Monk (1796) by M.G.Lewis became very popular. Eulogizing（颂扬，称赞） or lamenting （挽歌，哀掉）lyrics by nature poets like James Thomson, William Collins, and William Cowper, and by such sentimentalists（多愁善感的人） as the "Graveyard School" were widely re

27、ad. The romantic poems of the Scottish peasant poet, Robert Burns and William Blake also joined in, paving the way for the flourish of Romanticism early the next century.Page 157The movement which we call Romanticism is something not so easy to define, especially concerning its characteristics or da

28、tes. For it is a broad movement that affected the whole of Europe ( and America). However, English Romanticism, as a historical phase of literature, is generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads and to have ended in 1832 with Sir Walte

29、r Scott's death and the passage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.Page 235 Ideologically, the Victorians experienced fundamental changes. The rapid development of science and technology, new inventions and discoveries in geology（地质学）, astronomy, biology and anthropology drastically shoo

30、k people's religious convictions（信念）. The religious collision that started from the early nineteenth century continued and was intensified（变激烈） by the disputes over evolutionary （进化）science. Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent（血统） of Man (1871) shook the theoretical basis o

31、f the traditional faith. New scientific discoveries increased people's religious doubts and anxieties. In his long poem In Memoriam（悼念） Tennyson recorded his own experience of religious uncertainties before the falling faith in god. On the other hand, Utilitarianism （实用主义） was widely accepted an

32、d practiced . Almost everything was put to the test by the criterion（准则） of utility, that is, the extent to which it could promote the material happiness. The Bible and the Evangelical（福音派） Orthodoxy（东正教） were regarded either as an outmoded （过时的）superstition or tested by the principle of utility. Ch

33、urch service became a form instead of real devotion. This theory held a special appeal to the middle-class industrialists（工业家）, whose greed drove them to exploiting workers to the utmost and brought greater suffering and poverty to the working mass. Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin and many other socially c

34、onscious writers severely criticized the utilitarian creed（信条，教义）, especially its depreciation （折旧，贬值）of cultural values and its cold indifference towards human feelings and imagination.Page 312313Modernism rose out of skepticism（怀疑主义）and disillusion（使醒悟） of capitalism（资本主义）. The appalling（可怕的）shock

35、 of the First World War severely destroyed people's faith in the Victorian values; and the rise of the irrational（荒谬的） philosophy and new science greatly incited（煽动，激励） writers to make new explorations on human natures and human relationships. The French symbolism（象征主义）, appearing in the late 19

36、th century, heralded（预示着，先驱） modernism. After the First World War, all kinds of literature trends of modernism appeared: expressionism, surrealism, futurism, Dadaism（达达主义 崇尚虚无的艺术派别）, imagism and stream of consciousness. Towards the 1920s, these trends converged（聚合） into a mighty torrent of modernist

37、 movement, which swept across the whole Europe and America. The major figures that were associated with this movement were Kafka, Picasso, Pound, Webern, Eliot, Joyce and Virginia woolf. Modernism was somewhat curbed（抑制） in the 1930s. But after the Second World War, a variety of modernism, or post-m

38、odernism, like existentialist literature, theater of the absurd, new novels and black humor, rose with the spur of the existentialist idea that " the world was absurd, and the human life was an agony（苦恼）." Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its t

39、heoretical base. The major themes of the modernist literature are the distorted（扭曲的）, alienated（疏远的） and ill relationships between man and nature, man and society, man and man, and man and himself. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private than on the public, more on the subjective than

40、on the objective. They are mainly concerned with the inner being of an individual. Therefore, they pay more attention to the psychic（精神的，灵魂的） time than the chronological （按时间顺序的）one. In their writings, the past, the present and the future are mingled （混合）together and exist at the same time in the co

41、nsciousness of an individual. Modernism is, in many aspects, a reaction against realism. It rejects rationalism, which is the theoretical base of realism; it excludes from its major concern the external, objective, material world, which is the only creative source of realism; by advocating a free ex

42、perimentation（实验） on new forms and new techniques in literary creation, it casts away almost all the traditional elements in literature such as story, plot, character, chronological narration, etc., which are essential to realism. As a result, the works created by the modernist writers are often lab

43、eled as anti-novel, anti-poetry and anti-drama.Page 316 The first three decades of this century were golden years of the modernist novel. In stimulating the technical innovations of novel creation, the theory of the Freudian and Jungian psycho-analysis played a particularly important role. With the

44、notion that multiple levels of consciousness existed simultaneously in the human mind, that one's present was the sum of his past, present and future, and that the whole truth about human beings existed in the unique, isolated, and private world of each individual, writers like Dorothy Richardso

45、n, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf concentrated all their efforts on digging into the human consciousness. They had created unprecedented stream-of-consciousness novels such as Pilgrimage（19151938）by Richardson, Ulysses（1922）by Joyce, and Mrs. Dalloway （1925）by Woolf. One of the remarkable features o

46、f their writings was their continuous experimentation on new and sophisticated techniques in novel writing, which made tremendous impacts on the creation of both realistic and modernist novels in this century. James Joyce is the most outstanding stream-of-consciousness novelist; in Ulysses, his ency

47、clopedia-like masterpiece, Joyce presents a fantastic picture of the disjointed, illogical, illusory, and mental-emotional life of Leopold Bloom, who becomes the symbol of every-man in the post World-War-I Europe.Page 317 The most celebrated （有名望的）dramatists in the last decade of the 19th century we

48、re Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, who, in a sense, pioneered the modern drama, though they did not make so many innovations in techniques and forms as modernist poets or novelists. Wilde expressed a satirical（讽刺的） and bitter（充满仇恨的） attitude towards the upper-class people by revealing their cor

49、ruption（腐败）, their snobbery（势利）, and their hypocrisy（虚伪）, in his plays, especially in his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Shaw is more important figure in drama than Wilde. He is considered to be the best-known English dramatist since Shakespeare. His works are examples of the p

50、lays inspired by social criticism. John Galsworthy carried on this tradition of social criticism in his plays. By dramatizing social and ethical （伦理，道德）problems, Galsworthy made considerable achievements in his plays. The Silver Box（1906）, and Strife（1910斗争）, are such examples, in which Galsworthy p

51、resents not only realistic pictures of social injustice, but also the workers' heroic struggles against their employers. Page 399 The Romantic Period, one of the most important periods in the history of America literature, stretches form the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil W

52、ar. It started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book and ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called " the American Renaissance."Page 402 Transcendentalism （超越论，先验论） has been defined philosophically as " the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively（直觉的）, or of attaining knowledge transcending（超越） the reach of the senses." Emerson once proclaimed in a speech," Nothing is at last sacred（神圣的） but the integrit