British Literature英国文学名词解释，背诵第一章：Old and Medieval British Literature(中古时期英国文学)Alliteration (头韵): It is the repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry. In 0ld English alliterative meter, alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line, such as in Beowulf.Ваllаd (民谣): It is a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza has four lines; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballads often open abruptly, present brief description and use concise dialogue.Old English period (the Anglo-Saxon period): 1) The Old English period, extended from the invasion of Celtic England by Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) in the first half of the fifth century to the conquest of England in 1066 by the Norman French under the leadership of William the Conqueror. 2)Only after they had been converted to Christianity in the seventh century did the Anglo-Saxons, whose earlier literature had been oral, begin to develop a written literature.Consonance (假韵): It refers to the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. Sometimes the term refers to the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words. Sometimes the term is used for slant rhyme (or partial rhyme)in which initial and final consonants are the same but the vowels different: litter/ letter , green/groan.Couplet (两行诗): It refers to the two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. A heroic couplet is an iambic r pentameter couplet.Epic (史诗): Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes,Imagery (意象) : Words or phrases that create pictures or images in the readers‘mind. Images can appeal to other senses as well: touch, taste, smell and hearing.Kenning (隐喻表达法): In old English poetry, an elaborate phrase that descries persons, thing or events in a metaphorical and indirect way.Legend (传奇): A song or narrative handed down from the past. Legend differs from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain.Ottava Rima ( 八行体): A form of eight-line stanza, the rhyme scheme is abababcc.Romance (罗曼史/骑士文学): Any imagination literature that is set in an idealized world and deals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters. Originally, the term referred to a medieval tale dealing with the loves and adventures of kings, queens, knights and ladies, and including unlikely or supernatural happenings. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (高文爵士与绿衣骑士) is the best of medieval romances. John Keats‘The Eve of St. Agnes (圣爱格尼斯节前夕) is one of the greatest metrical romances ever written.Simile (明喻): A comparison made between two things through the use of a specific word of comparison, such as like, as, than or resemble, and the comparison must be between two essentially unlike things.Understatement (含蓄): It is a figure of speech in literature writing. It deliberately represents something as very much less in magnitude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be. The effect usually is ironic.Middle English period: The four and a half centuries between the Norman Conquest in 1066, which effected radical changes in the language, life, and culture of England, and about 1500, when the standard literary language had become recognizably modern English, that is, similar to the language we speak and write today.Arthurian legend: It is a group of tales (in several languages) that developed in the Middle Ages concerning Arthur, semi-historical king of the Britons and his knights. The legend is a complex weaving of ancient Celtic mythology with later traditions around a core of possible historical authenticity.第二章：British Literature of the Renaissance Period （文艺复兴时期英国文学）Allegory (寓言): 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.Aphorism (格言): A concise, pointed statement expressing a wise or clever observation about life.Blank verse (无韵体诗): Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetries, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton.Comedy (喜剧): In general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy ,amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.Essay (散文): A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point of view. An essay may be serious or humorous, tightly organized or rambling, restrained or emotional. The two general classifications of essay are: the informal essay and the formal essay. An informal essay is usually brief and is written as if the writer is talking informally to the readers about some topic, using a conversational style and a personal or humorous tune. By contrast, a formal essay is tightly organized, dignified in style and serious in tone.Foreshadowing (预兆): The use of hints or clues in a narrative lo suggest what will happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and to build suspense. Sometimes foreshadowing also prepares the reader for the ending of the story.Humanism ( 人文主义): Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life , but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.Paradox(似非而是): A statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true.Morality Play (道德剧) : An outgrowth of Miracle Plays. Morality Play was popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. In it, virtues and vices were personified.Meter (格律) : A generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. The analysis of the meter is called scansion.Miracle Play (奇迹剧) : A popular religious drama of medieval England. Miracle Plays were based on stories of the saints or sacred history.Narrative poem (叙述诗): A Narrative poem refers w a poem that tells a story. It may consist of a series of incidents, as in Homer's The Iliad and The Odysseus, and John Milton's Paradise Lost.Pastoral (牧歌): A type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic life. Two pastoral poems are Christopher Marlow's The Passionate Shepherd to His Lover and Sir Walter Raleigh's The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd.Ralegh’s poem might be called anti-pastoral because of its realistic tone.Poetry (诗歌): The most distinctive characteristics of poetry are form and music. Poetry is concerned with not only what is said but how it is said. Poetry evokes emotions rather than express facts. Poetry means having a poetic experience. Imagination is also an essential quality of poetry. Poetry often leads us to new perceptions, new feelings and experiences of which we have not previously been aware.Quatrain (四行诗): Usually a stanza or poem of four lines. A quatrain can also be any group of four lines unified by a rhyme scheme. Quatrains usually follow an abab, abba or abcb rhyme scheme.Renaissance (文艺复兴): The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism. Humanism is the essence of Renaissance. The real mainstream of English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading dramatist.Soliloquy (独白): In drama, an extended speech delivered by a character alone on stage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.Sonnet (十四行诗): A fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter.A sonnet generally expresses a single theme or idea.Spenserian Stanza (斯宾塞诗节):A nine-line stanza with the flowing rhyme scheme: ababbcbcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line is written in iambic hexameter and is called an alexandrine.Stanza (诗节):It’s a structural divi sion of a poem, consisting of a series of verse line which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.Terza rima (三行体): An Italian verse form consisting of a series of thee-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza.Tragedy (悲剧): In general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end. Unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic.Trochee (抑扬格):A metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.University Wits (大学才子):University Wits refers to a group of scholars during the Elizabethan Age who graduated from cither Oxford or Cambridge. They came to London with the ambition to become professional writers. Some of them later became famous poets and playwrights. They were called" University Wis". Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, Jhon Lyly and Christopher Marlowe were among them. They paved the way, to some extent, for the coming of Shakespeare.Utopia (乌托邦): It is written in a conversation form between More and Hythloday, a returned voyager. It is divided into two books. The first book contains a long discussion on the social conditions of England. The second book describes in detail an ideal communist society, Utopia.Francis Bacon: Francis Bacon (1561-1626), was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. His essays are famous for its brief and wise quotations and the most widely-read works are his essays “Of Studies”, “Of Truth” and “Of Death”.第三章：The 17th Century -The Period of Revolution and Restoration (17世纪资产阶级革命和王朝复辟时期)Assonance (押韵): The repetition of similar vowel sounds, especially in poetry. Assonance is often employed to please the ear or emphasize certain sounds.Carpe Diem (及时行乐):A tradition dating back to classical Greek and Latin poetry and particularly popular among English Cavalier poets. Carpe Diem means literally “seize the day”, that is, “live for today”.Didactic literature (教诲文学):Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it deliberately teaches some moral lessons. The use of literature for such teaching is one of its traditional justifications.Elegy (挽歌): A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.Genre (体裁):A literary species or form, e. g·, tragedy, epic, comedy, novel, essay, biography and lyric poem.Metaphor (暗喻): A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar. Unlike simile, a metaphor does not use a connective word such as like, as, or resemble in making the comparison.Metaphysical poetry (玄学派诗歌) : The poetry of John Donne and other 17th century poets who wrote in a similar style. Metaphysical poetry is characterized by verbal wit and excess, ingenious structure, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing-together of dissimilar ideas.Conceit (奇想): Conceit is a far-fetched simile or metaphor; a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. Conceit is extensively employed in John Donne's poetry.Paradise Lost: Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poetJohn Milton:The poem concerns the Christian story of “the Fall of Man”: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to " justify the ways of God to men and elucidate the conflict between God's eternal foresight and free will.blank verse: Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter (as used in Shakespearean plays). The first known use of blank verse in the English language was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to make full use of the potential of blank verse, and also established it as the dominant verse form for English drama in the age of Elizabeth I and James I. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare, who wrote much of the content of his plays in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and Milton, whose Paradise Lost was written in blank verse.第四章: The 18th Century- -The Age of Enlightenment in England (18世纪英国启蒙运动阶段)Aside (旁白): In drama, line spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. An aside is meant to be heard by the other characters onstage.Classicism (古典主义运动): A movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and the places value on reason, clarity, balance, and order. Classicism, with its once for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.Enlightenment Movement (启蒙运动):Enlightenment is an intellectual movement that originates in Europe and comes to America in the 18th century. It stresses the power of human reason, the importance of methods and discoveries instead of God. Its purpose is to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. It celebrates reason or rationality, equality and science. It advocates universal education.Denouement (结局): The outcome of a plot. The denouement is that part of a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem in which conflicts are resolved or unraveled, and mysteries and secrets connected with the plot are explained.Epistolary novel (书信体小说): An epistolary novel is a novel told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters. The usual form is the letter, but diary entries, newspaper clipping and other documents are sometimes used. The epistolary novel's reliance on subjective points of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel.Farce (闹剧):A type of comedy based on a ridiculous situation, often with stereotyped characters. The humor in a farce is largely slapstick--that is, it often involves crude physical action. The characters in a farce are often the butts of practical jokes.Fiction (小说) : Prose narrative based on imagination, usually a novel or a short story.Gothic Romance (哥特小说): A type of novel that flourished in the lat-18th and early-19th century in England. Gothic romances are mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they are usually against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles.The Graveyard School (墓地派诗歌): The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentations or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as themes. Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy Witten in a Country Churchyard is his most representative work.Mock epic (讽刺史诗): A comic literary form that treats a trivial subject in the grand, heroic style of the epic. A mock epic is also referred to as a mock heroic poem.Neoclassicism (新古典主义): A revival in the 17th and 18th centuries of classical standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. John Dryden and Alexander Pope were major exponents of the neoclassical school.Novel (小说): A book-length fictional prose narrative, having many characters and often a complex plot.Pre-romanticism (前浪漫主义): It originated among the conservative groups of men and letters as a reaction against Enlightenment and found its most manifest expression in the "Gothic Novel”. The term arose from t he fact that the greater part of such romances were devoted to the medieval times.Refrain (叠句): A word phrase, line or group of lines repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza. Refrains are often used in ballads and narrative poems to create a songlike rhythm and to help build suspense. Refrains can also serve to emphasize a particular idea.Satire (讽刺): A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses and wrong doings of individuals, groups, intuitions, or humanity in general. The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the readers to see their points of view through the force of laughter.Sentimentalism (感伤主义): Sentimentalism came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the part of certain enlighteners in social reality. It is a pejorative term to describe false orsuperficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain. In literature, it denotes " pathetic indulgence”.Theme (主题): The general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. All the elements of a literary work- plot, setting, characterization, and figurative language---contribute to the development of its theme.English Enlightenment: With the advent of the 18th century in England, there sprang into life a progressive intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. The enlighteners held the common faith in human rationality, eternal justice and natural equality. The great enlighteners in Britain were those great writers like Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson.British neoclassicism: In English literature, the stylistic trend between the Restoration and the advent of romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century is referred to as neoclassicism. The term " neoclassicism” is derived from the convictions of the leading poet-critics of the age that literary theory and practice should follow the models established by Greek and Latin writers. These critics held that writers should emphasize types rather than individual characteristics; adhere to " nature " by aspiring to order and regularity; and strictly observe the unities of time, place, and action in dramatic composition. Major British neoclassicists are John Dryden, Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson."A Modest Proposal":"A Modest Proposal" is a famous satire written by Jonathan Swift. Assuming the cool tone of an impartial outsider, the author suggests that children of the poor Irish people be sold at one year old as food for the English nobles, Written with much conciseness and terseness, the " proposal" is by far the most consummate artistic expression of Swift’s indignation toward the terrible oppression and exploitation of the Irish people by the English ruling class.Picaresque novel: 1) Derived from the Spanish word picara, meaning " rogue" or " rascal”, the term generally refers to a basically realistic and often satiric work of fiction chronicling the career of an engaging, lower-class rogue-hero, who takes to the road for a series of loose, episodic adventures, sometimes in the company of a sidekick. 2) Well-known examples of the picaresque novel are Cervantes Don Quixote (1605) and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749).第五章The Age of Romanticism (浪漫主义时期的英国文学)Byronic hero (拜伦式的英雄) :Byronic hero refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, he would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.Canto (篇/章): A section or division of a long poem. In English poetry , Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock (《夺发记》)and Byron's Don Juan (《唐璜》) are divided into cantos.Fable (寓言): A fable is a short story, often with animals as its characters. It illustrates a moral.Lake Poets (湖畔派诗人); Romantic poets such poets as Willian Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District came to be known as the Lake School or Lake poets.Lyric (抒情诗): Lyric is a poem, usually a short one, which expresses a speaker’s personal thought and feelings. The elegy, ode, and Bonnet are all forms of the lyric.Ode (颂歌) : Usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern. The ode often praises people, the arts of music and poetry, natural scenes, or abstract concepts, The Romantic poets used the ode to explore either personal or general problems; they often started with a meditation on something in nature ,as Keats' Ode to a Nightingale or Shelley's Ode to the West Wind.Romanticism (浪漫主义): A movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music, and art in Western culture during most of the 19th century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. Romanticism gave primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty. The English Romantic period is an age of poetry.tercet: Tercet refers to a unit of three verse lines, usually rhyming either with each other or with neighboring lines and three-line stanzas of terza rima and of the villanelle are known as tercets.Charles Lamb: Charles Lamb (1775- -1834) was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb. Lamb has been referred to as the most lovable figure in English literature, and his influence on the English essay form surely cannot be overestimated.第六章The Victorian Period- English Critical Realism (维多利亚时期英国批判现实主义文学)Allusion (暗指/典故): A reference to a person, a pace, an event or a literary work that a writer expects the readers to recognize and respond to. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature or religion.Antagonist (反面人物): A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine.Character (角色):In appreciating a short story, characters are indispensable elements. Characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work. Forst divides characters into two types: flat character, which is presented without much individualizing detail; and round character, which is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity.Critical Realism (批判现实主义): The Critical Realism of the I9h century flourished in the 1840s and in the beginning of the 1850s. The realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find way to eradicate social evils. Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.Dramatic Monologue (戏剧独白): A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker's personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem. Robert Browning's My Last Duchess is a typical example.Flashback (倒叙): A scene in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier.Narration (叙述) : Like description, narration is a part of conversation and writing. Narration is the major technique used in expository writing, such as autobiography Successful narration must grow out of good observation, to-the-point selection from observation and clear arrangement of details in logical sequence, which is usually chronological. Narration gives an exact picture of things as they occur.Narrator (陈述者) : One who narrates or tells a story. A story may be told by a first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or minor character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator, someone who is not in the story at all. Narrator can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience through the play, often commenting on the action and sometimes participating in it.Psychological Novel (心里小说):It refers to a kind of novels that dwell on a complex psychological development and present much of the narration through the inner workings of a character's mind. Thackeray's characterization of Rebecca Sharp is very much psychological.Point of view (叙述角度): The perspective from which the story is told. The most obvious point of view is probably the first person or "I". The omniscient narrator knows everything, may reveal the motivations, thoughts and feelings of the characters, and gives the reader information. With a limited omniscient narrator, the material is presented from the point of view of a character, in the third person. The objective point of view presents the action and the characters' speech, without comment or emotion. The reader has to interpret them and uncover their meanings. A narrator may be trustworthy or untrustworthy, involved or uninvolved.Plot (情节): Plot is the first and most obvious quality of a story. It is the sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem. For the readers, the plot is the underlying patter in a work of fiction, the structural element that gives it unity and order. For the writer, the plot is the guiding principle of selection and arrangement. Conflict, a struggle of some kind, is the most important element of plot.Protagonist (正面人物): It refers to the hero or central character who is often hindered by some opposing force either human or animal in accomplishing his or her objectives.Bildungsroman (成长小说): Bildungsroman defines a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, and in which characters' change is thus extremely important. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity. Charles Dickens' David Copperfield is a classic Bildungsroman.Victorian period: 1) Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides with the reign of Queen Victoria who ruled over England from 1836 to 1901. The period has been generally regarded as one of the most glorious in the English history. 2) In this period, class struggle was very tense. As a result, a new literary trend- critical realism appeared. The criticism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the early fifties. The critical realists described with much vividness and great artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticized the capitalist system from a democratic view point. In this period, the novel became the most widely read and the most vital and challenging expression of progressive thought. The Victorian age also produced a host of great prose writers. The poetry of this period was mainly characterized by experiments with new styles and new ways of expression. 3) Victorian literature as a product of its age, naturally took on its quality of magnitude and diversity. It was many-sided and complex, and reflected both romantically and realistically the great changes that were going on in people's life and thought.第七章：The 20th Century British Literature (20世纪英国文学)Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement (唯美主义): It began to prevail in Europe in the middle of the 19th century. The theory of " art for art's sake" was first put forward by the French poet Theophile Gautier. They declared that art should serve no religious, moral or social purpose. The two most important representatives of aestheticists in English literature are Walt Pater and Oscar Wilde.Black comedy or Black humor (黑色幽默): It is mostly employed to describe baleful, naive, or inept characters in a fantastic or nightmarish modern world playing out their roles in what Ionesco call a" tragic fare”, in which the events are often simultaneously comic, horrifying, and absurd. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 can be taken as an example of the employment of this technique.。
