英美文学术语

1 TERMS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

1. Allegory

A narrative in which the characters and the setting stand for abstract qualities and ideas. The writer

of an allegory is not primarily trying to make the characters and their actions realistic, but to make

them representative of ideas or truths.

2. Alliteration (头韵)

The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonant clusters, in a group of words .

Some-times the term is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds.

3. Assonance（腹韵，半谐音）

The repetition of similar vowel sounds , especially in poetry . Here is an example of assonance

from John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn : “Thou foster child of silence and slow time .”

4. Ballad

A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung .

5. Blank Verse

Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

6. Byronic Hero

The hero with the characteristic of Lord Byron or the hero in his poetry, who is contemptuous of

and rebelling against conventional morality, or defying fate, and who is a mixture of good and evil,

selflessness and sin, isolated, rebellious, passionate and self-reliant, etc.

7. Characterization

The personality a character displays; also, the means by which a writer reveals that personality.

Generally, a writer develops a character in one or more of the following ways:

1)through the character’s actions;

2)through the character’s thoughts and speeches;

3)through a physical description of the character;

4)through the opinions others have about the character;

5)through a direct statement about the character telling what the writer thinks of him or her.

8. Classicism

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 places

value on reason, clarity, balance , and order . Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal

themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal

themes .

9. Climax

The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative . The climax usually marks a

story’s turning point.

10. Comedy

In general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the

protagonist and society.

11. Comedy of Manners

A term most commonly used to designate the realistic, often satirical comedy. In the stricter sense

of the term, the type is concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial, highly

sophisticated society. The fashions, manners and outlook on life of this social group are reflected.

The characters are more likely to be types than individualized personalities. Plot, though often 2 involving a clever handling of situation and intrigue, is less important than atmosphere, dialogue

and satire, The dialogue is witty and finished, often brilliant. Satire is directed against the

deficiencies of typical characters.

12. Conceit

A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things.

13. Consonance（谐辅音）

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, as in this line from Thomas

Gray’s “ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ”: “ And all the air a solemn stillness holds . ”

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 .

14. Couplet

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

15. Dramatic Monologue

A poem in which there is an imaginary speaker, at some specific and critical moment, addressing

an imaginary, silent but identifiable audience, thereby unintentionally revealing his or her essential

personality or temperament. In Browning’s My Last Duchess, for example, he penetrates to the

depth the psychology of his characters and through their own speeches, he analyzes and reveals

the innermost secret of their lives.

16. Heroic Couplet

An iambic pentameter couplet.

17. Elegy

A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual.

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. Fable

A story with a moral lesson, often employing animals who talk and act like human beings.

20 The Graveyard School

A group of 18th-century poets, and among them are Thomas Gray, Robert Blair, Thomas Parnell,

and Edward Young, who wrote on funeral subjects.

21. Iambic Pentameter

A poetic line consisting of five verse feet (penta-is from a Greek word meaning “five”), with each