名词解释(14).docx

名词解释名词解释 1 Ballad: (1) Ballad is a story in poetic form to be sung or recited. (2) Ballads were passed down from generation to generation. (3) Robin Hood is a famous ballad singing the goods of Robin Hood. Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 19th century English ballad. 2 Epic: (1) Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes. (2) Beowulf is the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. John Milton wrote three great epics: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. 3 Romance: (1) Romance is a popular literary form in the medieval England. (2) It sings knightly adventures or other heroic deeds. (3) Chivalry (such as bravery, honor, loyalty, generosity, and kindness to the weak and poor) is the spirit of romance. 4 Alliteration: (1) Alliteration means a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a line or group. (2) Alliteration is a traditional poetic device in English literature. (3) Robert Frosts poem Acquainted with the Night is a case in point: “I have stood still and stooped the sound of feet”. 5 Robin Hood: (1) Robin Hood is a legendary hero of a series of English ballads, some of which date from at least the 14th century. (2) The character of Robin Hood is many-sided. Strong, brave and intelligent, he is at the same time tender-hearted and affectionate. (3) The dominant key in his character in his hatred for the cruel oppression and his love for the poor and downtrodden. (4) Another feature of Robins view is his reverence for the king. Robin Hood was a peoples hero as King Arthur was a nobles hero. 6 The Heroic Couplet: It refers to a rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines. 7 Blank Verse: (1) Bland verse is verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. (2) It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton. (3) It is extensively employed in English poetry of the Renaissance. 8 Free Verse: (1) Free Verse means the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without paying attention to conventional rules of meter. (2) Free verse was originated by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. (3) Their purpose was to free themselves from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate instead the free rhythms of natural speech. (4) Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass is, perhaps, the most notable example. 9 Allegory: (1) Allegory is a story told to explain or teach something, especially a long and complicated story with an underlying meaning different from the surface meaning of the story itself. In other words, an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. (2) Allegorical novels use extended metaphors to convey moral meanings or attack certain social evils. Characters in these novels often stand for different values such as virtue and vice. (3) Bunyan The Pilgrims Progress, Goldings Lord of the Flies and Melvilles Moby Dick are three examples of this kind. 10 Shakespearean sonnet: (1) Sonnet is the one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in Europe. (2) A sonnet is a lyric consisting of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme. (3) Shakespeares sonnets are well-known. His sonnets represent the finest poetic craftsmanship of Elizabethan poetry. The themes of his sonnets are about love, friendship, and the destructive effects of time, the quickness of physical decay, and the loss of beauty, vigor and love. 11 Spenserian stanza: (1) it is the creation of Edmund Spenser. (2) It refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc. (3) Spensers The Faerie Queene was written in this kind of stanza. 12 Stanza: (1) Stanza is a group of lines of poetry, usually four or more, arranged according to a fixed plan. (2) The stanza is the unit of structure in a poem and poets do not vary the unit within a poem. 13 Meter: It refers to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The analysis of the meter is called scansion(格律分析)。 14 Soliloquy: (1) Soliloquy, in drama, means a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud. (2) In the line “To be, or not to be, that is the question”, which begins the famous soliloquy from Shakespeares Hamlet. In this soliloquy Hamlet questions whether or not life is worth living, and speaks of the reasons why he does not end his life. 15 Dramatic monologue: (1) Dramatic monologue, in literature, refers to the occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience. (2)Robert Brownings “My Last Duchess” is a typical example in which the duke, speaking to a non-responding audience, reveals not only the reasons for his disapproval of the behavior of his former duchess, but some tyrannical and merciless aspects of his own personality as well. 16 Irony: Irony is a literary or rhetorical device in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what one says or does and what one means or what is generally understood. It is a mode of expression that calls attention to the characters knowledge and that of the audience. 17 Narration: Like description, narration is a part of conversation and writing. It 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. 18 Foreshadowing: (1) Foreshadowing, in drama, means a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come.(2) In Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, Romeos expression of fear foreshadows the catastrophe to come. 19 Narrative poem: (1) A narrative poem refers to a poem that tells a story. (2) It may consist of a series of incidents, as in John Miltons Paradise Lost. 20 Conceit: (1) Conceit is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. (2) Conceit is extensively employed in John Donnes poetry. 21 Metaphysical poetry: (1) Metaphysical poetry is commonly used to name the work of the 17th-century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. (2) With a rebellious spirit, the metaphysical poets tried to break away from the conventional fashion of the Elizabethan love poetry. (3) The diction is simple as compared with that of the Elizabethan of the Neoclassical periods, and echoes the words and cadences of common speech. (4) The imagery is drawn from actual life. 22 University Wits: (1) University Wits refer to a group of scholars during the Elizabethan Age who graduated from either 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 wits”. (2) Thomas Greene, Thomas Kyd, John Lily and Christopher Marlowe were among them. (3) They paved the way, to some degree, for the coming of Shakespeare. 23 Renaissance: (1) The Renaissance refers to the transitional period from the medieval to the modern world. It first started in Italy in the14th century. (2) It was stimulated by a series of historical events. (Such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classics, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation, and the economic expansion). (3) The word “Renaissance” means “rebirth”. It meant the reintroduction into Western Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome. (4) The essence of the Renaissance is Humanism. Attitudes and feelings which had been characteristic of the 14th and 15th centuries persisted well down into the era of Humanism and Reformation. (5)The English Renaissance didnt begin until the reign of Henry .It was regarded as Englands Golden Age, especially in literature.(6) The real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading dramatist. 24 Humanism: (1) Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. (2) 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 perform wonders. 25 The Enlightenment Movement: (1) It was a progressive intellectual movement that flourished in France and swept through Western Europe in the 18th century. (2) The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance from the 14th century to the mid-17the century. (3) Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. (4)It celebrated reason of rationality, equality and science, It advocated universal education, Literature at the time became a very popular means of public education. (5) Famous among the great enlighteners in England were those great writers like John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, the two pioneers of familiar essays, Jonathan Swift, Richard Bringsley Sheridan, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson. 26 Neoclassicism: (1) In the field of literature, the 18th-century Enlightenment Movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works. This tendency is known as neoclassicism. (2) The neoclassicists held that all forms of literature were to be modeled after the classical works of the ancient Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil and those of the contemporary French ones. (3) Neoclassicism emphasizes such artistic ideals as order, logic, restrained emotion, accuracy and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity. 27 Sentimentalism: (1) It is a term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain. (2) In literature it denotes overmuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by “pathetic” indulgence. (3) The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith is a case in point. 28 The Graveyard School: (1) It refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentation or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as themes.(2) Thomas Gray is considered to the leading figure of this school and his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is its most representative work. 29 Elegy: (1) Elegy has typically been used to refer to reflective poems that lament the loss of something or someone, or death more generally, although in Elizabethan times it was also used to refer to certain love poems. (2) Elegies written in English frequently take the form of the pastoral elegy. 30 Satire: (1) Satire means a kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general. (2) The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter. (3) Swifts Gullivers Travels is a great satire of the then English society from different aspects. 31 Didactic: (1) Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it deliberately teaches some moral lesson. The use of literature for such teaching is one of its traditional justifications. (2) Most modern literary works during the Enlightenment period tended to be didactic. 32 Farce(闹剧、滑稽剧)：It refers to a play full of ridiculous happenings, absurd actions, and unreal situations, meant to be very funny. 33 Aside(旁白)：(1) Aside refers to words spoken by an actor which the other actors are supposed not to hear.(2) An actors asides are usually spoken the audience. 34 Criticism: (1) The term refers to analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of works of literature in light of existing standards of taste, or with the purpose of creating new standards. (2) There are two approaches to literary criticism. Theoretical criticism is the study of principles governing fiction, poetry, and drama with the aim of defining the distinct nature of literature. Practical criticism is the threefold act of reading and experiencing a literary work, judging its worth, and interpreting its meaning. 35 English Romanticism: (1) In the mid-18th century, a new literary movement called Romanticism came to Europe and then to England. (2) It was characterized by a strong protest against the bondage of neoclassicism, which emphasized reason, order and elegant wit. Instead, romanticism gave primary concern to passion, emotion, and natural beauty. (3) Romantic literature is characteristic by such qualities as a deep love of nature, an indulgence in the self and the individual, and a overwhelming interest in the supernatural, the mysterious and the gothic. (4) The English Romantic period is and age of poetry. Major romantic poets include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Bryon, Shelly and Keats. Romanticism prevailed in England from 1798 to 1837. 36 American Romanticism: (1) American Romanticism is one of the most important periods in the history of American literature that stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War. (2) It is a rebellion against the objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the feelings, intuitions and emotions are more important than reason and common sense. They emphasize individualism, placing the individual against the group. They affirm the inner life of the self, and cherish strong interest in the past, the wild, the remote, the mysterious and the strange. They stress the element “Americanness” in their works. (3) It starts with the publication of Washington Irvings The Sketch Book and ends with Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass. (4) Being a period of the great flowering of American literature, it is also called “the American Renaissance”. (5) American Romanticists include such literary figures as Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Cullen Brant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and some others. 37 Lake Poets (school): In English literature Lake Poets refer to such Romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey who lived in the Lake District. They come to be known as the Lake School or “Lakers”. Their poetry concerns nature, the mysterious and the past. 38 Gothic Novel: (1) Gothic Novel, a type of romantic fiction that predominated the late 18th century, was one phase of the Romantic Movement. (2) Gothic Novel is a kind of story of mystery and horror set in lonely places. It concerns things which are grotesque, violent, mysterious, supernatural and horrifying