英美文学重要名词解释英汉解释综合整理版.docx

1、英美文学重要名词解释英汉解释综合整理版英美文学重要名词解释-英汉解释-综合整理版名词解释 ENGLISH &AMERICAN LITERATURE-DEFINITION OF TERMSEpic: A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.Beowulf is the greatest national epic of the Anglo-Saxons. John Milton wr

2、ote three great epics: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.Alliteration:reptition of the initial letter or first sound of several words, marking stressed syllables in a line of poetry or prose. Used to emphasize meaning and thus can be effectively employed in oratory.Legend: A song

3、 or narrative handed down from the past, legend differs from myths on the basis of the elements of historical truth they contain.Romance罗曼史/骑士文学: 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,

4、generosity, loyalty and kindness to the weak and poor) is the spirit of romance.Ballad（民谣）: 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 th

5、e Ancient Mariner is a 19th century English ballad.The Heroic Couplet(英雄双韵体) Heroic couplet refers to the rhymed couplet in iambic pentameterHeroic couplets are lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme in pairs (aa, bb, cc).The Heroic Couplet: 1) It means a pair of lines of a type once common in Englis

6、h poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines. 2) The rhyme is masculine. 3) Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer.Iambic pentameter: A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an iambthat is, an unstressed syllable followed by

7、a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry.抑扬格五音步诗：一行诗包含五个音步，每个音步都是抑扬格。Sonnet(十四行诗)Definition: A sonnet is a lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of fourteen iambic pentameter lines, restricted to a definite rhyme scheme.Spenserian stanza: A nine-line

8、stanza with the following rhyme scheme: ababbabcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line is written in iambic hexameter and is called an alexandrine. 斯宾塞诗节：斯宾塞诗节是有九行组成的诗节，其押韵形式通常为ababbabcc。 前八行通常是抑扬格五音步，第九行是抑扬格六音步，有称作亚历山大诗行。Soliloquy: In drama, an extended speech del

9、ivered by a character alone onstage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.独白：独白是戏剧中一个人物单独做的台词，这个人物通过他或她直接跟观众说话来表白自己的心声，就好像是自己在大声的思考。Renaissancemeans“rebirth”.ItmeantthereintroductionintoWesternEuropeofthefullculturalheritageo

10、fGreeceandRome.TheessenceoftheRenaissanceisHumanism.TherealmainstreamoftheEnglishRenaissanceistheElizabethandrama.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 str

11、ucture, irregular meter, colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of dissimilar ideas.玄学诗：约翰多恩的诗或17世纪其他诗人写的相同风格的诗。玄学诗多使用巧智，结构精巧，韵律多变，语言口语化，意象奇特，把不同的事物进行并置。Blank verse: Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.Enlightenment: With the advent of the 18th century, in England, as

12、 in other European countries, there sprang into life a public movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment on the whole, was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeois against feudalism. The social inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalis

13、m. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people.启蒙主义：启蒙主义是在18世纪在英国发生的。总体上，启蒙主义是当时的资产阶级对封建主义，社会的不平等、死寂、偏见和其他的封建残余的一种反对。通过将科学的各个分支与人民的日常生活和需要联系起来，启蒙主义者们努力将他们变成为人民大众服务的工具Neo-classicism新古典主义 It is an Eng

14、lish tendency in the Enlightenment period Narration(叙述)1)Like description, narration is a part of conversation and writing. Narration is the major technique used in expository writing, such as autobiography.2) Successful narration must grow out of good observation, to-the-point selection and clear a

15、rrangement of details in logical sequence, which is usually chronological.3) Narration gives an exact picture of things as they occur.Critical Realism(批判现实主义)1)The Critical Realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the beginning of fifties.2)The realists first and foremost set the

16、mselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils.3) Charls Dickens is the most important critical realist.Modernism：It was a complex and diverse internat

17、ional movement in all the creative arts originating about the end of the 19th century. It provided the greatest creative renaissance of the 20th century. It was made up of many facets，such as symbolism，surrealism （超现实主义）， cubism （立体主义），expressionism，futurism （未来主义），ectStream of consciousness: “Strea

18、m-of-Consciousness” or “interior monologue”, is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a characters thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in 1922 by the

19、 Irish novelist James Joyce. Those novels broke through the bounds of time and space, and depicted vividly and skillfully the unconscious activity of the mind fast changing and flowing incessantly, particularly the hesitant, misted, distracted and illusory psychology people had when they faced reali

20、ty. The modern American writer William Faulkner successfully advanced this technique. In his stories, action and plots were less important than the reactions and inner musings of the narrators. Time sequences were often dislocated. The reader feels himself to be a participant in the stories, rather

21、than an observer. A high degree of emotion can be achieved by this technique. 意识流：“意识流”或“内心独白”是现代写作技巧之一。它是像是人物亲身经历的那样来模仿人物思想、感觉、回忆、和头脑中意象来写作的一种手法。爱尔兰作家詹姆斯乔伊斯于1922年首次使用这种方法。意识流小说打破了时间和空间的限制，生动地描写人物不断变化的潜意识活动，尤其是当人们面对现实时的犹豫和充满困惑、幻觉和心不在焉的那种心理。美国作家福克纳对这种技巧做了进一步的发展，在他的故事中，行为和情节相比叙述者的反应和内心活动已经不那么重要了，时间顺序被

22、打破，读者仿佛置身于故事中而不仅仅是一个观察者。American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of

23、serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of

24、grace form God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had an enduring influence on American literature. Symbolism: Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. Its a literary movement that arose in France in the l

25、ast half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writers, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. Its one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.象征主义：使用象征来写作的一种

26、技巧。象征主义在19世纪后半页在法国兴起，对英国作家产生了很大的影响，尤其是在20世纪诗歌方面。它让诗人把非常复杂的思想浓缩成一个意象甚至一个词。它是诗人在创作中使用的最有力的手段。American Romanticism: The Romantic Period covers the first half of the 19th century. A rising America with its ideals of democracy and equality, its industrialization, its westward expansion, and a variety of

27、foreign influences were among the important factors which made literary expansion and expression not only possible but also inevitable in the period immediately following the nations political independence. Yet, romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in

28、value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and mans societies a source of corruption. Romantic values were prominent in American politics, art, and philosophy until the Civil War. The romantic exaltation of the individual suited

29、 the nations revolutionary heritage and its frontier egalitarianism.American Transcendentalism: Transcendentalists terrors from the romantic literature of Europe. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of Americagogopirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the

30、 Universe. They stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with Gods overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on

31、the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses. Emersons Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” and his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as Americas “Declaration of Intellectual

32、Independence”.free verse: poetry without a fixed beat or regular rhyme scheme or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms, the ebb and flow or cadences of speech, and the counterpoint of stressed and unstressed syllables. Psychological Realism: It is the realistic writing that probes deeply into the complexities of characters thoughts and motivations. Henry James is considered the founder of psychological realism. His novel The Ambassadors is considered to be a masterpiece of psychological realism.American Realism: in American literature, the