nyan【优质】英国文学第一学期名词解释

英国文学第一学期名词解释

Allegory:

a story or description in which the characters and events symbolize some

deeper underlying meaning, and serve to spread moral teaching.

Alliteration:

A poetic device where the first consonant sounds or any vowel sounds in

words or syllables are repeated.

Allusion:

A reference to a familiar literary or historical person or event, used to make an

idea more easily understood.

Ballad:

A short

poem

that tells a simple story and has a repeated refrain. Ballads were

originally intended to be sung. Early ballads, known as folk ballads, were passed down

through generations, so their authors are often unknown. Later ballads composed by

known authors are called literary ballads.

Blank Verse:

unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.

Carpe Diem

:

A Latin term meaning

theme

of

Poetry

,

especially lyrics. A

carpe diem

poem

advises the reader or the person it addresses to live

for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment.

Two celebrated

carpe diem

poems are Andrew Marvell's

Herrick's poem beginning

Conceit:

an unusually far- fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile presenting a

surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings.

Connotation:

The impression that a word gives beyond its defined meaning.

Couplet:

Two lines of

Poetry

with the same

rhyme

and

Meter

, often expressing a

complete and self-contained thought.

Denotation:

The definition of a word, apart from the impressions or feelings it creates in

the reader.

Dramatic Monologue

Epic:

A long

narrative

poem

about the adventures of a

hero

of great historic or legendary

importance. The setting is vast and the action is often given cosmic significance through

the intervention of supernatural forces such as gods, angels, or demons. Epics are typically

written in a

classical

style

of grand simplicity with elaborate

Metaphor

s and allusions that

enhance the symbolic importance of a hero's adventures.

Frame story:

a story in which another story is enclosed or embedded as a “tale within a

tale”, or which contains several such tales.

Foot:

The smallest unit of rhythm in a line of

Poetry

. In English-language poetry, a foot is

typically one accented syllable combined with one or two unaccented syllables.

There are many different types of feet. When the accent is on the second syllable of a two

syllable word (con-

tort

), the foot is an

tor

-ture) is a

unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable as in in- ter-

cept

, and

accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables as in

su

-i-cide.

Grub Street Writers:

Hack writers in the Eighteenth Century England. Many of them

lived on Grub Street. They took writing as a profession.

Heroic Couplet:

A rhyming

couplet

written in iambic pentameter (a

Verse

with five

iambic feet).

Humanism:

A philosophy that places faith in the dignity of humankind and rejects the

medieval perception of the individual as a weak, fallen creature.

believe in the perfectibility of human nature and view reason and education as the means

to that end.

Iambic pentametre:

If a line of a poem has five feet, and in each foot there are two

syllables, the first being unstressed, the second, stressed, the line is an iambic pentameter

line.

Irony:

In literary

criticism

, the effect of language in which the intended meaning is the

opposite of what is stated.

Metaphysical Poetry: The body of

poetry

produced by a group of seventeenth-century

English writers called the

Andrew Marvell. The Metaphysical Poets made use of everyday speech, intellectual

analysis, and unique

imagery

. They aimed to portray the ordinary

conflict

s and

contradictions of life. Their

poem

s often took the form of an

argument

, and many of them

emphasize physical and religious love as well as the fleeting nature of life.

Elaborate

conceit

s are typical in metaphysical poetry.

Metaphysical Poets: a group of 17

th

century English poets whose work is notable for its

ingenious use of intellectual concepts in surprising conceits, strange paradoxes, and

far-fetched imagery.

Meter:

In literary

criticism

, the repetition of sound patterns that creates a rhythm

in

Poetry

. The patterns are based on the number of syllables and the presence and

absence of

accent

s. The unit of rhythm in a line is called a

Foot

. Types of meter are

classified according to the number of feet in a line. These are the standard English lines:

Monometer, one foot; Dimeter, two feet; Trimeter, three feet; Tetrameter, four feet;

Pentameter, five feet; Hexameter, six feet (also called the Alexandrine); Heptameter,

seven feet (also called the

The most common English meter is the iambic pentameter, in which each line contains ten

syllables, or five iambic feet, which individually are composed of an unstressed syllable

followed by an accented syllable.

Oedipus Complex:

A son's amorous obsession with his mother. The phrase is derived

from the story of the ancient Theban

hero

Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and

married his mother.

Oxymoron:

A phrase combining two contradictory terms. Oxymorons may be intentional

or unintentional.

Paradox:

A statement that appears illogical or contradictory at first, but may actually

point to an underlying truth.

Poetic License:

Distortions of fact and literary

convention

made by a writer

—

not always

a

poet

—

for the sake of the effect gained. Poetic license is closely related to the concept of

Renaissance:

The period in European history that marked the end of the Middle Ages. It

began in Italy in the late fourteenth century. In broad terms, it is usually seen as spanning

the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, although it did not reach Great Britain,

for example, until the 1480s or so. The Renaissance saw an awakening in almost every

sphere of human activity, especially science, philosophy, and the arts. The period is best

defined by the emergence of a general philosophy that emphasized the importance of the

intellect, the individual, and world affairs. It contrasts strongly with the medieval

worldview, characterized by the dominant concerns of faith, the social collective, and

spiritual salvation.

Rhyme:

When used as a noun in literary

criticism

, this term generally refers to a

poem

in

which words sound identical or very similar and appear in parallel positions in two or more

lines. Rhymes are classified into different types according to where they fall in a line or

stanza or according to the degree of similarity they exhibit in their spellings and sounds.

Some major types of rhyme are

In a masculine rhyme, the rhyming sound falls in a single

accent

ed syllable, as with

and

as with

the two unaccented syllables that follow:

Romance

: is a tale in verse, embodying the life and adventures of knights. Romance was

characteristic of the early feudal age, as it reflected the spirit of chivalry, i. e., the quality

and ideal of knightly conduct. The content of romance was usually about love, chivalry,

and religion. It generally concerns knights and involves a large amount of fighting as well

as a number of miscellaneous adventures;

Scansion:

The analysis or

poem

to determine its

Meter

and often

its

rhyme

scheme. The most common system of scansion uses

accent

s (slanted lines

drawn above syllables) to show stressed syllables, breves (curved lines drawn above

syllables) to show unstressed syllables, and vertical lines to separate each

Foot

.