-
A Glossary of Poetic Terms
Accent
（重音）
Another
word
for
stress.
The
emphasis
placed
on
a
syllable.
Accent is frequently used to denote stress in
describing verse.
Aesthetic
ism
（唯美主义）
A
literary
movement
in
the
19
th
century
of
those
who believed in “art for
art?s sake” in opposition to the
utilitarian
doctrine
that
everything
must
be
morally
or
practically
useful.
Key
figures of the aesthetic
movement were Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.
Alexandrine
（亚历山大
诗体）
The
most
common
meter
in
French
poetry
since
the
16
th
century:
a
line
of
twelve
syllables.
The
nearest
English
equivalent
is
iambic
hexameter.
The
Alexandrine
being
a
long
line,
it
is
often
divided
in
the
middle
by
a
pause
or
caesura
into
two
symmetrical
halves
called
hemistiches.
Alexander
Pope?s
“Essay
on
Criticism” offers a typical
example.
Allegory
（讽喻）
A
pattern
of
reference
in
the
work
which
evokes
a
parallel action of
abstract ideas. Usually allegory uses recognizable
types,
symbols and narrative patterns
to indicate that the meaning of the text is
to
be
found
not
in
the
represented
work
but
in
a
body
of
traditional
thought,
or
in
an
extra-literary
context.
Rrepresentative
works
are
Edmund
Spenser?s
The
Faerie
Queene
,
John
Bunyan?s
The
Pilgrim’s
Progress.
Alliteration
（头韵）
A rhyme-pattern produced inside the poetic line by
repeating consonantal sounds at the
beginning of words. It is also called
initial rhyme.
A
llusion
（
引
喻
）
A
passing
reference
in
a
work
of
literature
to
something outside itself. A writer may
allude to legends, historical facts
or
personages,
to
other
works
of
literature,
or
even
to
autobiographical
details.
Literary
allusion
requires
special
explanation.
Some
writers
include
in
their
own
works
passages
from
other
writers
in
order
to
introduce implicit
contrasts or comparisons. T.S. Eliot?s
The Waste Land
is
of this kind.
Analogy
（类比）
The
invocation
of
a
similar
but
different
instance
to
that which is being
represented, in order to bring out its salient
features
through the comparison.
Anapest
（抑抑扬格）
A
trisyllabic
metrical
foot
consisting
of
two
unstressed syllables followed by a
stressed syllable.
Apostrophe
（顿呼）
A
rhetorical
term
for
a
speech
addressed
to
a
person, idea or thing with an intense
emotion that can no longer be held
back, often placed at the beginning of
a poem or essay, but also acting as
a
digression or pause in an ongoing argument.
Arcadia
（
< br>阿
卡
狄亚
）
A
mountainous
region
of
Greece
which
was
represented
as
the
blissful
home
of
happy
shepherds.
During
the
Renaissance
Arcadia
became
the
typical
name
for
an
idealized
rural
society
where
the
harmonious
Golden
Age
still
flourished.
Sir
Philip
Sidney?s prose
romance is entitled
Arcadia.
Assonance
（半谐音）
The
repetition of accented vowel sounds followed
by different consonant sounds.
Aubade
（晨曲）
A song
or salute at dawn, usually by a lover lamenting
parting at daybreak, for example,
J
ohn Donne?s “The Sun
Rising”.
Augustan
Age
:
may
refer
to
1)
The
period
in
Roman
history
when
Caesar Augustus was the
first emperor; 2) The period in the history of the
Latin
language
when
Caesar
Augustus
was
emperor
and
Golden-age
Latin was in use;
3) Augustan literature and Augustan poetry, the
early
18th
century
in
British
literature
and
poetry,
where
the
authors
highly
admired and emulated the original
Augustan Age.
Avant-
garde
(
先锋派
) A
military expression used in literature refers to a
group of modern artists and writers.
Their main concern is deliberate and
self-conscious
experimentation
in
writing
to
discover
new
forms,
techniques and
subject matter in the arts.
Ballad
（民谣）
A
narrative
poem
which
was
originally
sung
to
tell
a
story in simple colloquial language.
Ballad metre
(
民谣格律）
A quatrain of alternate four-stress and
three-
stress lines, usually roughly
iambic.
Ballad
stanza
（民谣体诗节）
A quatrain
that alternates tetrameter with
trimeter lines, and usually
rhymes
a b c b
.
Blank
verse
（无韵诗）
Verse
in
iambic
pentameter
without
rhyme
scheme, often used in
verse drama in the sixteenth century and later
used
for poetry.
Burlesque
（诙谐作品）
An
imitation
of
a
literary
style,
or
of
human
action,
that
aims
to
ridicule
by
incongruity
style
and
subject.
High
burlesque involves a high style for a
low subject, for instance, Alexander
Pope?s
The Rape of the
Lock.
Byronic
hero
（拜伦式英雄）
A
character
type
portrayed
by
George
Lord
Gordon
Byron
in
many
of
his
early
narrative
poems,
especially
Child Harold’s Pilgrimage
.
The Byronic hero is a brooding solitary, who
seeks exotic travel and wild nature to
reflect his superhuman passions. He
is
capable of great suffering and guilty of some
terrible, unspecified crime,
but bears
this guilt with pride, as it sets him apart from
society, revealing
the meaninglessness
of ordinary moral values. He is misanthropic,
defiant,
rebellious, nihilistic and
hypnotically fascinating to others.
Canto
（诗章）
A division of a long poem, especially
an epic. Dante?s
Divine
Comedy
, Byron?s
Don
Juan
and Ezra
Pound?s
The Cantos
are all
divided into these chapter-length
sections.
Carpe
Diem
（及时行乐）
A poem
advising someone to “seize the day”
or
“seize the hour”. Usually the genre is addressed
by a man to a young
woman who is urged
to stop prevaricating in sexual or emotional
matters.
Cavalier
poets
（骑士诗人）
English
lyric
poets
during
the
reign
of
Charles
I. Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, Thomas
Carew, Edmund
Waller and Robert Herrick
are the representatives of this group. Cavalier
poetry
is
mostly
concerned
with
love,
and
employs
a
variety
of
lyric
forms.
Cockney school of poetry
（伦敦佬诗派）
A derisive term for
certain
London-based
writers,
including
Leigh
Hunt,
Percy
Bysshe
Shelley,
William Hazlitt and John Keats. This
term was invented by the Scottish
journalist John Gibson Lockhart in an
anonymous series of article on
The
Cockney
School
of
Poetry,
in
which
he
mocked
the
supposed
stylistic
vulgarity of these writers.
Complaint
（怨诗）
A
poetic genre in which the poet complains, often
about his beloved. Geoffery Chaucer?s
“Complaint to His Purse”, Edward
Young?s “The Complaint”, or “Night
Thoughts”
are examples.
Conceit
（
< br>奇
思
妙
喻
）
Originally
it
meant
simply
a
thought
or
an
opinion.
The
term
came
to
be
used
in
a
derogatory
way
to
describe
a
particular
kind
of
far-fetched
metaphorical
association.
It
has
now
lost
this
pejorative
overtone
and
simply
denotes
a
special
sort
of
figurative
device. The
distinguishing quality of a conceit is that it
should forge an
unexpected comparison
between two apparently dissimilar things or ideas.
The
classic
example
is
John
Donne?s
The
Flea
and
A
Valediction:
Forbidding Mourning.
Didactic
poetry
（说教诗）
Poetry
designed
to
teach
or
preach
as
a
primary purpose.
Dirge
（挽歌）
Any song of mourning, shorter and less
formal than an
elegy.
Shakespeare?s
Full
Fathom
Five
in
The
Tempest
is
a
famous
example.
.
Dithyramb
（酒神颂歌）
A Greek choric hymn in honour of
Dionysus.
In general “dithyrambic” is
applied to a wildly enthusiastic song or
chant.
Eclogue <
/p>
（
牧
歌
）
A
pastoral
poem,
especially
a
pastoral
dialogue,
usually indebted to the Virgillian
tradition.
Elegy
（挽诗）
A poem of lamentation, concentrating on
the death of a
single
person,
like
Alfred
Tennyson?s
“In
Memoriam”,
Thomas
Gray?s
“Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard”, or W. B. Yeats?s “In Memory
of Major Robert Gregory”.
Epic
（
史
诗
）
A
long
narrative
poem
in
elevated
style,
about
the
adventures
of
a
hero
whose
exploits
are
important
to
the
history
of
a
nation.
The
more
famous
epics
in
western
literature
are
Homer
?s
Iliad
,
Virgil
?s
Aeneid,
Dante
?s
Divine Comedy
and John
Milton?s
Paradise Lost.
Epigram
（警句诗）
A
polished,
terse
and
witty
remark
that
packs
generalized knowledge into short
compass.
Epigraph
（铭文）
A
short
quotation
cited
at
the
start
of
a
book
or
chapter
to point up its theme and associate its content
with learning. Also
an inscription on a
monument or building explaining its purpose.
Epitaph
（墓志铭）
An
inscription
on
a
tomb
or
a
piece
of
writing
suitable
for
that
purpose,
generally
summing
up
someone?s
life,
sometimes in praise,
sometimes in satire. John Keats wrote an Epitaph
for
himself. It says, “Here lies one
whose name is writ in water.”
Epithet
（表述词语）
From
Latin
epitheton,
from
Greek
epitithenai
meaning “to add”, an adjective or
adjective cluster that is associated with
a
particular
person
or
thing
and
that
usually
seems
to
capture
their
prominent
characteristics. For example, “Ethelred the
unready”, or “fleet
-
footed
Achilles” in Alexander Pope?s version of
The Iliad.
Folk
ballad
（民间歌
谣）
A
narrative
poem
designed
to
be
sung,
composed
by
an
anonymous
author,
and
transmitted
orally
for
years
or
generations
before
being
written
down.
It
has
usually
undergone
modification through the process of
oral transmission.
Foot
（音步）
a
unit
of
measure
consisting
of
stressed
and
unstressed
syllables.
Free
verse
（自由诗）
Verse
released
from
the
convention
of
meter,
with its regular
pattern of stresses and line length.
Georgian
Poetry
：
the
title
of
a
series
of
anthologies
showcasing
the
work of a school of
English poetry that established itself during the
early
years
of
the
reign
of
King
George
V
of
the
United
Kingdom.
Edward
Marsh was the general editor of the
series and the centre of the circle of
Georgian poets, which included Rupert
Brooke. It has been suggested that
Brooke himself took a hand in some of
the editorial choices.
Graveyard
poets
（
墓
园
诗
人
）
Several
18th
century
poets
wrote
mournfully
pensive
poems
on
the
nature
of
death,
which
were
set
in
graveyards
or inspired by gloomy nocturnal meditations.
Examples of this
minor
but
popular
genre
are
Thomas
Parnell?s
“Night
-
Piece on
Death”,
Edward
Young?s
“Night
Thoughts”
and
Robert
Blair?s
“The
Grave”.
Thomas
Gray?s
“Elegy
Written
in
a
Country
Churchyard”
owes
something to this vogue.
Haiku
（
俳句）
A
Japanese
lyric
form
dating
from
the
13th
century
which consists of seventeen syllables
used in three
lines: 5/7/5. Several
20th
century
English
and
American
poets
have
experimented
with
the
form,
including Ezra Pound.
Heroic
couplet
（英雄双韵体）
Lines of iambic pentameter rhymed in
pairs.
Alexander
Pope
brought
the
meter
to
a
peak
of
polish
and
wit,
using
it
in
satire.
Because
this
practice
was
especially
popular
in
the
Neoclassic
Period
between
1660
and
1790,
the
heroic
couplet
is
often
called
the
“neoclassic
couplet”
if
the
poem
originates
during
this
time
period.
Heroic
quatrain
（英雄四行诗）
Lines
of
iambic
pentameter
rhymed
abab,
cdcd,
and
so
on.
Thomas
Gray?s
“Elegy
Written
in
a
Country
Churchyard” is a
notable example.
Hexameter
（六音步）
In
English versification, a line of six feet. A line
of iambic hexameter is called an
Alexanderine.
Iamb
（
抑
扬
格
）
The
commonest
metrical
foot
in
English
verse,
consisting of a weak stress followed by
a strong stress.
Iambic-
anapestic
meter
（
抑扬抑抑扬格）
A
meter which freely mixes
iambs and
anapests, and in which it might be difficult to
determine which
foot prevails without
actually counting.
Iambic
hexameter
（六音步抑扬格）
A line of
six iambic feet.
Iambic
pentameter
（五音步抑扬格）
A
line
of
five
iambic
feet.
It
is
the most pervasive
metrical pattern found in verse in English.
Iambic
tetrameter
（四音步抑扬格）
A line of four iambic feet.
Idyll
（田园诗）
A poem
which represents the pleasures of rural life.
Image,
imagery
（
意
象
）
A
critical
word
with
several
different
applications.
In
its
narrowest
sense
an
?image?
is
a
word
-picture,
a
description
of
some
visible
scene
or
object.
More
commonly,
however,
?imagery? refers
to figurative language in a piece of
literature; or all the
words which
refer to objects and qualities which appeal to the
senses and
feelings.
Imagism
（意象派）
A
self-conscious
movement
in
poetry
in
England
and
America
initiated
by
Ezra
Pound
and
T.E.
Hulme
in
about
1912.
Pound
described
the
aims
of
Imagism
in
his
essay
“A
Petrospect”
as
follows
:1)
Direct treatment of the ?thing? whether subjective
or objective.
2) To use absolutely no
word that does not contribute to the presentation.
3)
As
regarding
rhythm:
to
compose
in
the
sequence
of
the
musical
phrase, not in the
sequence of a metronome. Pound defined an ?Image?
as
?that which presents an intellectual
and emotional complex in an instant
of
time?. His haiku
-like two-line poem
In a Station of the Metro
is
often
quoted as the quintessence of
Imagism.
Irony
（反讽）
The
expression
of
a
discrepancy
between
what
is
said
and what is meant.
Lake
poets
（湖畔派诗人）
The three early
19th century romantic poets,
William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert
Southey, who
lived in the Lake District
of Cumbria in northern England. This term was
often applied in a derogatory way,
suggesting the provincialism of their
themes and interests.
Lyric
（
抒
情
诗
）
A
poem,
usually
short,
expressing
in
a
personal
manner
the
feelings
and
thoughts
of
an
individual
speaker.
The
typical
lyric
subject
matter
is
love,
for
a
lover
or
deity,
and
the
mood
of
the
speaker in
relation to this love.
Metaphysical
poets
（玄学派诗人）
Metaphysics is the
philosophy of
being and knowing, but
this term was originally applied to a group of
17
th
century
poets
in
a
derogatory
manner.
The
representatives
are
John
Donne,
George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Richard Crashaw
and John
Cleveland,
Andrew
Marvell
and
Abraham
Cowley.
The
features
of
metaphysical poetry are arresting and
original images and conceits, wit,
ingenuity, dexterous use of colloquial
speech, considerable flexibility of
rhythm and meter, complex themes, a
liking for paradox and dialectical
argument,
a
direct
manner,
a
caustic
humor,
a
keenly
felt
awareness
of
mortality, and a distinguished capacity
for elliptical thought and tersely
compact
expression.
But
for
all
their
intellectual
robustness
the
metaphysical poets are also capable of
refined delicacy, gracefulness and
deep
feeling, passion as well as wit. They had a
profound influence on the
course of
English poetry in the 20th century.
Meter
（格律）
The regular pattern of accented and
unaccented syllables.
The line is
divided into a number of feet. According to their
stress pattern
the
feet
are
classed
as
iambic,
trochaic, anapestic,
dactylic, spondaic
or
pyrrhic.
Metonymy
（借代）
A figure of speech: the substitution of
the name of
a thing by the name of an
attribute of it, or something closely associated
with it.
Monometer
（单音步诗行）
A
metrical line containing one foot.
Monologue
（独白）
A
single
person
speaking,
with
or
without
an
audience, is uttering a monologue. The
dramatic monologue is the name
given to
a specific kind of poem in which a single person,
not the poet, is
speaking.
Dramatic
Monologue
（
戏剧独白）
A
poem in which a poetic speaker
addresses either the reader or an
internal listener at length. It is similar to
the
soliloquy
in
theater,
in
that
both
a
dramatic
monologue
and
a
soliloquy
often
involve
the
revelation
of
the
innermost
thoughts
and
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
上一篇：双方保密协议
下一篇：铁道信号常用术语中英文对照