英美文学文学术语

文学术语汇编

(

考研用

)1

1.

Literature of the absurd: (

荒诞派文学

)

The term is applied to a number of works in drama

and prose fiction which have in common the sense that the human condition is essentially absurd,

and

that

this

condition

can

be

adequately

represented

only

in

works

of

literature

that

are

themselves absurd. The current movement emerged in France after the Second World War, as a

rebellion against essential beliefs and values of traditional culture and traditional literature. They

hold the belief that a human being is an isolated existent who is cast into an alien universe and the

human life in its fruitless search for purpose and meaning is both anguish and absurd.

2.

Theater of the absurd: (

荒诞派戏剧

)

belongs to literature of the absurd. Two representatives

of this school are Eugene Ionesco, French author of The Bald Soprano (1949) (

此作品中文译名

<

秃 头歌女

>), and Samuel Beckett, Irish author of Waiting for Godot (1954) (

此作品是荒诞派戏

剧代表作

<

等待戈多

>).

They

project

the

irrationalism,

helplessness

and

absurdity

of

life

in

dramatic forms that reject realistic settings, logical reasoning, or a coherently evolving plot.

3.

Black comedy or black humor: (

黑色幽默

)

it mostly employed to describe baleful, na?

ve, or

inept characters in a fantastic or nightmarish modern world playing out their roles in what Ionesco

called a

“

tragic farce

”

, in which the events are often simultaneously comic, horrifying, and absurd.

Joseph

Heller

’

s

Catch-22

(

美国著名作家约 瑟夫海勒

<

二十二条军规

>)

can

be

taken

as

an

example of the employment of this technique.

文学术语汇编

2

4.

Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement

（唯美主义）

: it began to prevail in Europe at the

middle of the 19th century. The theory of

“

art for art

’

s sake

”

was first put forward by some

French artists. They declared that art should serve no religious, moral or social purpose. The two

most

important

representatives

of

aestheticists

in

English

literature

are

Walt

Pater

and

Oscar

Wilde.

5.

Allegory

（寓言）

: a tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent

abstract ideas or moral qualities, such as John Bunyan

’

s The Pilgrim

’

s Progress. An allegory is a

story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

6.

Fable

（寓言）

: is a short narrative, in prose or verse, that exemplifies an abstract moral thesis or

principle of human behavior. Most common is the beast fable, in which animals talk and act like

the

human

types

they

represent.

The

fables

in

Western

cultures

derive

mainly

from

the

stories

attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave of the sixth century B. C.

7.

Parable

（寓言）

: is a very short narrative about human beings presented so as to stress analogy

with a general lesson that the narrator is trying to bring home to his audience. For example, the

Bible contains lots of parables employed by Jesus Christ to make his flock understand his preach.

(

注意以 上三个词在汉语中都翻译成语言，但是内涵并不相同，不要搞混

)

8.

Alliteration

（头韵）

: the repetition of the initial consonant sounds. In Old English alliterative

meter, alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line, such as in Beowulf.

9. Consonance is the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants but with a change in the

intervening vowel, such as “live and love”.

10. Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowel, especially in stressed syllables, in a

sequence of n

earby words, such as “child of silence”.

11.

Allusion

（典故）

is a reference without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person,

place, or event, or to another literary work or passage. Most literary allusions are intended to be

recognized by the generally educated readers of the aut

hor’s time, b

ut some are aimed at a special

group.

12. Ambiguity

（复义性）

: Since William Empson

（燕卜荪）

published Seven Types of Ambiguity

《复义七型》

）

, the term has been widely used in criticism to identify a deliberate poetic device:

the use of a single word or expression to signify two or more distinct references, or to express two

or more diverse attitudes or feeling.

文学术语汇编

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13. Antihero

（反英雄）

：

the chief character in a modern novel or play whose character is totally

different from the traditional heroes. Instead of manifesting largeness, dignity, power, or heroism,

the antihero is petty, passive, ineffectual or dishonest. For ex

ample, the heroine of Defoe’s Moll

Flanders is a thief and a prostitute.

14. Antithesis

（对照）

：

(a figure of speech)An antithesis is often expressed in a balanced sentence,

that is, a sentence in which identical or similar syntactic structure is used to express contrasting

ideas. For example,

“

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy

（独身生活）

has no pleasures.

”

by

Samuel Johnson obviously employs antithesis.

15. Archaism

（拟古）

：

the literary use of words and expressions that have become obsolete in the

common speech of an era. For example, the translators of the King James Version of Bible gave

weight and dignity to their prose by employing archaism.

16. Atmosphere

（氛围）

: the prevailing mood or feeling of a literary work. Atmosphere is often

developed,

at

least

in

part,

through

descriptions

of

setting.

Such

descriptions

help

to

create

an

emotional climate to establish the reader

’

s expectations and attitudes.

文学术语汇编

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17.

Ballad

（民谣）

：

it

is

a

song,

transmitted

orally,

which

tells

a

story.

It

originated

and

was

communicated orally among illiterate or only partly literate people. It exists in many variant forms.

The most common stanza form, called ballad stanza is a quatrain in alternate four- and three-stress

lines; usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. Although many traditional ballads probably

originated in the late Middle Age, they were not collected and printed until the eighteenth century.

18. Climax

：

as a rhetorical device it means an ascending sequence of importance. As a literary

term, it can also refer to the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story

’

s turning

point. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increase of tension in the plot are

known

as

the

rising

action.

All

action

after

the

climax

is

referred

to

as

the

falling

action,

or

resolution. The term crisis is sometimes used interchangeably with climax.

19. Anticlimax

（突降）

：

it denotes a writer

’

s deliberate drop from the serious and elevated to the

trivial and lowly, in order to achieve a comic or satiric effect. It is a rhetorical device in English.

20. Beat Generation

（垮掉一代）

：

it refers to a loose-knit group of poets and novelists, writing in

the

second

half

of

the

1950s

and

early

1960s,

who

shared

a

set

of

social

attitudes

–

antiestablishment,

antipolitical,

anti- intellectual,

opposed

to

the

prevailing

cultural,

literary,

and

moral values, and in favor of unfettered self-realization and self- expression. Representatives of the

group include Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. And most famous literary

creations produced by this group should be Allen Ginsberg’s long poem Howl and Jack Kerouac’s

On the Road.

文学术语汇编

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21. Biography

（传记）

：

a detailed account of a person

’

s life written by another person, such as

Samuel Johnson

’

s Lives of the English Poets and James Boswell

’

s Life of Samuel Johnson.

22. Au tobiography

（自传）

：

a person

’

s account of his or her own life, such as Benjamin Franklin

’

s autobiography.

24. A parody

（模仿）

imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary

work, or the distinctive style of a particular author, or the typical stylistic and other features of a

serious literary genre, and deflates the original by applying the imitation to a lowly or comically

inappropriate subject.

第

23

个应 该是

blank verse

但系统总说含有不允许的关键字， 所以一直发不上来，很郁闷，

我把目前编好的一起发到公开邮箱去，大家到那里下载。< /p>

文学术语汇编

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25. Celtic Revival also known as the Irish Literary Renaissance

（爱尔兰文艺复兴）

identifies the

remarkably creative period in Irish literature from about 1880 to the death of William Butler Yeats

in 1939. The aim of Yeats and other early leaders of the movement was to create a distinctively

national literature by going back to Irish history, legend, and folklore, as well as to native literary

models. The major writers of this movement include William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, John

Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey and so on.

26.

Characters

（人物）

are

the

persons

represented

in

a

dramatic

or

narrative

work,

who

are

interpreted

by

the

reader

as

being

endowed

with

particular

moral,

intellectual,

and

emotional

qualities

by

inferences

from

the

dialogues,

actions

and

motivations.

E.

M.

Forster

divides

characters into two types: flat character, which is presented without much individualizing detail;

and

round

character,

which

is

complex

in

temperament

and

motivation

and

is

represented

with

subtle particularity.