英美文学名词解释

1. epic(史诗)

Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of goods and heroes.

2>Epic poems are not merely entertaining stories of legendary or historical heroes; they summarize and express the nature or ideals of an entire nation at a significant or crucial period of its history.

3>Beowulf is the greatest national Epic of the Anglo-Saxons.

2. Sonnet(十四行诗)

It is a lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal or recited and characterized by its presentation of a dramatic or exciting episode in simple narrative form.

2>it is one of the most conventional and influential forms of poetry in Europe.

3>Shakespeare’s sonnets are well-known.

3. Blank Verse(无韵诗或素体广义地说)

Blank verse is unrhymed poetry. Typically in iambic pentameter, and as such, the dominant verse forms of English dramatic and narrative poetry since the mid-16th century.

4. Renaissance(文艺复兴)

The word “Renaissance” means “rebirth”, it meant the reintroduction into westerm Europe of the full cultural heritage of Greece and Rome.

2>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.

3> the real mainstream of the English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading dramatist.

5. Neoclassicism(新古典主义)

In the field of literature, the enlightenment movement brought about a revival of interest in the old classical works.

2>this tendency is known as neoclassicism. The Neoclassicists held that 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> they believed that the artistic ideals should be order, logic, restrained emotion and accuracy, and that literature should be judged in terms of its service to humanity.

6. Sentimentalism(感伤主义文学)

Sentimentalism is a pejorative 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.

7. Romanticism(浪漫主义)

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>In the history of literature. Romanticism is generally regarded as the thought that designates a literary and philosophical theory which tends to see the individual as the very center of all life and experience. 4> The English romantic period is an age of poetry which prevailed in England from 1798 to 1837. The major romantic poets include Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley.

8. Gothic novel(哥特式小说)

Gothic novel is a type of romance very popular late in the 18th century and at

the beginning of the 19th century.

2> Gothic novel emphasizes things which are grotesque, violent, mysterious, supernatural, desolate and horrifying.

3> Gothic, originally in the sense of “medic, not classical”, with its descriptions of the dark, irrational side of human nature, Gothic novel has exerted a great influence over the writers of the Romantic period.

9. Narration

It is a synonym for story-telling. 2> in fiction, narrative passages are to be distinguished from descriptions and scenes, in narrative passages the chronology is condensed so that relatively few words will encompass the events of an extended period of time. Most writers use narrative passages to fill in the links between events. There were two types of narration, first-person narration and third-person narration.

10. Critical Realism(批判现实主义)

Critical Realism is a term applied to the realistic fiction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

2> It means the tendency of writers and intellectuals in the period between 1875 and 1920 to apply the methods of realistic fiction to the criticism of society

and the examination of social issues.

3> Realist writers were all concerned about the fate of the common people and described what was faithful to reality.

4> Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist.