英国文学史名词解释
2007-08-12 20:25阅读：
61.
Figurative language: Language that is not
intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. By appealing to the
imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at
the world. Figurative language consists of such figures of speech
as hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron矛盾修饰法, personification,
simile, and synecdoche.
62. Figure of
speech: A word or an expression that is not meant to be interpreted
in a literal sense. The most common kinds of figures of
speech—simile, metaphor, personification, and metonymy—involve a
comparison between unlike things.
63. Flashback: A
scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that
interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier.
64. Foil衬托: A
character who sets off another character by contrast.
65.
Foot: It is a rhythmic unit, a
specific combination of stressed and unstressed syllables.
66.
Foreshadowing:
The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what will
happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and to
build suspense. Sometimes foreshadowing also prepares the reader
for the ending of the story.
67.
Free Verse:
Verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular
pattern.
68.
Hyperbole: A
figure of speech using exaggeration, or overstatement, for special
effect.
69.
Iamb抑扬格: It is
the most commonly used foot in English poetry, in which an
unstressed syllable comes first, followed by a stressed
syllable.
70.
Iambic
pentameter: A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each
foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in
English poetry.
71.
Image: We usually think with words, many of our thoughts
come to us as pictures or imagined sensations in our mind. Such
imagined pictures or sensations are called images.
72. Imagery: Words
or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader’s mind.
Images can appeal to other senses as well: touch, taste, smell, and
hearing.
73. Imagism: It’s a
poetic movement of England and the U.S. flourished from 1909 to
1917.The movement insists on the creation of images in poetry by
“the direct treatment of the thing” and the economy of wording. The
leaders of this movement were Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.
74. Incremental
repetition: The repetition of a previous line, or lines but with a
slight variation each time that advances the narrative stanza by
stanza. This device is commonly used in ballads.
75. In medias res: A
technique of plunging into the middle of a story and only later
using a flashback to tell what has happened previously. In medias
res is Latin for “in the middle of things”.
76. Inversion: The
technique of reversing, or inverting, the normal word order of a
sentence. Writers may use inversion to create a certain tone or to
emphasize a particular word or idea. A poet may invert a line so
that it fits into a particular meter or rhyme scheme.
77. Invocation: At
the beginning of an epic (or other poem) a call to a muse, god, or
spirit for inspiration.
78.
Irony: A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated
and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and
what actually happens. Three kinds of irony are (1) verbal irony,
in which a writer or speaker says one thing and means something
entirely different; (2) dramatic irony, in which a reader or an
audience perceives something that a character in the story or play
does not know; (3) irony of situation, in which the writer shows a
discrepancy between the expected results of some action or
situation and its actual results.
79. Kenning代称: In
Old English poetry, an elaborate phrase that describes persons,
things, or events in a metaphorical and indirect way.
80. Local Colorism:
Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence
felt in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. It may be
defined as the careful attegogoms in speech, dress or behavior
peculiar to a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local
colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world
with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. The
social and intellectual climate of the country provided a
stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in
America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and
interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to
idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the
truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the
realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of
the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and
fertilize the imagination of author.
81. Lost Generation:
This term has been used again and again to describe the people of
the postwar years. It describes the Americans who remained in Paris
as a colony of “ expatriates” or exiles. It describes the writers
like Hemingway who lived in semi poverty. It describes the
Americans who returned to their native land with an intense
awareness of living in an unfamiliar changing world. The young
English and American expatriates, men and women, were caught in the
war and cut off from the old values and yet unable to come to terms
with the new era when civilization had gone mad. They wandered
pointlessly and restlessly, enjoying things like fishing, swimming,
bullfight and beauties of nature, but they were aware all the while
that the world is crazy and meaningless and futile. Their whole
life is undercut and defeated.
82. Lyric: A poem,
usually a short one, that expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts
or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the
lyric.
83. Masque: An
elaborate and spectacular dramatic entertainment that was popular
among the English aristocracy in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries. Masques were written as dramatic poems and make use of
songs, dances, colorful costumes, and startling stage
effects.
84.
Melodrama通俗剧: A drama that has
stereotyped characters, exaggerated emotions, and a conflict that
pits an all-good hero or heroine against an all-evil villain. The
good characters always win and the evil ones are always punished.
Also, each character in a melodrama had a theme melody, which was
played each time he or she made an appearance on stage.
85. Metaphor: A
figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that
are basically dissimilar. Unlike simile, a metaphor does not use a
connective word such as like, as, or resembles in making the
comparison.
86. Metaphysical
poetry: 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 structure, irregular meter,
colloquial language, elaborate imagery, and a drawing together of
dissimilar ideas.
87. Meter音步: A
generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in
poetry.
88. Metonymy: A
figure of speech in which something very closely associated with a
thing is used to stand for or suggest the thing itself.
89. Miracle play: A
popular religious drama of medieval England. Miracle plays were
based on stories of the saints or on sacred history.
90. Mock epic: A
comic literary form that treats a trivial subject in the grand,
heroic style of the epic. A mock epic is also referred to as a
mock-heroic poem.
91.
Morality play: An outgrowth
of miracle plays. Morality plays were popular in the 15th and 16th
centuries. In them, virtues and vices were personified.
92. Motif: A
recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work
of literature. A motif generally contributes in some way to the
theme of a short story, novel, poem, or play. At times, motif is
used to refer to some commonly used plot or character type in
literature.
93. Motivation: The
reasons, either stated or implied, for a character’s behavior. To
make a story believable, a writer must provide characters with
motivation sufficient to explain what they do. Characters may be
motivated by outside events, or they may be motivated by inner
needs or fears.
94. Multiple Point
of View: It is one of the literary techniques William Faulkner
used, which shows within the same story how the characters reacted
differently to the same person or the same situation. The use of
this technique gave the story a circular form wherein one event was
the center, with various points of view radiating from it. The
multiple points of view technique makes the reader recognize the
difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.
95. Myth: A story,
often about immortals and sometimes connected with religious
rituals, that is intended to give meaning to the mysteries of the
world. Myths make it possible for people to understand and deal
with things that they cannot control and often cannot see. A body
of related myths that is accepted by a people is known as its
mythology. A mythology tells a people what it is most concerned
about.
96.
Narration: Like description, narration is a
part of conversation and writing. Narration is the major technique
used in expository writing. Such as autobiography. Successful
narration must grow out of good observation, to-the-point selection
from observation, and clear arrangement of details in logical
sequence, which is usually chronological. Narration gives an exact
picture of things as they occur.
97. Narrative poem:
A poem that tells a story. One kind of narrative poem is the epic,
a long poem that sets forth the heroic ideals of a particular
society.
98. Narrator: One
who narrates, or tells, a story. A story may be told by a
first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or minor
character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person
narrator, someone who is not in the story at all. The word narrator
can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience
through the play, often commenting on the action and sometimes
participating in it.
99. Naturalism: An
extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the
sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not
hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity.
100. Neoclassicism:
A revival in the 17th agogo of order, balance, and harmony in
literature.
101.
Nonet: the nine-line stanza. Spenserian stanza:
ababbcbcc.
102. Nonfiction: It
refers to any prose narrative that tells about things as the
actually happened or that presents factual information about
something. The purpose of this kind of writing is to give a
presumably accurate accounting of a person’s life. Writers of
nonfiction use the major forms of discourse: description (an
impression of the subject); narration (the telling of the story);
exposition (explanatory information); persuasion (an argument to
influence people’s thinking). Forms: autobiography, biography,
essay, story, editorial, letters to the editor found in newspaper,
diary, journal, travel literature.
103. Novel: A
book-length fictional prose narrative, having may characters and
often a complex plot.
104. Octava: the
eight-line stanza. 2 quatrains/ 2 triplets + 1 couplet.
105. Ode: A complex
and often lengthy lyric poem, written in a dignified formal style
on some lofty or serious subject. Odes are often written for a
special occasion, to honor a person or a season or to commemorate
an event.
106. Onomatopoeia:
The use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests
its meaning.
107.
Oxymoron: a figure
of speech that combines opposite or contradictory ideas or terms.
An oxymoron suggests a paradox, but it does so very briefly,
usually in two or three words.
108. Paradox: A
statement that reveals a kind of truth, although it seems at first
to be self-contradictory and untrue.
109. Parallelism: (a
figure of speech) The use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that
are similar or complementary in structure or in meaning.
Parallelism is a form of repetition.
110. Parody: The
humorous imitation of a work of literature, art, or music. A parody
often achieves its humorous effect through the use of exaggeration
or mockery. In literature, parody can be make of a plot, a
character, a writing style, or a sentiment or
theme.
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