英国文学名词解释definition

Poetry is one of the three major types or genres of literature, the others being prose and drama.
Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas.
Types of poetry include narrative poetry（叙事诗）such as ballads（民谣）, epics, metrical
romances; dramatic poetry（戏剧诗）like dramatic monologues（独白诗） and dramatic
dialogues; lyrics（抒情诗） such as sonnets, odes（颂歌）, elegies（挽歌）and love poems.

A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem with a single theme, usually written in iambic
pentameter.
由十四行组成的抒情诗，通常由五步抑扬格诗行组成，表达单一的主题。

2 kinds of sonnet:
The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet皮特拉克或意大利十四行诗
:an 8-line octave and 6-line sestet with the octave rhyming abba abba , the sestet cde cde. The
octave raises a question, states a problem and the sestet answers the question, solves the
problem.
The Shakespearean or English sonnet: 3 4-line quatrains and a 2-line couplet rhyming
abab cdcd efef gg. Each of the three quatrains usually explores a different variation of the
main theme. The couplet presents a summarizing or concluding statement.

Ode a lyric poem of some length that honors an individual, a thing or a trait
dealing with a lofty theme in a dignified manner. The English odes are of three
types.

颂词是篇幅较长的抒情诗。风格庄严，主题崇高，用以向某人致敬或诵物志事。

Ode to the West Wind is of the horatian type: with stanza of uniform length and
arrangement. It consists of five 14-lined stanzas of iambic pentameter, each of the

stanza containing four tercets and a closing couplet. The rhyme scheme is aba,
bcb, cdc, ded, ee.

史诗Epic
A.
An extended narrative poem with a heroic or superhuman protagonist engaged in an
action of great significance in a vast setting (often including the underworld and
engaging the gods).
叙事体长诗，以宏大华丽的风格来颂扬某传奇英雄的伟业。
B. Examples: Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, John Milton's Paradise Lost, William
Wordsworth's The Prelude, and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

Poetry stresses on rhythm, imagery, emotion and imagination.
1. Meter 韵律
A fixed arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables in a foot。
主要有The iamb抑扬格trochee扬抑格, anapest抑抑扬格, dactyl扬抑抑格

Foot 音步 指诗歌保持节奏的不断重复的音节组合。
The number of feet:
Monometer 1 foot
Dimeter 2 feet
Trimeter 3 feet
Tetrameter 4 feet
Pentameter 5 feet
Hexameter 6 feet
Heptameter 7 feet

Octameter 8 feet

五步抑扬格Iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. It has an unrhymed line with 5 iambs or feet.
即每行有五个音步，每个音步都是抑扬格。
Iambic means the stress is on the second syllable, an example is the word repeat.
重读在第二个音节。
Pentameter shows us that a line has 5 feet or clusters of two syllables adding up to 10 syllables
a line. These feet are marked like this Hellohellohellohellohello.

2. Rhyme压韵
Rhyme is the identity of sound between words of verse lines.
A rhyme begins in an accented syllable. From the accented vowel of that syllable to the end,
the words intended to rhyme must be identical in sound, but the letter or letters preceding the
accented vowel may be unlike in sound e.g. save, grave.
End rhyme occurs when rhyming words appear at the ends of lines.
Internal rhyme occurs when rhyming words fall within a line.
Exact rhyme is the use of identical rhyming sounds, as in love and dove.
Approximate, or slant rhyme, is the use of sounds that are similar but not identical, as in
prove and glove.

A RHYME SCHEME韵脚is a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem or stanza. To
indicate a rhyme scheme, assign each final sound in the poem or stanza a different letter. In
other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines.

The following lines from Charlotte Bronte’s on the death of Anne Bronte have been marked:
There’s little joy in life for me, a
And little terror in the grave b
I’ve lived the parting hour to see a
Of one I would have died to save b
The rhyme scheme of this stanza is abab.

3. 头韵Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words.
eg: sweet smell of success;
“Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings, Leader beloved, and long he ruled”

4. 诗节 STANZA
A stanza is a group of lines in a poem, seen as a unit. Many poems are divided into stanzas
that are separated by spaces. Stanzas often function like paragraphs in prose. Each stanza
states and develops one main idea.
Stanzas are commonly named according to the number or lines found in them, as follows:
1. couplet: a two-line stanza
2. tercet: a three-line stanza
3. quatrain: a four-line stanza
4. cinquain: a five-line stanza
5. sestet: a six-line stanza
6. heptastich: a seven-line stanza
7. octave: an eight-line stanza

5. Blank verse 无韵诗（素体诗）
Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines.
不押韵的抑扬格五步音诗。

6. Free verse 自由诗
Poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern or meter.
Elements of Fiction
Fiction is a literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily
based on fact.
1. Character
(1) characters
The protagonist -----the central character
The antagonist -----the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends
To describe the relative degree a character was developed, critics refer them as
A flat character who is built around with a single trait or quality or idea.
A round character ----they change and grow and thus they are dynamic. Often they
exhibit contradictory traits and like real human beings, they frequently surprise us.
(2)

Methods of Characterization

Characterization is about how a character is revealed or developed.
2 basic ways to characterize: To tell and to show
Methods of characterization by telling
1) the use of name
2) appearance: dress and physical appearance
3) by the author: the author reveals the personality of the characters through a series of
editorial comments, including the thoughts and feelings that pass through the characters’
minds
Methods of characterization by showing
4) dialogue
5) action

2. Plot
Plot is a term to indicate how the events are arranged to affect the reader. It is an artificial
rather than a natural ordering of events.
It is composed of two basic aspects of narration:
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the sequence, i.e. the story told in chronological order, or with a lot of flash back, or in
psychic order;

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The development, i.e. whether in the traditional linear pattern (set- upexposition →
rising action complications → climax →falling action →resolution
or modernist way (little action, inner world depiction, dialogues, no development).
A work may have just one plot, or double plots, or multiple plots.
3. Setting
Setting is the background against which the action of a narrative occurs, referring both to the
time and place of the events in a story, including the specific time or period, geographic
location, cultural environment as well as social and political realities.
Setting is often established by description, but it may also be shown through character’s
action, dialogue or thinking. Although defined as the background, it can have great
significance in the story. It not only gives the reader the impression of verisimilitude
[ ?ver?s??m?l??tju:d ]真实, but may also function as “objective correlative” of the
internal life of the character. The setting can also affect characters or plot by creating a certain
atmosphere or mood, and help develop the theme either through suggestion or more direct
symbolism. When setting dominates, or when a piece of fiction is written largely to present
the manners and customs of a locality, the writing is often called Local Color writing or
Regionalism.
4. Theme
Theme is the central or dominating idea in a literary work, and the soul of the story. In
nonfiction prose it may be thought of as the general topic of discussion, the subject of the
discourse, the thesis. In poetry, fiction, and drama it is the abstract concept which is made

concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work. The theme
of a work may be pronounced explicitly, but more often it emerges indirectly through the
recurrence of motifs. Common themes of literature are about human nature and the most
important human experiences which are universal, covering the primary emotions and
relations in human life.
5. Point of View is the position or vantage-point from which the events of a story seem to be
observed and presented to us. The chief distinction usually made between points of view is
that between third-person narratives and first-person narratives.
1) Omniscient point of view
A third-person narrator may be omniscient, and therefore show an unrestricted knowledge of
the story’s events from outside or “above” them. The narrator even intrudes in the story with
personal opinion. This “all knowing” narrator firmly imposes his or her presence between the
reader and the story and retains complete control over the narrative but the narrator is not a
character in the story and is not involved in the plot.
For example：
The house was big, old, and Levin, though he lived alone, heated and occupied all of it. He
knew that it was even wrong and contrary to his new plans, but this house was a whole world
for Levin. It was the world in which his father and mother had lived and died. They had lived
a life which for Levin seemed the ideal of all perfection and which he dreamed of renewing
with his wife, with his family.
2) Limited third-person point of view

Another kind of third-person narrator may confine our knowledge of events to whatever is
observed by a single character or small group of characters,
For example, For Whom the Bell Tolls sticks firmly with one character's consciousness, that of
Robert Jordan:
mountains. Robert Jordan could walk well enough himself and he knew from following him
since before daylight that the old man could walk him to death. Robert Jordan trusted the man,
Anselmo, so far, in everything except judgment. He had not yet had an opportunity to test his
judgment, and, anyway, the judgment was his own responsibility.
The reader will only know Anselmo's thoughts and responses insofar as he reveals them
through his actions. But Robert Jordan's thoughts will be shared throughout the story. It's his
reactions and his interpretations of events that the reader will understand and follow.
3) first-person point of view
A focal character addresses the reader directly. He she tells the tale in his or her words, using
the first-person pronoun “I” and addresses the reader as “you”A first-person narrator’s point
of view will normally be restricted to his or her partial knowledge and experience, and
therefore will not give us access to other characters’ hidden thoughts. Many modern authors
have also used “multiple points of view”, in which we are shown the events from the
positions of two or more different characters.
6. Style

Style is any specific way of using language, which is characteristic of an author, school,
period, or genre. Particular style may be defined by their diction, tone, syntax, imagery,
rhythm, and use of figures of speech, or by any other linguistic feature.
Style is a combination of two elements:
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the idea to be expressed; and
The individuality of the author.
Bildungsroman（initiation stories）成长小说
a kind of novel that follows the development of the hero or heroine from childhood or
adolescence into adulthood, through a troubled quest for identity. The term comes from
Germany, where Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre (1795-6) set the pattern for later
bildungsromane.
Some Prominent Older Examples
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Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy
Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
Charles Dickens' Great Expectations
Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Some More Contemporary Examples
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C. S. Forester's Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

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J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series
Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Naturalism 自然主义
A more deliberate kind of realism, usually involving a view of human beings as
passive victims of natural forces and social environment. It emphasizes the negative
or bestial side of human nature , paying great attention to detailed description of the
trivial and common life scenes and environmental scenes.
Dramatic Monologue 戏剧独白
a kind of poem in which the speaker is imagined to be addressing a silent audience
Example: “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning
Dramatic monologue is a type of poem writing style in which a character, at some
specific and critical moment, addresses an identifiable but silent audience, thereby
unintentionally revealing his or her essential temperament and personality.
Soliloquy内心独白
a dramatic speech delivered by one character speaking aloud while under the
impression of being alone. The soliloquist thus reveals his or her inner thoughts and
feelings to the audience, either in supposed self-communion or in a consciously direct
address. It is also known as interior monologue.内心独白
Example: “to be, or not to be” ----Hamlet

Modernism :A general term applied to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde
trends in literature and other arts of the early 2oth century, including Symbolism, Futurism,
Expressionism, Imagism, Dada, and Surrealism. It is characterized chiefly by a rejection of
19th century traditions, eg, a rejection of traditional metres.

Stream-of- consciousness意识流 : The continuous flow of perceptions, thoughts, feelings,
and memories in the human mind, or a literary method of representing such a blending of
mental processes in fictional characters, usu. in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of
interior monologue.

? Realism:
? A mode of writing that gives the impression of recording or “reflecting” faithfully
an actual way of life .
? Associated with 19th century novels, in which the problems of ordinary people in
unremarkable circumstances are rendered with close attention to the details of
physical setting and the complexities of social life.

Oedipus complex
A Freudian term to designate attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the
opposite sex and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own. (Electra complex).
According to Freud, Oedipus complex occurs during the phallic stage of the
psycho-sexual development of the personality, approximately years three to five. Resolution
of the Oedipus complex is believed to occur by identification with the parent of the same sex
and by renunciation of sexual interest in the parent of the opposite sex.

Neo-classicism: It was initiated by Dryden, culminated in Pope and continued by Johnson.
Neo-classicists modeled themselves on classical, ancient Greek and Latin authors. They
wanted to achieve perfect form in literature. They general tended to look at social and political
life critically. They emphasize on intellect rather than imagination. They observed fixed laws
and rules in literary creation. Poets preferred heroic couplet. In drama, they adhered to three
unities, time, place and action. They emphasized on the didactic function of literature.

Enlightenment: Enlightenment is an intellectual movement in Europe in 18
th
century. It was
an expression of the struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners
fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other feudal survivals. It was so
called because it considered the chief means for the betterment of the society was the
“enlightenment” or “education” of the people.

Sentimentalism: it came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the
part of certain enlighteners in social reality. (The representatives of
sentimentalism continued to struggle against feudalism but they vaguely sensed
at the same time the contradictions of bourgeois progress that brought with it
enslavement and ruin to the people. ) The philosophy of the enlighteners, through
rational and materialistic in its essence, did not exclude sences, or sentiments,
as a means of perception and learning. Moreover, the cult of nature and , a cult
of a manwhose feelings display themselves in a most human and natural
manner, contrary to the artful and hypocritical aristocrats.

Gothic novel: Gothic novel, a type of romantic fiction that predominated in the late
eighteenth century, was one phase of the Romantic movement. It is futile to struggle against
one's mysterious element plays an enormous role in the Gothic novel;it is so replete
with bloodcurdling scenes and unatural feelings that it is justly called
principal elements are violence, horror, and the supernatural.

Romanticism is a movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music and art in
Western culture during most of the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against
classicism. There have been many varieties of Romanticism in many different times and
places. Many of the ideas of English romanticism were first expressed by the poets
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The Qualities of Romanticism: the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; the creation of
a world of imagination; the return to for material; sympathy with the jumble and
glorification of the common place; emphasis upon the expression of individual genius; the
return to Milton and the Elizabethans for literary models; the interest in old stories and
medieval Romances; a sense of melancholy and loneliness; the rebellious spirit.

Aestheticism: The basic theory of the Aesthetic movement is “art for art’s sake”. Aestheticism
places art above life, and holds that life should imitate art, not art imitate life. According to the
aesthetes, all artistic creation is absolutely subjective as opposed to objective. Art should be
free from any influence of egoism. Only when art is for art’s sake, can it be immortal. This
was one of the reactions against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial
era, as well as a reaction against the Victorian convention of art for morality’s sake, or art for
money’s sake. The representatives are Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater.