英美文学名词解释Terms in English and American Literature
1. Aestheticism/the Aestheticism Movement (唯美主义)
A European phenomenon during the middle of the 19th century that had its chief headquarters in France. This movement was introduced to late Victorian England mainly Walter Pater as a reaction against the materialism and commercialism of an industrialized society. It was also a reaction against the Victorian convention of art for morality’s sake, or art for money’s sake. The major tenets of this movement include the belief in the autonomy of a work of art, the emphasis on craft and artistry--the theory of “art for art’s sake”. The most outstanding Victorian representatives of this movement included Oscar Wilde.
2. Allegory（寓言）
A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. 寓言：用诗歌或散文讲的故事，在这个故事中人物、事件或背景往往代表抽象的概念或道德品质。所有的寓言都是一个具有双重意义、文学内涵或象征意义的故事。
3. Alliteration (头韵)
It is the repetition of the same initial consonant sound within a line or a group of words in poetry. In Old English alliterative meter, alliteration is the principal organizing device of the verse line, such as in Beowulf.
头韵：在一组词的开头或重读音节中对相同辅音或不同元音的重复。
4. Allusion: A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.
典故：文学作品中作家希望读者能够认识或做出反应的一个人物、地点、事件或文学作品。典故或来自历史、地理、文学或宗教。
5. American Naturalism (美国自然主义)
The American naturalism accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits were conditioned by social and economic forces. American naturalism was evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing became less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It was no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence. Dreiser was a leading figure of this school.
6. American Puritanism (美国清教主义)
Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The American puritans, like their English brothers, are idealists. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God. But due to the grim struggle for living in the new continent, they become more and more practical. American puritanism is so much a part of the national atmosphere rather that a set of tenets.
美国清教主义：他们相信宿命论、原罪说、全体堕落和有限的赎罪。
7. American Realism (美国现实主义)
In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. George Eliot introduce realism into England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. Realistic literature finds the drama and tension beneath the surface of ordinary life. Later, many writers, notably Henry James, turned to psychological realism that closely examined the complex workings of the mind.
美国现实主义：在美国文学史上，内战宣告了浪漫主义的终结和现实主义的开始。现实主义反对浪漫主义和感伤主义的谎言，它从一个陌生的世界转向了普通人的真实生活的描写。它所关心的是普通的下层劳动人民而非理想中的人类本性和现实经历。
8. American Romanticism (美国浪漫主义)
The Romantic Period covers the first half of the 19th century. A rising America with its ideals of democracy and equality, the booming economy, the flourishing publications, and a variety of foreign influences made its literary expansion possible and inevitable. Romantics shared some characteristics: moral enthusiasm, individuality and intuitive perception. Irving played an important role in inspiring American romanticism with his masterpieces Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. American romanticism culminated around the 1840s, which can be called “Transcendentalism or American Renaissance”. One of the major figure in this period was Emerson. His Nature had been called “the manifesto of American Transcendentalism”. In the poetry aspect, Whitman and Dickson were two major American poets in this period. In the novel aspect, Hawthorne and Melville belonged to another type of romanticism. They placed increasing value on the free expression on emotion and the psychic states of their characters. The New England poets, such as Longfellow and Bryant formed a different school from Whitman, Dickson, Thoreau and Poe.
9. Angry Young Men (愤怒的青年)
The Angry Young Men is a journalistic catchphrase applied to a number of British playwrights and novelists from the mid-1950s. Their works mainly express the bitterness of the lower classes towards the established sociopolitical system and towards the mediocrity and hypocrisy of the middle and upper classes. The playwright John Osborne was the archetypal example of these angry young men with his signature play Look Back in Anger in 1956.
10. Antagonist (反面人物):
A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine. 反面人物：一个故事中和主人公相对立的人物或一种力量，是男女主人公的对手。
11. American Transcendentalism (美国超验主义)
American Transcendentalism is more than an attitude of transcendentalists. To “transcend” something is to rise above it, to pass beyond its limits. The transcendentalists speak for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. The major features of American Transcendentalism are: 1. Transcendentalists place emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe. 2. They stress the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. 3. They offer a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence.
12. Aphorism (警句)
A concise, pointed statement expressing a wise or clever observation about life. 警句：蕴含关于人生真理的明智的看法的精练的语句。
13. Aside (旁白)
In drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience and. An aside is supposedly not heard by other actors on stage.
14. Assonance (类韵)
The repetition of similar vowel sounds, especially in poetry. Assonance is often employed to please the ear or emphasize certain sounds. 类韵：在诗歌中相同或相似元音的重复，它的目的主要是用来使句子悦耳动听或用来强调某个音。
15. Autobiography (自传)
The literary form of autobiography is a person’s account of his or her own life. An autobiography is generally written in narrative form and includes some introspection, such as The Autobiography written by Benjamin Franklin.
自传：一个人对他或她自己生活的描述，自传是一种叙述性的文体，多包含回忆性的描写。
16. Ballad (民谣) It is a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with a simple and dramatic action. The ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. Two characteristics of the ballad are incremental repetition and the ballad stanza. Incremental repetition repeats one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The ballad stanza has four line; commonly, the first and third lines contain four feet or accents, the second and fourth lines contain three feet. Ballad often open abruptly, present brief descriptions and use concise dialogues.
The folk ballad is usually anonymous and the presentation is impersonal. The literary ballad deliberately imitates the form and spirit of a folk ballad. The Romantic poets were attracted to this form, as Longfellow with The Wreck of the Hesperus, Coleridge with The Rime of the Ancient Marine, which is longer and more elaborate than the folk ballad.
17. Ballad Stanza (民谣诗节)
A type of four-line stanza, the first and the third lines have four stressed words or syllables; the second and fourth lines have three stresses.
18. Beat Generation (垮掉的一代)
The Beat Generation refers to a loosely-knit group of poets and novelists, writing in the second half of thee 1950s and early 1960s. They shared a set of social attitudes-- anti-establishment, anti-political, anti-intellectual, oppose to the prevailing cultural, literary, and moral values, and were in favor of unfettered self-realization and self-expression. Representatives of the group were Allen Ginsberg with his long poem Howl and Jack Kerouac with his On the Road.
19. Bildungsroman (成长小说)
Bildungsroman defines a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, and in which characters’ change is thus extremely important. In a Bildungsroman, the goal is maturity. Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield is a classical Bildungsroman.
20. Biography (传记)
A detailed account of a person‘s life written by another person. 传记：由他人篆写的关于某人生平的详细记录。
21. Black comedy/Black humor (黑色幽默)
It is mostly employed to describe baleful, naive, or inept characters in a fantastic or nightmarish modern world playing out their roles in what Ionesco called a “tragic farce”, in which the evets are often simultaneously comic, horrifying, and absurd. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 can be taken as an example of the employment of this technique.
22. Black Mountain Poets (黑山派诗人)
It is sometimes called projective poets（投射诗人）, a group of the mid-20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centering on Black Mountain College. In the essay Projective Verse, Charles Olson calls “for poetry of open field” composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that should reflect exactly the content of the poem. This essay became the manifesto for the Black Mountain Poets.
23. Blank Verse (无韵体诗)
Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetries, including that of William Shakespeare and John Milton. 素体诗：用五音步抑扬格写的无韵诗。
24. Byronic hero (拜伦式英雄)
Byronic hero refers to a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, he would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society, and would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies.
25. Calvinism (加尔文主义)
Calvinism refers to the religious teachings of John Calvin and his followers. Calvin taught that only certain persons, the elect, were chosen by God to be saved, and this can be gotten only be God’s grace. Calvinism forms the basis for the doctrines and practices of the Huguenots, Puritans, Presbyterians, and the Reformed churches.
26. Carpe Diem (及时行乐)
A tradition dating back to classical Greek and Latin poetry and particularly popular among English Cavalier poets. Carpe Diem means literally “seize the day”, that is, “live for today”.
27. Canto (篇/章)
A section or division of a long poem. In English poetry, Alexander Pope’s the Rape of the Lock and Byron’s Don Juan are divided into cantos. 诗章：长诗的一部分。
28. Character (角色)
In appreciating a short story, characters are an indispensable element. Characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work. Forst 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.
人物：在短篇小说的欣赏中，人物是必不可少一个元素。人物是喜剧或小说中所描写的人。福斯特把人物划分为两类，扁平型人物和圆型人物。扁平型人物往往缺乏个人化的细节描写而圆型人物则在性格和行为动机上较为复杂。
29. Classicism (古典主义)
A movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places vale on reason clarity, balance, and order. Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes.
古典主义：一种在文学，艺术，音乐领域体现古代希腊，罗马风格的运动。
30. Climax (高潮)
The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative.
31. Comedy (喜剧)
In general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.
32. Conceit (奇想)
Conceit is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compare two highly dissimilar things. Conceit is extensively employed in John Donne’s poetry.
33. Confessional poetry (自白诗)
An autobiographical mode of verse that reveals the poet’s personal problems with unusual frankness. The term is usually applied to certain poets of the U.S. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, notably Robert Lowell, whose Life Studies and For the Union Dead deal with his divorce and mental breakdown.
34. Conflict (冲突)
A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.
冲突：故事，小说，戏剧中相对的力量和人物之间的对立。
35. Consonance (辅音韵)
It refers to the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. Sometimes the term refers to the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words. Sometimes the term is used for slant rhyme in which initial and final consonants are the same but the vowels are different: litter/letter, green/groan.
36. Couplet (两行诗)
Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet. 对句：两个连续押韵的诗行。英雄双行体的对句一般都为抑扬格五音步。
37. Critical Realism (批判现实主义)
The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the beginning of fifties. The realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils. Charles Dickens is the most important critical realist. 批判现实主义：批判现实主义在19世纪40年代达到高潮。批判现实主义作家们往往把从民主的角度批评和揭露资本主义社会的丑恶视为己任，但他们并没有找到治疗社会弊病的良方。
38. Dadaism (达达主义)
It refers to a Western European artistic and literary movement (1916-1923) that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional, cultural and aesthetic forms by a technique of comic derision in wich irrationality, chance and intuition were the guiding principle.
39. Darwinism (达尔文主义)
It is a term that comes from Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Darwinists think that those who survive in the world are the fittest and those who fail to adapt themselves to the environment will perish. They believe that man has evolved from the lower forms of life and humans are special not because God created them but because they have successfully adapted to the changing environmental conditions and have passed on their survival-making characteristics genetically. Influenced by Darwinism, some American naturalist writers apply it as an explanation of human nature and social reality.
40. Denouement (结局)
The outcome of a plot. The denouement is that part of a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem in which conflicts are resolved or unraveled, and mysteries and secrets connected with the plot are explained.
41. Determinism (宿命论)
Determinism is the philosophical belief that events are shaped by forces beyond the control of human beings. Determinism, important to the literature at the end of the nineteenth century, assigns control especially to heredity and environment, without seeking their origins further than science can trace. Determinism usually leads to the tragic fate of the characters in novels.
42. Didactic literature(教诲文学)
Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it deliberately teaches some moral lessons. The use of literature for such teaching is one of uts traditional justifications. Dramatic monologue (戏剧独白)
43. A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a typical example.
戏剧独白：在一种叙事诗里面，一个人物对其他的人物讲话但并没有交代他们的回答，这种场合往往对反映说话人的性格特征和诗歌的主题是至关重要的。
44. Elegy (挽歌)
A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone.
挽歌：为某个死去的人所做的诗，挽歌往往属于抒情诗，在语言和机构上比较正式，语气上比较庄重甚至是哀伤的。
45. Enlightenment Movement (启蒙运动)
Enlightenment is an intellectual movement that originates in Europe and comes to England in the 18th century. It stresses the power of human reason, the importance of methods and discoveries instead of God. Its purpose is to enlighten the whole world with he light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. It celebrates reason or rationality, equality and science. It advocates universal education.
46. Epic (史诗)
Epic, in poetry, refers to a long work dealing with the actions of gods and heroes.
47. Epiphany(顿悟)
A moment of illumination, usually occurs at or near the end of a work. 顿悟：对现实真谛的顿悟或洞察，通常出现在作品的结尾.
48. Epistolary novel (书信体小说)
An epistolary novel is a a novel told through the medium of letters written by one or more of the characters. The usual form is the letter, but diary entries, newspaper clipping and other documents are sometimes used. The epistolatory novel’s reliance on subjective points of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel.
49. Essay （散文/小品文）
A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point or view. An essay may be serious or humorous, tightly organized or rambling, restrained or emotional. The two general classifications of essay are the informal essay and the formal essay. An informal essay is usually brief and is written as if the writer is talking informally to the reader about some topic, using a conversational style and a personal or humorous tone. By contrast, a formal essay is tightly organized, dignified in style, and serious in tone.
小品文：小品文一般都是简短的散文，作家通过有限的篇幅发表自己独特的看法。小品文的风格要么严肃要么幽默，组织或严谨或松散，情感或抒发或藏而不露。小品文大体上又分为正式的和非正式的两种。非正式的小品文一般比较短，使用对话的风格和个人化或幽默的语气，似乎在给读者针对一个话题侃侃而谈。相比之下，正式的小品文则组织严谨，风格高雅，语气严肃。
50. Experimental novel (实验小说)
It refers to the works that place great emphasis on innovations regarding the technique and style. The frist text generally cited in experimental novels is Laurence Sterne’s Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. During the 1960, the experimental novel was the mainstream of the literature.
51. Expressionism (印象主义)
Expressionism refers to movement in Germany early in the 20th century, in which a number of painters sought to avoid the representation of external reality and, instead, to project a highly personal or subjective vision of the world. Expressionism is a reaction against realism or naturalism, aiming at presenting a post-war world violently distorted.
52. Fable (寓言)
A fable is a short story, often with animals as its characters, which illustrate a moral. 寓言：以动物为主人公来写的短小的故事。
53. Farce (轻喜剧)
A type of comedy based on a ridiculous situation, often with stereotyped characters. The humor in a farce is largely slapstick-- that is, it often involves crude physical action. The characters in a farce are often the butts of practical jokes.
轻喜剧: 一种以可笑的情节的为基础的喜剧，通常包含固定的角色。
54. Flat character (扁平人物)
A character who has one or two sides, representing one or two traits--often a stereotype. Flat characters help move the plot alone more quickly because the audience immediately understands what the character is about.
55. Fiction (小说)
Prose narrative based on imagination usually a novel or a short story.
56. Flashback (倒叙)
A scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier.
倒叙：在短篇小说、小说、戏剧或叙事诗中穿插在叙述中讲述更早的一件事。
57. Foreshadowing (铺垫)
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. 伏笔：在叙述中使用暗示或线索来预示将要发生的事情，作家们使用伏笔来增加读者的兴趣和产生悬念，有时伏笔又为故事的结尾做好铺垫。
58. Free indirect discourse (自由间接引语)
Free indirect discourse is a style of third-person narration which combines some of the characteristics of third-person report with first-person direct speech. Jane Austen was among the first authors to use free indirect discourse in a significant and deliberate manner. James Joyce is also renowned for invoking the method in his work A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
59. Free verse (自由诗体)
A kind of poetry that lacks regular meters or patterns. Free verse is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry free from conventional rules of meter.
60. Freudianism (弗洛伊德学派)
Freudianism derived from Sigmund Freud, whose theories enjoyed great popularity in the 1920s and made their way into literature. Freudianism emphasizes that “subconscious” urges, desires, and inhibitions dominate human behavior. A lot of modern writers such as Woolf, Joyce, and Lawrence are influenced by Freudianism deeply.
61. Genre (体裁)
A literary species or form, e.g., tragedy, epic, comedy, novel, essay, biography and lyric poem.
62. Gothic Romance (哥特式小说)
A type of novel that flourished in the late 18th century and early 19th century in England. Gothic romances are mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they are usually against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles.
63. Graveyard School (墓地派诗歌)
The Graveyard School refers to a school of poets of the 18th century whose poems are mostly devoted to a sentimental lamentations or meditation on life, past and present, with death and graveyard as themes. Thomas Gray is considered to be the leading figure of this school and his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is his most representative work.
64. Harlem Renaissance (哈莱姆文艺复兴)
Harlem Renaissance is a period of remarkable creativity in literature, music, dance, painting and sculpture by African-Americans, from the end of the First World War in 1918 to the 1920s. Distinguished writers who are part of the movement include Langston Hughes and Richard Wright.
65. Hemingway Code Hero (海明威式英雄)
As a concept from Hemingway’s works, code hero is defined by Hemingway as a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful. A code hero is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, a man who is sensitive and intelligent, a man of actions and of few words. This kind of people are usually spiritually strong, with certain skill, and most of them encounter death many times. Hemingway uses his code hero, who is named in most of his works as Nick Adams to teach readers a creative and disciplined way of life.
66. Heroic couplet (英雄双韵体)
A couplet written in iambic pentameter is called a heroic couplet. 英雄双韵体：五步抑扬格的双韵体称英雄双韵体。
67. Humanism(人文主义)
Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. It emphasizes the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life. Humanists voiced their beliefs that man was the center of the universe and man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of the present life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.
68. Iambic pentameter (五步抑扬格)
A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an iamb--that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
五步抑扬格:一种诗句形式，每行诗句包含五个抑扬格音步。
69. Imagery(意象)
Words or phrases that create pictures, or images, in readers’s mind. Images can appeal to other senses as well: touch, taste, smell and hearing.
意象：用来在读者的思维中唤起某种图示或形象的词汇。
70. Imagism (意象主义)
Imagism was a poetic movement that flourished in England, and even more vigorously in America, between 1912 and1917. It was planned and exemplified by a group of English and American writers in London as a revolt against the sentimental and discursive poetry at the turn of the century. The typical imagist poetry is written in free verse and undertakes to be as precise and terse as possible. Meanwhile, the imagist poetry likes to express the writers’ momentary impression of a visual object or scene and often the impression is rendered by means of metaphor without indicating a relation.The most famous imagist poem, In a Station of the Metro, is written by Ezra Pound.
71. Impressionism (印象主义)
It is a style of painting that gives the impression made by the subject on the artist without much attention to details. Writers accepted the same conviction that the personal attitudes and moods of the writer were legitimate elements in depicting a character or setting or action. Briefly, it is a style of writing characterized by the creation of general impressions and mood rather than realistic moods.
72. Irony (反语)
A contrast between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happened.
反语：一种建立在字面表述和真实意义上或期待产生的结果和真实的结果之间的对比。
73. Jazz Age (爵士乐时代)
The Jazz Age describes the period from 1918 to 1929, the years after the end of World War I, continuing through the Roaring Twenties and ending with the rise of the Great Depression in America. Among the prominent concerns and trends of the period are the public embrace of technological developments as well as new modernist trends in social behavior, arts and culture. The representative writer is F.Scott Fitzgerald with his novel The Great Gatsby.
73. Kenning (隐喻表达法)
In Old English poetry, an elaborate phrase that describes persons, things or event in a metaphorical or indirect way.
74. Kitchen-Sink drama/Kitchen-sink realism (极端现实主义戏剧)
It was a term coined to describe a British cultural movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theater, art, novels, films and television plays, whose “heroes” usually could be described as angry young men. It used a style of social realism which often depicted the domestic situations of working class living in rented accommodation and spending their off-hours in grimy pubs to explore social issues and political controversies.
75. Lake Poets (湖畔派诗人)
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey have often been mentioned as the Lake poets, because they lived in the Lake District in the northwestern part of England. The three traversed the same path in politics and in poetry, beginning as radicals and ending up as conservatives.
76. Local Colorism (地方主义)
A unique variation representative of American literary realism. As a literary trend, it first made its presence felt in the late 1860s, reached its full popularity in the 1880s and the 1890s, and ceased to appeal to the majority of the reading public since then. Generally speaking, the works by local colorists are concerned with the life of a small region or province. This kind of fiction depicts the characters from a specific setting or of an era, which are marked by its customs, dialects, landscapes, or other peculiarities that have escaped standardizing cultural influence. The asks of
local colorists is to write or present local characters of their regions in truthful depiction distinguished from others, usually a very small part of the world.
77. Lost Generation (迷惘的一代)
Lost generation refers to a group of American literary notables who lived in Paris and other parts of Europe from the time period which saw the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Significant members included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and John Doss Passos. These writers 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. At the same time, they were aware all the while that the world was crazy and meaningless and futile. The coming of the phrase is traditionally attributed to Gertrude Stein and was then popularized by Hemingway in the epigraph to his novel The Sun also Rises.
78. Lyric (抒情诗)
Lyric is a poem, usually a short one, which expresses a speaker‘s personal thoughts or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the lyric. 抒情诗：一种用来抒发作者感情或思想的短诗。
79. Melodrama (情节剧)
A drama that has stereotyped characters, exaggerated emotions, and a conflict that pits an all-good hero or heroine against an all-evil villain.
80. Metafiction (元小说)
It it the literary term describing dictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually using irony and self-reflection. It can be compared to presentational theater, as metafiction does not let the reader forget he or she is reading a fictional work.
81. Metaphor (隐喻)
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two thing that are basically dissimilar. Unlike simile, a metaphor does not use a connective word such as like, as, or resemble in making the comparison.
82. Metaphysical Poets (玄学派诗人)
A group of 17th-century poets who employed the terminology and abstruse arrangements of the medieval Scholastic philosophers in poetic procedures and imagery, both in secular poetry and in religious poetry. Their style was characterized by wit and metaphysical conceits, i.e., far-fetched or unusual similes or metaphors. Their poetry diverged from the style of their times, containing neither images of nature nor allusions to classical mythology, as were common. Several Metaphysical poets, especially John Donne, were influenced by Neo-Platonism. This group was best represented by John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George Herbert.
83. Metaphysical Poetry (玄学派诗歌)
Metaphysical poetry appeared in the early 17th century with the charismatics of mysticism in content and fantasticality in form. The representatives of metaphysical poetry are John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George Herbert. Metaphysical poetry marked a sharp departure from the prevailing trend and had great influence among the poets of the time.
84. Meter (格律)
A generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. The analysis of the meter is called scansion.
格律：诗歌中通常的重读音节和非重读音节的排列模式。
85. Miracle Play(奇迹剧)
A poplar religious drama of medieval England. Miracle Plays were based on stories of saints or sacred history.
86. Morality Play(道德剧)
An outgrowth of Miracle Plays. Morality Play was popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. In it, virtues and vices ere personified.
87. Mock epic (讽刺史诗)
A comic literary from 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.
讽刺史诗：一种用史诗的宏大风格来描写微不足道的事情的喜剧形式。
88. Modernism (现代主义)
It is an international movement in literature and arts, especially in literary criticism, which began in the late 19th century and flourished until 1950s. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. The modernist writers concentrate more on the private and subjunctive than on the public and objective, mainly concerned with the inner of an individual.
89. Motif (主旨)
A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work.
主题：艺术品或文学作品中反复体现的、揭示主题的部分。
90. Narrative Poem (叙事诗)
A narrative poem refers to a poem that tells a story. It may consist of a series of incidents, as in Homer’s Iliad and The Odysseus, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. 叙事诗：讲述一个故事的诗歌。
91. Narration (叙述)
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.
92. Narrator (叙述者)
One who narrates or tells a story. A story maybe 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. 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. 叙述者：讲述或叙述一个故事的人。
93. New England poets (新英格兰诗人)
The New England poets were the representatives of imitation. Authors like Irving and Bryant tried to imitate the forms and themes of their British brothers, such as Alexander Pope and Wordsworth.
94. Neoclassicism (新古典主义)
A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries of classical standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. John Dryden and Alexander Pope were major exponents of the neoclassical school.
95. Novel (小说)
A book-length fictional prose narrative, having many characters and often a complex plot. 小说：虚构的叙述性文章，有一定长度，较多的人物，和思想复杂的情节。
96. Octave (八行诗)
An eight-line poem or stanza. Odious Complex (俄狄浦斯情结)
It is a term coined by Sigmund Freud to designate a son’s subconscious feeling of love towards his mother and jealousy and hatred towards his father.
97. Ode (颂歌)
Usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a written in a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern. The ode often praises people, the arts of music and poetry, natural scenes, or abstract concepts. The Romantic poets used the ode to explore either personal or general problems; they often started with a meditation on something in nature, as Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale or Shelly’s Ode to the West Wind.
98. Ottava Rima (八行体)
A form of eight-line stanza, the rhyme scheme is ababbbc.
99. Open ending (开放式结局)
It is a story-telling technique that ends the story by leaving the major conflict initiated by the suspense plot unresolved. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles is a novel of this kind, in which the novelist offers three different endings to his readers.
100. Paradox (似非而是)
A statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to provoke us in seeking another sense or context in which it would be true..
101. Parody (戏谑模仿作品)
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 made of a plot, a character, a writing style or a sentiment or theme.
102. Pastoral (田园诗)
A type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic life. Two pastoral poems are Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Lover and Sir Walter Raleigh’s The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd. Raleigh’s poem might be called anti-pastoral because of its realistic tone.
田园诗：一种用理想的手法来体现牧羊人的乡村生活的诗歌。
103. Pathos (悲怅)
The quality in a work of literature or art that arouses the reader‘s feelings of pity, sorrow, or compassion for a character.
悲怅：文学艺术作品的一种引发读者怜悯，同情或伤感的特质。
104. Psychological Novel (心理小说)
It refers to a kind of novels that dwell on a complex psychological development and present much of the narration through the inner workings of a character’s mid. Thackeray’s characterization of Rebecca Sharp is very much psychological.
105. Plot (情节)
Plot is the first and most obvious quality of a story. It is the sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem. For the readers, the plot is the underlying pattern in a work of fiction, the structural element that gives it unity and order. For the writer, the plot is the guiding principle of selection and arrangement. Conflict, a struggle of some kind, is the most important element of a plot.
106. Poetry(诗歌)
The most distinctive characteristics of poetry are form and music. Poetry is concerned with not only what is said but how it is said. Poetry evokes emotions rather than express facts. Poetry means having a poetic experience. Imagination is also an essential quality of poetry. Poetry often lead us to new perceptions, new feelings and experiences of which we have not previously been aware.
107. Point of view (叙述角度)
The perspective from which a story is told. The most obvious point of view is probably the first person or “I”. The omniscient narrator knows everything, reveals the motivations, thoughts and feelings of the characters, and gives the reader information. With a limited omniscient narrator,
the material is presented from the point of view of a character, in the third person. The objective point of view presents the action and the character’s speech without comment or emotion. The reader has to interpret them and uncover their meanings. A narrator may be trustworthy or untrustworthy, involved or uninvolved.
108. Postmodernism (后现代主义)
The term is used to describe certain tendencies in post-WWII literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Containing the narrative experiments of the modernists, the first generation of postmodernists produce texts that simultaneously question and violate the conventions of traditional narrative. The fragmentation, intertextuality, and discontinuity which characterize the experimental modernist and postmodernist literature find a kind of fulfillment in the inherently fragmented, inter-textual and discontinuous form of hypertext, a computer-generated web ext with multiple branching links. Postmodernism is fully exemplified in the works of Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and John Fowles.
109. Pre- Romanticism (前浪漫主义)
It originated among the conservative groups of men and letters as reaction against Enlightenment and found its most manifest expression in the “Gothic Novel”. The term arose from the fact that the greater part of such romances were devoted to the medieval times.
110. Protagonist (正面人物)
It refers to the hero or central character who is often hindered by some opposing force either human or animal in accomplishing his or her objectives.
111. Quatrain (四行诗)
Usually a stanza or poem of four lines. A quatrain can also be any group of four lines unified by a rhyme scheme. Quatrains usually follow an abab, abba or abcb rhyme scheme.
112. Renaissance(文艺复兴)
The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism. Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance. The real mainstream of English Renaissance is the Elizabethan drama with William Shakespeare being the leading character.
113. Refrain (叠句)
A word phrase, line, or group of lines repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza. Refrains are often used in ballads and narrative poems to create a songlike rhyme and to help build suspense. Refrains ca also serve to emphasize a particular idea.
114. Rhyme (压韵)
The repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. 压韵：音在两个或两个以上的词汇或短语中的重复。
115. Romance (传奇故事)
Any imaginative literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters. Originally, the term referred to a medieval tale dealing with the loves and adventures of kings, queens, knights and ladies, and including unlikely or supernatural happenings. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best of medieval romances. John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes is one of the greatest metrical romances ever written.
传奇故事：设定在想象世界中的以英雄冒险和善恶之间的斗争为题材的文学作品。
116. Romanticism (浪漫主义)
A movement that flourished in literature, philosophy, music, and art in western culture during the most of the late 18th century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. Romanticism gave primary concerns to passion, emotion, and natural beauty. The English Romantic period is an age of poetry.
117. Round Character (圆形人物)
A round character is a major character in a work of fiction that undergoes change in person, character, behavior and physical appearance. Therefore, the personality, background, motives and other features of the round characters tend to be more fully developed and described than flat or static characters.
118. Satire (讽刺文)
A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrong doings of individuals, institutions or humanity in general. The aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the readers to see their pints of view through the force of laughter.
讽刺：一种讽刺个人，习俗或人性中的缺点或错误的文体。
119. Scansion(韵律分析)
The analysis of verse into meter patterns. 韵律分析：将诗划分成音步的分析方法。
120. Sentimentalism (感伤主义)
Sentimentalism came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the part of certain enlighteners in social reality. It is a pejorative term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain. In literature, it denotes “pathetic indulgence.”
121. Sestet (六行诗)
A six-line poem or stanza.
122. Setting (背景)
The time, place, and circumstances in which a narrative, drama, or novel takes place. 背景：记叙文、戏剧或小说发生的时间、地点和环境.
123. Simile (明喻)
A comparison made between two things through the use of a specific word of comparison, such as like, as, than or resemble, and the comparison must be between two essentially unlike things. 明喻：两种事物之间借助于比喻词汇进行的比较。
124. Soliloquy (独白)
In drama, an extended speech delivered by a character alone on the stage. The character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings directly to the audience, as if thinking aloud.
125. Sonnet (十四行诗)
The sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe. The term is derived from the Occitan word “sonet” and the Italian word “sonetto”, both meaning “little song” or “little sound”. By the 13th century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follow a strict rhyme scheme ad specific structure. There are mainly two patterns of rhyme in sonnets written in the English language. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet named after the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch falls into two main parts: an octave rhyming abbabba followed by a sestet rhyming cdecde or some variant. The English Shakespearean sonnet falls into three quatrains and a concluding couplet, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme in a is ababcdcdefefgg.
126. Southern Gothic (南方哥特)
Southern Gothic is a distinctly American sub-genre of Gothic fiction, setting largely but not exclusively in the Southern America. Southern Gothic employs elements such as the horrific, violent, unorthodox, or the supernatural. It conveys a sense of uncertainty through bizarre twits, violence and moral ambivalence to create suspense, while it was also used to explore the social, political, and racial issues of America.
127. Spenserian Stanza (斯宾塞诗体)
A nine-line stanza with the following rhyme scheme: ababbcbcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter. The ninth line is written in iambic hexameter and is call an Alexandrine.
128. Stanza(诗节)
It’s a structural division of a poem, consisting of a series of verse lines which usually comprise a recurring pattern of meter and rhyme.
129. Stream of consciousness (意识流)
“Stream of consciousness” or “ interior monologue”, is one of the modern literary techniques. It is the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character‘s thoughts, feelings reflections, memories, and mental images as the character experiences them. It was first used in incessantly, particularly the hesitant, misted, distracted and illusory psychology people had when they faced reality. The modern American writer William Faulkner advanced this technique. In his short stories, action and plots were less important than the reactions and inner musings of the narrators. Time sequence were often dislocated. The reader feels himself to be a participant in the stories, rather than an observer. A high degree of emotion can be achieved by this technique.
130. Style(风格)
An author‘s characteristic way of writing ,determined by the choice of words, the arrangement of words in sentences, and the relationship of sentences to one and another.
风格：由词汇的选择，句子中词汇的安排，句子之间的关系形成的某一作家的特定的写作方式。
131. Surrealism (超现实主义)
It refers to a 20th century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconsciously fantastic and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter.
132. Suspense (悬念)
The quality of a story, novel, or drama that makes readers uncertain or tense about the outcome of events.
悬念：小说，故事，戏剧所具有的使读者对结局产生不安或紧张的感觉的特质。
133. Symbol (象征)
A symbol is a sigh which suggests more than its literal meaning. In other words. A symbol is both literal and figurative. A symbol is a way of telling a story, and a way of convey meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and convincing as they convey a meaning beyond the literal level of the story. If the symbol is obscure or ambiguous, then the very obscurity and ambiguity may also be part of the meaning of the story.
134. Symbolism (象征主义)
Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the late 19th century and greatly influenced many English writers, particularly poets in the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one meaning or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.
135. Terza rima (三行体)
An Italian verse form consisting of a series of three line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and the third lines of the following stanza.(aba bcb cde, ect.)
136. Theater of Absurd (荒诞派戏剧)
It refers to a kind of drama that explains an existential ideology and presents a view of the absurdity of the human condition by abandoning of usual or rational devices and the use of nonrealistic form.
137. Theme (主题)
The general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. All the elements f a literary work-- plot, setting, characterization, and figurative language-- contribute to the development of its theme.
作者在作品中表现的对于生活的总的观点或看法。
138. The Movement (运动派)
It is a term coined by J.D Scott, the editor of The Spectator to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis. The Movement is essentially English in character. The Movement poets are considered anti-Romantic. We may call The Movement the revival of the importance of form. To these poets, good poetry means simple, sensory content, and traditional, conventional and dignified in form.
139. Tone (口吻)
The attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject characters or audience. The tone of a speech or a piece of writing can be formal or intimate; outspoken or reticent; abstract or simple; solemn or playful; angry or loving; serious or ironic.
口吻：作者对于作品的主题，人物和读者所持的态度。
140. Tragedy (悲剧)
In general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end.unlike comedy, tragedy depicts the actions of a central character who is usually dignified or heroic. 悲剧：以主人公可悲的或灾难性的结局结束的故事。
141. Understatement (低调陈述)
It is a figure of speech in literature writing. It deliberately represents something as very much less in magnitude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be. The effect usually is ironic.
142. University Wits (大学才子)
University Wits refers to a group of scholars during the Elizabethan Age who graduated from either Oxford or Cambridge. They came to London with the ambition to become professional writers. Some of them later became famous poets and playwrights. They were called “University Wits”. Thomas Greene, Thomas Kyd, John Lyle and Christopher Marlowe were among them. They paved the way, to some extent, for the coming of Shakespeare.
考研英美文学名词解释
