比较齐全的美国文学名词解释

Stream of consciousness(意识流)(or interior monologue);In literary criticism, Stream of consciousness denotes a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes. Stream of consciousness writing is strongly associated with the modernist movement. Its introduction in the literary context, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair. Stream of consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow,tracing as they do a character’s fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings.famous writers to employ this technique in the english language include James Joyce and William Faulkner.

American realism ：（美国现实主义）Realism was a reaction against Romanticism and paved the way to Modernism;

2).During this period a new generation of writers, dissatisfied with the Romantic ideas in the older generation, came up with

a new inspiration. This new attitude was characterized by a great interest in the realities of life. It aimed at the interpretation of the realities of any aspect of life, free from subjective prejudice, idealism, or romantic color. Instead of thinking about the mysteries of life and death and heroic individualism, people’s attention was now directed to the interesting features of everyday existence, to what was brutal or sordid, and to the open portayal of class struggle;3) so writers began to describe the integrity of human characters reacting under various circumstances and picture the pioneers of the far west, the new immigrants and the struggles of the working class; 4) Mark Twain Howells and Henry James are three leading figures of the American Realism.

American Naturalism(美国自然主义文学)：The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to accout for the behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser is a leading figure of his school.

Local Colorism(乡土文学)：Generally speaking, the writings of local colorists are concerned with the life of a small, weell-defined region or province. The characteristic setting is the isolated small town. 2) Local colorists were consciously nostalgic historians of a vanishing way of life, recorders of a present that faded before their eyes. Yet for all their sentimentality, they dedicated themselves to minutely accurate descriptions of the life of their regions, they worked from personal experience to record the facts of a local environment and suggested that the native life was shaped by the curious conditions of the local. 3) major local colorists is Mark Twain.

Imagism(意象主义)：Imagism came into being in Britain and U.S around 1910 as a reaction to the traditional English poetry to express the sense of fragmentation and dislocation.2>the imagists, with Ezra Pound leading the way, hold that the most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of one dominant image.3>imagism is characterized by the following three poetic principles:A.direct treatment of subject matter;B.economy of expression;C. as regards rhythm ,to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of metronome. 4> pound’s In a Station of the Metro is a well-known inagist poem.

The Lost Generation(迷惘的一代）：The lost generation is a term first used by Stein to describe the post-war I generation of American writers:men and women haunted by a sense of betrayal and emptiness brought about by the destructiveness of the war.2>full of youthful idealism, these individuals sought the meaning of life, drank excessively, had love affairs and created some of the finest American literature to date.3>the three best-known representatives of lost generation are F.Scott Fitzgerald, hemingway and John dos Passos.

The Beat Generation(垮掉的一代):The members of The Beat Generation were new bohemian libertines. Who engaged in a spontaneous, sometimes messy, creativity.2> The Beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.3> the major beat writings are Allen Ginsberg’s howl.Howl became the manifesto of The Beat Generation.

A J azz age(爵士时代):The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s, the years between world war I and world

war II. Particularly in north America. With the rise of the great depression, the values of this age saw much decline. Perhaps the most representative literary work of the age is American writer Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Highlighting what some describe as the decadence and hedonism, as well as the growth of individualism. Fitzgerald is largely credited with coining the term” Jazz Age”.

Feminisim(女权主义): Feminisim incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.2>in general, feminism is ideology of women’s liberation based on th e belief that women suffer injustice because of their sex. Under this broad umbrella various feminisms offer differing analyses of the causes, or agents, of female oppression.3> definitions of feminism by feminists tend to be shaped by their training, ideology or race. So, for example, Marxist and socialist feminists stress the interaction within feminism of class with gender and focus on social distinctions between men and women. Black feminists argue much more for an integrated analysis which can unlock the multiple systems of oppression.

Hemingway Code Hero(海明威式英雄): Hemingway Code Hero ,also called code hero, is one who, wounded but strong more sentitive, enjoys the pleasures of life( sex, alcohol, sport) in face of ruin and death, and maintains, through some notion of a code, an ideal of himself.2> barnes in the sun also Rises, henry in a Farewell to arms and santiago in the old man and the sea are typical of Hemingway Code Hero

Impressionism(印象主义):Impressionism 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 character or setting or action.2>briefly, it is a style of literature characterized by the creation of general impressions and moods rather that realistic mood.

Modernism(现代主义)：Modernism is comprehensive but vague term for a movement , which begin in the late 19th century and which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the 20th century.2> modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical case.3> the term pertains to all the creative arts. Especially poetry, fiction, drama, painting,music and architecture.4> in england from early in the 20th century and during the 1920s and 1930s, in America from shortly before the first world war and on during the inter-war period, modernist tendencies were at their most active and fruitful.5>as far as literature is concerned, Modernism reveals a breaking away from established rules, traditions and conventions.fresh way s of looking at man’s position and function in the universe and many experiments in form and style.it is particularly concerned with language and how to use it and with writing itself.

the gilded age: Plains Indians were pushed in a series of Indian wars onto restricted reservations.This period also witnessed the creation of a modern industrial economy. A national transportation and communication network was created, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization, and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. By the beginning of the twentieth century, per capita income and industrial production in the United States exceeded that of any other country except Britain. Long hours and hazardous working conditions, led many workers to attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from industrialists and the courts.An era of intense political partisanship, the Gilded Age was also an era of reform. The Civil Service Act sought to curb government corruption by requiring applicants for certain governmental jobs to take a competitive examination. The Interstate Commerce Act sought to end discrimination by railroads against small shippers and the Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed business monopolies. These years also saw the rise of the Populist crusade. Burdened by heavy debts and falling farm prices, many farmers joined the Populist party, which called for an increase in the amount of money in circulation, government assistance to help farmers repay loans, tariff reductions, and a graduated income tax.Mark Twain called the late nineteenth century the "Gilded Age." By this, he meant that the period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. In the popular view, the late nineteenth century was a period of greed and guile: of rapacious Robber Barons, unscrupulous speculators, and corporate buccaneers, of shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar display. It is easy to caricature the Gilded Age as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. But it is more useful to think of this as modern America’s formative period, when an agrarian society of small producers was transformed into an urban society dominated by

industrial corporations.

Regionalism(地区主义)：In literature, regionalism or local color fiction refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features –including characters, dialects, customs, history, and topography –of a particular region. Since the region may be a recreation or reflection of the author's own, there is often nostalgia and sentimentality in the writing.Although the terms regionalism and local color are sometimes used interchangeably, regionalism generally has broader connotations. Whereas local color is often applied to a specific literary mode that flourished in the late 19th century, regionalism implies a recognition from the colonial period to the present of differences among specific areas of the country. Additionally, regionalism refers to an intellectual movement encompassing regional consciousness beginning in the 1930s. Even though there is evidence of regional awareness in early southern writing—William Byrd's History of the Dividing Line, for example, points out southern characteristics—not until well into the 19th century did regional considerations begin to overshadow national ones. In the South the regional concern became more and more evident in essays and fiction exploring and often defending the southern way of life. John Pendleton Kennedy's fictional sketches in Swallow Barn, for example, examined southern plantation life at length.

multiple points of view（多视角）：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.

Confessional poetry ：Confessional poetry emphasizes the intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about illness, sexuality, and despondence. The confessionalist label was applied to a number of poets of the 1950s and 1960s. John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, and William De Witt Snodgrass have all been called 'Confessional Poets'. As fresh and different as the work of these poets appeared at the time, it is also true that several poets prominent in the canon of Western literature, perhaps most notably Sextus Propertius and Petrarch, could easily share the label of "confessional" with the confessional poets of the fifties and sixties.

Ecocriticism：Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, and The Environmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.In the United States, Ecocriticism is often associated with the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), which hosts biennial meetings for scholars who deal with environmental matters in literature. ASLE has an official journal—Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE)—in which much of the most current American scholarship in the rapidly evolving field of ecocriticism can be found.Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including "green (cultural) studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism".

Dramatic Conflict：At least not the special kind of conflict that drives plays, the gas that fuels the dramatic engine. Arguments in real life are usually circular -- nobody gets anywhere, except a little steam's been blown off. And they're boring for everyone except the folks doing the yelling.Dramatic Conflict draws from a much deeper vein, rooted in the Subtext of your central characters. It's driven by fundamentally opposing desires.Conflict is a necessary element of fictional literature. It is defined as the problem in any piece of literature and is often classified according to the nature of the protagonist or antagonist。

Confessional poetry(自白派诗歌)：designates a type of narrative and lyric verse, given impetus by Robert Lowell’s Life Studies, which deals with the facts and intimate mental and physical experiences of the poet’s own life. Confessional poetry was written in rebellion against the demand for impersonality by T. S. Elliot and the New Criticism. The representative writers of confessional school include Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and so on.

01. Allegory(寓言)

Allegory is a story told to explain or teach something. Especially a long and complicated story with an underlying meaning different from the surface meaning of the story itself.2>allegorical novels use extended metaphors to convey moral meanings or attack certain social evils. characters in these novels often stand for different values such as virtue and vice.3>Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Melville’s Moby Dick are such examples.

02. Alliteration(头韵)

Alliteration means a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a line or group.

2>alliteration is a traditional poetic device in English literature.

3>Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night is a case in point:” I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet”

03. Ballad(民谣)

Ballad is a story in poetic from to be sung or recited. in more exact literary terminology, a ballad is a narrative poem consisting of quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimester.(抑扬格四音步与抑扬格三音步诗行交替出现的四行叙事诗)

2>.ballads were passed down from ge neration to generation. 3>Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 19th century English ballad.

04. 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.

05. Lay(短叙事诗)

It is a short poem, usually a romantic narrative, intended to be sung or recited by a minstrel.

06. Romance(传奇)

Romance is a popular literary form in the medic England.

2>it sings knightly adventures or other heroic deeds.

3> chivalry is the spirit of the romance.

07. Alexandrine(亚历山大诗行)

The name is derived from the fact that certain 12th and 13th century French poems on Alexander the Great were written in this meter.

2>it is an iambic line of six feet, which is the French heroic verse.

08. 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.

09. Comedy(喜剧)

Comedy is a light form of drama that aims primarily to amuse and that ends happily. Since it strives to provoke smile and laughter, both wit and humor are utilized. In general, the comic effect arises from recognition of some incongruity of speech, action, or character revelation, with intricate plot.

10. Essay(随笔)

The term refers to literar y composition devoted to the presentation of the writer’s own ideas on a topic and generally addressing a particular aspect of the subject. Often brief in scope and informal in style, the essay differs from such fomal forms as the thesis, dissertation or treatise.

11. Euphuistic style(绮丽体)

Its principle characteristics are the excessive use of antithesis, which is pursued regardless of sense, and emphasized by alliteration and other devices; and of allusions to historical and mythological personages and to natural history drawn from such writers as Plutarch(普卢塔克), Pliny(普林尼), and Erasmus(伊拉兹马斯).2> it is the peculiar style of Euphues(优浮绮斯)

12. History Plays(历史剧)

History plays aim to present some historical age or character, and may be either a comedy or a tragedy. They almost tell stories about the nobles, the true people in history, but not ordinary people. the principle idea of Shakespeare’s history plays is the necessity for national unity under a mighty and just sovereign.

13. Masques or Masks(假面剧)

Masques (or Masks) refer to the dramatic entertainments involving dances and disguises, in which the spectacular and musical elements predominated over plot and character. As they were usually performed at court, often at very great expense, many have political overtones.

14. Morality plays(道德剧)

A kind of medic and early Renaissance drama that presents the conflict between the good and evil through allegorical characters. The characters tend to be personified abstractions of vices and virtues, which can be named as Mercy. Conscience, etc. unlike a mystery or a miracle play, morality play does not necessarily use Biblical or strictly religious material because it takes place internally and psychologically in every human being.

15.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.

16. Spenserian Stanza(斯宾塞诗节)

Spenserian Stanza is the creation of Edmund spenser.2>it refers to a stanza of nine lines, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter(五音步抑扬格) and the last line in iambic hexameter(六音步抑扬格),rhyming ababbcbcc. 3> Spenser’s the Faerie Queen was wri tten in this kind of stanza.

17. Stanza(诗节)

Stanza is a group of lines of poetry, usually four or more, arranged according to a fixed plan.2>the stanza is the unit of structure in a poem and poets do not vary the unit within a poem.

18. Three Unities(三一原则)

Three rules of 16th and 17th century Italian and French drama, broadly adapted from Aristotle’s Poetics<诗学>:

2> the unity of time, which limits a play to a single day; the unity of place, which limits

a play’s setting in a single location; and the unity o f action, which limits a play to a single story line.

19. 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.

20.Conceit(奇特比喻)

Conceit is a far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things.2>conceit is extensively employed in John Donne’s poetry.

21.Metar(格律)

The word”meter” is derived from the Greek word”metron” meaning”measure”.

2>in English when applied to poetry, it refers to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

3> the analysis of the meter is called scansion(格律分析)

22. University Wits(大学才子)

University Wits refer 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”

23.Foreshadowing(预兆)

Foreshadowing, the use of hints or clues in a novel or drama to suggest what will happen next. Writers use Foreshadowing to create interest and to build suspense.

method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come.

24. Soliloquy(独白)

Soliloquy, in drama, means a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud..2>the line “to be, or not to be, that is the question”, which begins the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

25.Narrative Poem(叙述诗)

Narrative Poem refers to a poem that tells a story in verse,

2>three traditional types of narrative poems include ballads, epics, metrical romances.

3>it may consist of a series of incidents, as John Milton’s paradise lost.

26.Robin Hood(罗宾.豪)

Robin hood is a legendary hero of a series of English ballads, some of which date from at least the 14th century.

2>the character of Robin Hood is many-sided. Strong, brave and intelligent, he is at the same time tender-hearted and affectionate.

3> the dominant key in his character is his hatred for the cruel oppression and his love for the poor and downtrodden.4>another feature of Robin’s view is his reverence for the king, Robin Hood was a people’s hero.

27. Beowulf(贝奥武甫)

Beowulf, a typical example of old English poetry, is regarded as the greatest national epic of t he Anglo-Saxons. 2> the epic describes the exploits of a Scandinavian hero, Beowulf, in fighting against the monster Grendel, his revengeful nother, and a fire-breathing dragon in his declining years. While fight against the dragon, Beowulf was mortally wounded, however, he killed the dragon at the cost of his life, Beowulf is shown not only as a glorious hero but also as a protector of the people.

28. Baroque(巴罗克式风格)

This is originally a term of abuse applied to 17th century Italian art and that of other countries. It is characterized by the unclassical use of classical forms, in a literary context; it is loosely used to describe highly ornamented verse or prose, abounding in extravagant conceits.

这原本是用来指17世纪的意大利艺术和其他国家艺术滥用的一个术语.这种风格主要是指对古典形式的非古典运用.在文学领域,这种风格松散地用来指十分雕饰的,大量运用奇思妙想的诗歌或散文.

29. Cavalier poets(骑士派诗人)

A name given to supporters of Charles I in the civil war. These poets were not a formal group, but all influenced by Ben Jonson and like him paid little attention to the sonnet. Their lyrics are distinguished by short lines, precise but idiomatic diction, and an urbane and graceful wit.

30. Elegy(挽歌)

Elegy has typically been used to refer to reflective poems that lament the loss of something or someone, and characterized by their metrical form.

31. Restoration Comedy(复辟时期喜剧)

Restoration Comedy, also the comedy of manners, developed upon the reopening of the theatres after the re-establishment of monarchy with the return of Charles II.. Its predominant tone was witty, bawdy, cynical, and amoral. Standard characters include fops, bawds, scheming valets, country squires, and sexually voracious young widows and older women. The principle theme is sexual intrigue, either for its own sake or for money.

复辟时期的喜剧,又称社会习俗讽刺喜剧,是在查理二世君主复辟后剧院重新开业的基础上发展起来的,其主要的基调是诙谐,淫秽,挖苦和非道德.标准的角色包括花花公子,鸨母,诡计多端的仆人,乡绅,性欲旺盛的年轻寡妇和老女人.主要的主题是奸情,有的是为了性,有的是为了钱.

32. Action(情节)

A real or fictional event or series of such events comprising the subject of a novel, story, narrative poem, or a play, especially in the sense of what the characters do in such a narrative.

33. Adventure novel(探险小说)

The adventure novel is a literary genry that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme, in which exciting events and fast paced actions are more important than character development, theme, or symbolism.

34. Archaism(古语)

A word, expression, spelling, or phrase that is out of date in the common speech of an era, but still deliberately used by writer, poet, or playwright for artistic purposes.

35. Atmosphere(基调)

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 for the we rrors to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes.

36. Didactic literature(说教文学)

Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it deliberately teaches some moral lesson, the use of literature for such teaching is one of its traditional justifications.2>most modern literary works during the enlightenment period tended to be didactic.

37. Epigram(警句)

A short, witty, pointed statement often in the form of a poem.

38. Farce(闹剧)

Farce refers to a play full of ridiculous happenings, absurd actions, and unreal situations, meant to be very funny.

39. The Heroic Couplet(英雄对偶句)

The Heroic Couplet means a pair of lines of a type once common in English poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines.

40. Satire(讽刺)

Satire means a kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general.

2> the aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter.

3> Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a great satire of the English society from different aspects.

41. 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.

42. Aside(旁白)

Aside refers to words spoken by an actor which the other actors are supposed no to hear,

2> an actor’s asides are usually spoken to the audience.3>Hamlet’s very first line is an aside.

43.Denouement(戏剧结局)

Denouement, pronounced Dee-noo-na, is that part of a drama which follows the climax and leads to the resolution.

44.parable(寓言)

A parable is a very short narrative about human beings presented so as to stress the tacit analogy, or parallel, with a general thesis or lesson that the narrator is trying to bring home to his audience.

45. Genre(流派)

A type or category of literature marked by certain shared features or customs. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction.

46. Irony(反讽)

It refers to some contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. It is a discrepancy between what is expected and what is revealed. It may be found either in language usage or in the working out of the action of a story.

2> surprise endings always depend on some sort of irony, often crude. Irony may appear in the difference between a character’s understanding of his or h er situation and the reader’s estimate of it .

47. Lyric(抒情诗)

Lyric is a short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illustrates some life principle.

2>Lyric often concerns love.

3>the elegy, ode and sonnet are all forms of the lyric.

48. Mock Epic(诙谐史诗)

A mock epic is a long poem that burlesques the classical epic by treating a trivial subject in the lofty style. The poet often takes an elevated style of language, but incongruously applies that language to mundane or ridiculous objects and situatio ns. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is perhaps the finest mock epic poem in English.

49. Ode(颂歌)

Ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally.

2> John Keats wrote great Odes, his Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in point.

50. Picaresque Novel(流浪汉小说)

A humorous novel in which the plot consists of a young knave’s adventures and escapades narrated in comic or satiric scenes. The picaresque novel is usually in nature and realistic in its presentation of the all around aspects of society.

51. Pastoral(田园诗)

A literary work dealing with and often celebrating a rural world and a way of life lived close to nature. It usually idealized shepherds’ lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. Typically, pastoral liturgy depicts beautiful scenery, carefree shepherds, seductive nymphs, and rural songs and dances. A good example of pastoral poe tic conventions occurs in Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.

52.Terza Rima(三行诗)

Terza Rima is an Italian verse that consists of a series three-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza with the rhyming scheme a b a, b c b , c d c, d e d….

2>Shelly’s Ode to the west wind is a case in point.

53. Ottava Rima(八行诗)

Ottava Rima is a form of eight-line iambic stanza rhyming abababcc.2>Byron’s Don Juan are outstanding examples.

54. Canto(诗章)

Canto is a section of division of an epic or narrative poem comparable to a chapter in a novel. 2>the most famous cantos in literature are those that make up Dante’s Divine comedy, a 14th century epic.

55. High Comedy(正统喜剧)

High comedy is a comedy that deals with polite society and depends more on witty dialogue and well-drawn characters that on comic situations.

https://www.wendangku.net/doc/a01495040.html,ke Poets(湖畔诗人)

In English literature Lake Poets refer to such romantic poets as William Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey who lived in the Lake District. They came to be known as the lake school or Lakers.

57. Imagery(比喻)

A rather vague critical term covering those uses of language in a literary work that evoke sense impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or “concrete” objects, scenes, actions, or state as distinct from the language of abstract argument or expositon.2> the imagery of a literary work thus comprises the set of images that it uses, these need not be mental” pictures” but may appeal to senses other than sight.

58. Dramatic monologue（戏剧独白）

Dramatic monologue is a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent “audience” of one or more persons. Such poems reveal not the poet’s own thoughts but th e mind of the impersonated character, whose personality is revealed while the implied presence of an auditor distinguishes it from a soliloquy, have also been called Dramatic monologue. But to avoid confusion it is preferable to refer to these simply as mo nologues or as monodramas.2>Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess is a case in point.

59. Pre-Raphaelites(先拉菲尔派)

A mid-19th century self-styled brotherhood of London artists, all young, who united to resist current artistic conventions and to create ,or recreate, art forms in use before the period of Raphel.2>the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites showed a distinct liking for medism, 18th century ballads, archaic diction, symbolism and sensuousness. The poets were considerably under the influence of Spenser.

先拉菲尔派是19世纪中叶旅居在伦敦的一群年轻艺术家自发组成的兄弟会,他们联合起来抵制当时的艺术传统,主张创造或再创造拉菲尔艺术时期之前的艺术形式.先拉菲尔派的诗歌明显对中世纪艺术,18世纪歌谣,古老的修辞手法,象征主义及感官享受表示青睐.

60. Psychological novel(心理小说)

Psychological novel refers to a kind of novel that dwells on a complex Psychological development and presents much of the narration through the inner workings of the character’s mind.

61.Point of View(叙述角度)

Point of view can be divided by the narrator’s relationship with the character, represented by the grammatical person: the first-person narrative, the third-person narrative, and omniscient narrator.

62. plot(情节)

Plot refers to the structure of a story,2> the plot of a literary work includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the resolution. It has a protagonist who is opposed by an antagonist ,creating what is called conflict.

63. Allusion(典故)

Allusion means a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. 2> an Allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion. 3>allusion is a device that allows writer to compress a great deal of meaning into a very few words.

64. Protagonist and Antagonist(正面人物与反面人物)

In literary work protagonist refers to the hero or central character who is often hindered by some opposing force either human or animan. Antagonist is a person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine.

65. Flashback(倒叙)P133

A device by which the writer presents scenes or incidents that occurred prior to the beginning of a story or play.2> various devices may be used, among them recollections of the characters, narration by the characters, dream sequence and reveries. This is a break in the chronological sequence of a story made to deal with earlier events.

66. 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.

67.Ambiguity

Ambiguity means two or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work.2> deliberate ambiguity can contribute to the effectiveness and richness of a work, however, unintentional ambiguity obscures meaning and can confuse readers.

68. Pragnatism(实用主义)

A doctrine which tests truth by its practical consequences. Truth is therefore held to be relative and not attained by metaphysical speculation.2> it was first formulated by C.S.Peirce and was developed by William James.

69. Symbolism(象征主义)

Symbolism wo rks under the surface to tie the story’s external action to the theme. It was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence.

70. Dadaism(达达主义)

Dadaism refers to an international nihilistic movement amone European artists and writers that lasted from 1916-1922. it originated in the widespread disillusionment engendered by world war 1. Dada attacked conventional standards of aesthetics and behavior and

stressed absurdity and the role of the unpredictable in artistic creation. Dada principles were eventually modified to become the basis of surrealism in 1924.

71. The Angry young men(愤怒的青年)

In the mid-1950s and early 1960s, there appeared a group of young novelists and playwrights with lower-middle-class or working-class background, who were known as “The Angry young men”2> they demonstrated a particular disillusion over the depressing situation in Britain and launched a bitter protest against the outmoded social and political values in their society.3> kingsley Amis is a leading figure of this group.

72. Existentialism(存在主义)

Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one’s acts.2>its famous motto is “existence precedes essence”(存在先于本质)

73. Anti-hero(反面人物)

Anti-hero is a character who lacks the qualities needed for heroism.

2>an anti-hero does not posses nobility of life or mind and does not have an attitude marked by high purpose and lofty aim.

3>anti-hero typically distrust conventional values and are unable to commit themselves to any ideals. they generally feel helpless in a world, over which they have no control. Anti-heroes usually accept succumb to, and often celebrate, their positions as social outcasts.

74. Round Character(丰满的人物)

A Round Character is complex and undergoes development, sometimes reaches the point that the reader is surprise.

75. Flat character(平淡的人物)

Flat character is relatively uncomplicated and does not change throughout the course of a literary work.

76. Oedipus complex(俄狄浦斯情结/蛮母厌父情结)

Oedipus complex is a term coined by Sigmund Freud to designate a son’s su bconscious feeling of love toward his mather and jealousy and hatred toward his father.

2>D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and lovers is a case in point.

77.omniscience(无所不知的)

The narrator is capable of knowing, seeing and telling all the actions of the character. And the narrator feels free to make comments on the meaning of actions.

2> it is characterized by freedom in shifting from the exterior world to the inner selves of a number of characters and by a freedom in movement both in time and space.

78. Poetry(诗歌)

Poetry is one of the three types (or genres) of literature. The others being prose and drama. Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas. Many poem emply regular rhythmical patterns, or meters. However, some are written in free verse. Most poems make use of highly concise, musical, and emotionally charged language.

79. Rhyme(押韵)

Rhyme is the repetition of sounds at the ends of words. End rhyme occurs when rhyming words appear at the ends of lines. internal rhyme occurs when rhyming words fall within a line.

80. Iambic pentameter(五音步诗)

Iambic pentameter is the most common English meter, in which each foot contains an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable.

81. Rhyme royal

Rhyme royal is a poetic pattern with seven iambic pentameters rhyming ababbcc which pronounce a final short e, and often end in an 11th, unstressed syllable.

82. Shakespearean sonnet(莎士比亚十四行诗)

Shakespearean sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet ( rhyming abab cdcd efef gg).

83. Italian or petranrchan sonnet(意大利十四行诗)

Italian or petranrchan sonnet, composed of an octave and s sestet( rhyming abbaabba cdecde).

84. Alliteration and assonance(头韵和半韵)

Alliteration and assonance are said to rhyme only today when the sound of the final accented syllable of one word( paced usually at the end of a line of verse) agrees with the final accented syllable of another word so place.

85. Poetic license(诗的破格)

Poetic license means such liberties a poet adopts as “approximate rhymes”, or “eye-rhymes”. (Words which are spelled alike but not prono unced alike)

86. Epiphany(主显节?)

Epiphany is an appearance or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, which is adapted by James Joyce to describe the sudden revelation of whatness of a thing, the moment in which the soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.

87. Psychological penetration(心理透视)

Psychological penetration is a writing device that involves such psychological elements as “Id”, “ego”, “superego” in the depiction of characters’ inner thinking or mental activities.

88. Legend(传说)

Legend is a widely told story about the past that may or may not be based in fact. A legend often reflects a people’s identity or cultural values, generally with more historical and less emphasis on the supernatural things in a myth.

89. Myth(神话)

Myth is a fictional tale originally with religious significance, which explains the actions of gods or heroes, the causes of natural phenomena, or both. Allusions to characters and motifs from Greek, Roman, Celtic myths are common in English literature.

90. Pessimism(悲观主义)

Pessimism denotes an attitude of hopelessness towards life, a vague general opinion that pain and evil predominate in human affairs.

91. Jacobean age(英王詹姆斯一世时期)

Referring to the reign of King James I of England, the term came from the Latin form of James, Jacobus. It is generally applied to the literature(especially drama) of that period.

92. Tragicomedy(悲喜剧)

Tragicomedy is a play in which the action, though apparently leading to a catastrophe, is reversed to bring about a happy ending.2> the typical tragicomedy concerns noble characters involved in improbable situations. Love, frequently seen as a contrast of the

pure and the sensual, is the central motive of the elaborate plot, in which both hero and heroine are rescued from imminent disaster so that the play may conclude happily.

93. Comedy of manners(风俗喜剧)

Popular during the Restoration period, these plays are concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial and “highly sophisticated” society. A hundred years later, Goldsmith and Sheridan also wrote plays of the same nature.

94. 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.

95. Historical novel(历史小说)

A novel in which the action takes place during a specitic historical well before the time of writing,(often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries). And in which some attempt ih made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character---real or imagined--- is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome, the pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and cooper.

历史小说指故事发生在特定历史时期的一类小说,(通常相隔一代或两代,有时几个世纪),这类小说试图准确描述当时那个时期的风俗以及人的思想情况,主人公或虚构或真实,通常被置于历史冲突中,而这个事件的结局早已为读者所熟知,历史小说的开创者是沃尔特.司格特和库珀.

96. Unitarianism(上帝一位论)

Unitarianism is, in general, the form of Christianity that denies the doctrine of the trinity. Believing that God exists only in one person, modern Unitarianism originated in the period of the protestant Reformation.

上帝一位论从总体上说是基督教的一派,反对上帝三位一体说,相信上帝只存在于一个人身上,现代的上帝一位论起源于新教改革时期.

97. Calvinism(加尔文主义)

Calvinism refers to the religious teachings of John Calvin and his followers.

2>Calvin taught that only certain persons, the elect, were chosen by God to be saved, and these could be saved only by God’s grace.

3>Calvinism forms the basis for the doctrines and practices of the Huguenots, puritans, Presbyterians, and the reformed churches.

98. Assonance(类韵)

The repetition of similar vowel sounds, especially in poetry. Assonance is often employed to please the ear or emphasize certain sounds.

99. Consonance(和音)

It refers to the repetition of identical or similar consomants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different in a line of poetry.

美国文学名词解释

1. Transcendentalism The origin of it is a philosophical and literary movement centered in Concord and Boston, which marks the summit of American Transcendentalism. 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The major features of American Transcendentalism are:It emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. It stressed the importance of the individual. To them the individual was the most important element of society. It offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. 2.Romanticism The Romanticism period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a term associate with imagination boundlessness, and in critical usage is contrasted with classicism which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. The features of Romanticism are: American Romanticism was in a way derivative: American romantic writing was some of them modeled on English and European works. American romanticism was in essence the expression of "a real new experience "and contained"an alien quality".Representatives:William Cullen Bryant; Henry Longfellow and James Cooper, Washington Irving. 3.Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. 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 expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.The representatives are Howells, James, and Mark Twain. 4. Naturalism American naturalism was a new and harsher realism, it had come from Europe. Naturalism was an outgrowth of realism that responded to theories in science, psychology, human behavior and social thought current in the late nineteenth century. The background of naturalism are: In the last decade of the nineteenth century, with the development of industry and modern science, intelligent minds began to see that man was no longer a free ethical being in a cold, indifferent and essentially Godless universe. In this chance world he was both helpless and hopeless.Major Features of it are:Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.Representatives of it such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser. 5.New Criticism The New Criticism as a school of poetry and criticism established itself in the 1940s as an academic orthodoxy in the United States. The school has its beginning in the 1920s. It focus on the analysis of the text rather paying attention to external elements such as its social background, its author's intention and political attitude, and its impact on society. Then it explores the artistic structure of the work rather than its author's frame of mind or its reader's responses. It also see a literary work as an organic entity, the unity of content and form, and places emphasis on the close reading of the text. These New Critics included T.S. Eliot,I.A.Richards,John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate and some other critics. The New Criticism has tended to divorce criticism from social and moral concerns, which was to become one salient feature of the movement. 6.Imagism: Between 1912 and 1922 there came a great poetry boom in which about 1000 poets published over 1000 volumes of poetry. Indeed ,to express the modern spirit, the sense of fragmentization and dislocation, was in large measure the aim of quite a few modern literary movements, of which Imagism was one.The first Imagist theorist, the English writer T.E.Hulme. Hulme suggests that modern art deals with expression and communication of momentary phases in the poet's mind. The most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of dominant image.It is a literary movement launched American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism. The representatives are Ezra pound, William Carlos Williams and some other poets.

美国文学史复习提纲 名词解释

I. Explain the following literary terms(名词解释). 1. Romanticism The most profound and comprehensive idea of romanticism is the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Appeals to imagination; Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, gen iality. Subjectivity: in form and meaning. 2 American transcendentalism American transcendentalism was an important movement in philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years of the nineteenth century (about 1836-1860). For the transcendentalists, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains. 3 Realism: ―nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.‖ the Civil war a. verisimilitude of details derived from observation b. representative in plot, setting and character c. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience or（American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. 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 expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.） 4. Modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century. 5、American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature. 6、Transcendentalism: In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of Romanticism. The movement began among an influential set of authors based in Concord, Massachusetts and was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like Romanticism, transcendentalism rejected both 18th century rationalism and established religion, which for the transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular. The transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. They found their chief source of inspiration in nature. Emerson’s essay Nature was the major document of the transcendental school and stated the ideas that were to remain central to it. 7、Free verse: free verse is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed without attention to conventio nal rules of meter. Free verse was first written and labeled by a group of French poets of the late 19th century. Their purpose was to deliver poetry from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate the free rhythms of natural speech. Walt Whitman was the precursor who wrote lines of varying length and cadence, usually not rhymed. The emotional content or meaning of the work was expressed through its rhythm. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern American poets, including Ezra Pound and Carl Sandburg. 8、Naturalism: A more deliberate kind of realism in novels, stories and plays, usually involving a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and social environment. Naturalism was a new and harsher realism. It

美国文学选读名词解释

1.Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. 1.simply speaking , American Puritanism just refers to the spirit and ideal of puritans,who settled in the North American continent in the early part of the seventeenth century because of religious persecutions. 2.In content it means scrupulous ,moral rigor ,especially hostility to social pleasure and religion . 3.with time passing it became a dominant factor in American life , one of the most enduring shaping influences in American thought and literature.to some extent it is a state of mind,a part of the national cultural atmosphere that the American breathes ,rather than a set of tenets. 4.Actually it is a code of values,a philosophy of life and a point of view in American minds,also a two-faceted tradition of religious idealism and level -headed in common sense . 2.The American Romanticism(浪漫主义):a literary movement flourished as a cultural force the early period and the late period. associated with imagination and boundlessness, as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries.(Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe.) II.Features of American romanticism (1) It was the expression of “a real new experience(全新体验)”. (2) American Puritanism was a cultural heritage. Many American romantic writings intended to edify(启发) more than they entertained. (3) American Romanticism is full of “newness(新奇)” . Ideals：Individualism; political equality Dream：America: a new Garden of Eden (4)American romanticism was both imitative and independent. 3.Transcendentalism 超验主义 The major features of Transcendentalism: ① The Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. 思想超灵宇宙 ② The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual is the most important element of Society. ③ The Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was not purely matter. It was alive, filled with God’s ove rwhelming presence. 自然+上帝 Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Transcendentalism:As a philosophical and literary

美国文学名词解释

1. Transcendentalism—it is a philosophic and literary movement that flourish in New England, as a reaction against rationalism and Calvinism. It stressed intuitive understanding of god without the help of the church, and advocated independence of the mind. 超验主义，它是一个蓬勃发展的新英格兰的哲学和文学运动，反对理性主义和加尔文主义的反应。它强调直观地了解上帝没有教会的帮助下，主张心灵的独立性。 2. Romanticism had appeared in England in the last years of the eighteenth century. It spread to conti nental Europe and then came to America early in the nineteenth century. It came into being as a re action against the prevailing neoclassical spirit and rationalism during the Age of Reason. 浪漫主义曾经出现在英国，在过去几年的十八世纪。它蔓延到欧洲大陆，然后来到美国在十九世纪初。它应运而生作为理性的时代中针对当时新古典主义精神和理性的反应。 3. Puritanism—it is the religious belief of the Puritans, who had intended to purify and simplify the religious ritual of the Church of England. 清教主义，它是清教徒，谁曾打算净化和简化英国教会的宗教礼仪的宗教信仰。 4. Imagism is to present an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. An imagistic poem must present the object exactly the way the thing is seen. And the reader can form the image of the object through the process of reading the abstract and concrete words. Imagism 意象派：is a poetic movement of England and the United States, flourished from 1909-1917. Its credo, expressed in Some Imagist Poets, included the use of the language of common speech, project matter, the evocation of images in hard, clear poetry, and concentration. 英国是与美国的诗意动作，从1909-1917蓬勃发展。它的信条，在表达意象的一些诗人，包括使用共同的讲话，不管项目，图像的硬盘，明确诗歌和浓度唤起的语言。 5、Realism：（现实主义）appeared in the United States in the literature of local color, an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things was immediately observable. the dialects, customs, sights.现实主义有浓厚的美国本土特色，是浪漫主义故事情节和现实主义描写相结合的产物：美国风味的方言、风俗、各种观点 6.Naturalism：自然主义 a new and harsher realism, 新型的更为冷峻的现实主义，产生悲观的流派，产生于the end of the century 十九世纪末，因为Perception of society’s disorders 对社会无序的感知。Presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were dominated by their environment and heredity. 设法尽力客观真实地展现出受环境与出身局限的下层人民和各种经济阶层人物的真正生活。The naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that their lives were controlled by heredity and the environment, the religious “truths” were illusory, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. 强调世界的非道德性，人们没有意志的自由，宗教上的真理是虚幻的，现实生活是痛苦的。Deterministic 决定论，宿命的， 代表作家：Stephen Crane 史蒂芬.克莱恩, Frank Norris 弗朗克.诺里斯, Jack London 杰克.伦敦, Theodore Dreiser 西奥多.德莱塞. 6. The naturalists tend to depict the dark side of the socity, and always take the low classes as their heros or heroes. Compare to the realism and romanticism, they have a more pessimistic view toward the society, the life. Take Theodore Dreiser for example, his Sister Carrie or American Tragedy reveal that man can not control themselves, and is at the mercy of the nature, the heredity, the society and instinct.博物学家倾向于描绘社会的阴暗面,总是以低类为他们的英雄和英雄。比较现实主义和浪漫主义,他们对社会有更悲观的观点,生活。以西奥多·德莱塞为例,他的嘉莉妹妹还是美国的悲剧表明,男人不能控制自己,自然的摆布,遗传,社会和本能。

美国文学名词解释

Allegory is a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems, stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy.In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but his character also represents every man who is in search of his purpose in the world. Alliteration is a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words. Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place. Aside is an actor’s speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking. Asides are important because they increase an audience's involvement in a play by giving them vital information pertaining what is happening, both inside of a character's mind and in the plot of the play. Gothic is a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such “gothic” surroundings. Other times, this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad fro m the "beating" of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.”In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view. CATHARSIS is an emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work. IMAGERY: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. Surrealism is an artistic movement doing away with the restrictions of realism and verisimilitude that might be imposed on an artist. In this movement, the artist sought to do away with conscious control and instead respond to the irrational urges of the subconscious mind. From this results the hallucinatory, bizarre, often nightmarish quality of surrealistic paintings and writings. Sample surrealist writers include Frank O'Hara, John Ashberry, and Franz Kafka.

美国文学简史名词解释定义

American Puritanism: Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within the Church of England in the late sixteenth century. Under siege from church and crown, it sent an offshoot in the third and forth decades of the seventeenth century to the northern English colonies in the New World--- a migration that laid the foundation for the religious, intellectual, and social order of New England, Puritanism, however,was not only a historically specific phenomenon coincident with the founding of New England; it was also a way of being in the world---a style of response to lived experience---that has reverberated through American life ever since. Doctrinally, Puritans adhered to the Five Points of Calvinism as codified at the Synod of Dort in 1619:(1) unconditional election ( the idea that God had decreed who was damned and who was saved from before the beginning of the world); (2) limited atonement ( the idea that Christ died for the elect only); (3) total depravity (humanity's utter corruption since the Fall); (4) irresistible grace (regeneration as entirely a work of God, which cannot be resisted and to which the sinner contributes nothing); and (5) the perseverance of the saints (the elect, despite their backsliding and faintness of heart , cannot fall away from grace). American Dream: The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. Nowadays the American Dream has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and\ or happiness. Gothic tradition: Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or chaustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as Gothic. It contributed to the new emotional climate of Romanticism. Historical novel: a novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before the time of writing ( often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries), and in which some attempt is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. The central character---real or imagined---is usually subject to divided loyalties within a larger historic conflict of which readers know the outcome. The pioneers of this genre were Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper American Romanticism:Romanticism refers to an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. The romantic period in American literature stretched from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil