英美文学名词解释

1. In the medieval period ， it is Chaucer alone who ， for the first time in English literature ， presented to usa comprehensive __picture of the English society of his time and created a whole galery of vivid ___ from all walks of life in his masterpiece “the Canterbury Tales ”。

A. visionary / women

B. romantic /men

C. realistic / characters

D. natural / figures

2. Although ____ was essentially a medieval writer, he bore marks of humanism and anticipated a new

era of literature to come.

A. William Langland

B. John Gower

C. Geoffrey Chaucer

D. Edmund Spenser

3. Humanism spume from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors and is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious ，intellectual side ，for the Greek and Roman civilization was based on the conception that man is the ____ of all things .

A. measure

B. king

C. lover

D. rule

4. The essence of humanism is to ______.

A. restore a medieval reverence for the church

B. avoid the circumstances of earthly life

C. explore the next world in which men could live after death

D. emphasize human qualities

5. Many people today tend to regard the play “ The Merchant of Venice ” as a satire of the hypocrisy of ___ and their false standards of friendship and love ， their cunning ways of pursuing worldliness and their unreasoning prejudice against _________ .

A. Christians / Jews

B. Jews / Christians

C. oppressors / oppressed

D. people / Jews

6. In “ Sonnet 18 ”， Shakespeare has a profound meditation on the destructive power of _________ and the eternal __________ brought forth by poetry to the one he loves .

A. death/ life

B. death/ love

C. time / beauty

D. hate / love

7.In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes The Vanity Fair in a ______ tone.

A. delightful

B. satirical

C. sentimental

D. solemn

8. The religious reformation in the early 16th-century England was a reflection of the class struggles waged by the _____.

A. rising bourgeoisie against the feudal class and its ideology

B. working class against the corruption of the bourgeoisie

C. landlord class against the rising bourgeoisie and its ideology

D. feudal class against the corruption of the Catholic Church

9. The ______ was a progressive intellectual movement throughout western Europe in the 18th century .

A. Renaissance

B. Enlightenmrent

C. Religious Reformation

D. Chartist Movement

10.The 18th century witnessed a new literary form -the modern English novel, which, contrary to the medieval romance, gives a ______ presentation of life of the common English people.

A. romantic

B. idealistic

C. prophetic

D. realistic

1. The title of the novel “ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ” written by James Joyce suggests a character study with strong _________ elements .