英美文学术语

1. Allusion （典故）is a reference without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person, place, or event, or to another literary work or passage. Most literary allusions are intended to be recognized by the generally educated readers of the aut hor’s time, but some are aimed at a special group.2. Atmosphere（氛围）: 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 to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes.3. Climax：as a rhetorical device it means an ascending sequence of importance. As a literary term, it can also refer to the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story’s turning poi nt. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increase of tension in the plot are known as the rising action. All action after the climax is referred to as the falling action, or resolution. The term crisis is sometimes used interchangeably with climax.4. Anticlimax（突降）：it denotes a writer’s deliberate drop from the serious and elevated to the trivial and lowly, in order to achieve a comic or satiric effect. It is a rhetorical device in English.5. Characters（人物）are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from the dialogues, actions and motivations. E. M. Forster 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.6. Comedy:（喜剧）in general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.7. Farce （闹剧）is a type of comedy designed to provoke the audience to simple and hearty laughter. To do so it commonly employs highly exaggerated types of characters and puts them into improbable and ludicrous situations.of other meters.8. Hyperbole（夸张）:this figure of speech called hyperbole is bold overstatement, or the extravagant exaggeration of fact or of possibility. It may be used either for serious or ironic or comic effect.9. Understatement（轻描淡写）：this figure of speech deliberately represents something as very much less in magnitude or importance than it really is, or is ordinarily considered to be. The effect is usual ly ironic.10. Irony（反讽）：This term derives from a character in a Greek comedy. In most of the modern cr itical uses of the term “irony”, there remains the root sense of dissembling or hiding what is actually the case; not, however, in order to deceive, but to achieve rhetorical or artistic effects.11. Theme（主题）：The term is usually applied to a general concept or doctrine, whether implicit or asserted, which an imaginative work is designed to incorporate and make persuasive to the reader.12. Multiple Point of View （多重视角）：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 pointsof view radiating from it. The multiple points of view technique makes the reader recognize the difficulty of arriving at a true judgment.13. Flashback（闪回）：interpolating narratives or scenes which represent events that happened before the time at which the work opened; for example, it is used in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.14. Plot（情节）：The plot in a dramatic or narrative work is constituted by its events and actions, as these are rendered and ordered toward achieving particular artistic and emotional effects.15. Short Story: A fictional prose take of no specified length,but too short to be published as a volume on its own.A short story will normally concentrate on a single event with only one or two characters,more economically than a novel's sustained exploration of social background.There are similar fictional forms of greater antiquity,but the short story,as we know it,flourished in the magazines of the 19th and early 20th centuries,especially in the USA,which has a particularly strong tradition.16.Narration: Like description, narration is a part of conversation and witting. Narration is the major technique used in expository witting, 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.17. Renaissance:The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism18. Symbol: A symbol is a sign 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 conveying meaning. The best symbols are those that are believable in the lives of the characters and also 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 the ambiguity may also be part of the meaning of the story.19. Symbolism:Symbolism is the writing technique of using symbols. It’s a literary movement that arose in France in the last half of the 19th century and that greatly influenced many English writers, particularly poets, of the 20th century. It enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. It’s one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.20. Theme; The general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. All the elements of a literary work-plot, setting, characterization, and figurative language-contribute to the development of its theme.21. Tone: The attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject, characters, or audience. The tone of a speech ora piece of writing can be formal or intimate; outspoken or reticent; abstruse or simple; solemn or playful; angry or loving; serious or ironic.22. Tragedy: In general, a literary work in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous23. Motif: A recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of literature. A motif generally contributes in some way to the theme of a short story, novel, poem, or play. At times, motif is used to refer to some commonly used plot or character type in literature.24. Motivation:The reasons, either stated or implied, for a character’s behavior. To make a story believable, a writer must provide characters with motivation sufficient to explain what they do. Characters may be motivated by outside events, or they may be motivated by inner needs or fears.25.Narrator: One who narrates, or tells, a story. A story may be told by a first-person narrator, someone who is either a major or minor character in the story. Or a story may be told by a third-person narrator, someone who is not in the story at all. The word narrator can also refer to a character in a drama who guides the audience through the play, often commenting on the action and sometimes participating in it.26. Novel: A book-length fictional prose narrative, having may characters and often a complex plot.27.Plot: 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 reader, 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 plot. Each event in the plot is related to the conflict, the struggle that the main character undergoes. Conflict may be external or internal, and there may be more than one form of conflict in a work. As the plot advances, we learn how the conflict is resolved. Action is generally introduced by the exposition, information essential to understanding the situation. The action rises to a crisis, or climax. This movement is called the rising action. The falling action, which follows the crisis, shows a reversal of fortune for the protagonist. The denouement or resolution is the moment when the conflict ends and the outcome of the action is clear.28. Point of view: The vantage point from which a narrative is told. There are two basic points of view:first-person and third-person. In the first-person point of view, the story is told by one of the characters in his or her own words. The first-person point of view is limited. In the third-person point of view, the narrator is not a character in the story. The narrator may be an omniscient. On the other hand, the third-person narrator mighttell a story from the point of view of only one character in the story.29. Protagonist: The central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem. The protagonist is the character on whom the action centers and with whom the reader sympathizes most. Usually the protagonist strives against an opposing force, or antagonist , to accomplish something30. Diction:A writer’s choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision.31. Exp osition: (1) That part of a narrative or drama in which important background information is revealed. (2) It is the kind of writing that is intended primarily to present information. Exposition is one of the major formsof discourse. The most familiar form it takes is in essays. Exposition is also that part of a play in which important background information is revealed to the audience.32. Figurative language: Language that is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. By appealing to the imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. Figurative language consists of such figures of speech as hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron矛盾修饰法, personification, simile, and synecdoche.33. Figure of speech: A word or an expression that is not meant to be interpreted in a literal sense. The most common kinds of figures of speech—simile, metaphor, personification, and metonymy—involve a comparison between unlike things.34. Foreshadowing: The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what will happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and to build suspense. Sometimes foreshadowing also prepares the reader for the ending of the story.35. Irony: A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. Three kinds of irony are (1) verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says one thing and means something entirely different; (2) dramatic irony, in which a reader or an audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know; (3) irony of situation, in which the writer shows a discrepancy between the expected results of some action or situation and its actual results.36. Antagonist: A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine.37. 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.。