英语专业英国文学中世纪时期名词解释

①Beowulf:The national heroic epic of the English people. It has over 3,000 lines. It describes the battles between the two monsters and Beowulf, who won the battle finally and dead for the fatal wound. The poem ends with the funeral of the hero. The most striking feature in its poetical form is the use if alliteration. Other features of it are the use of metaphors(暗喻) and of understatements(含蓄).

②Alliteration: In alliterative verse, certain accented(重音) words in a line begin with the same consonant sound(辅音). There are generally 4accents in a line, 3 of which show alliteration, as can be seen from the above quotation.

③Romance:The most prevailing(流行的) kind of literature in feudal England was the Romance. It was a long composition, sometimes in verse(诗篇), sometimes in prose(散文), describing the life and adventures of a noble hero, usually a knight, as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournament(竞赛), or fighting for his lord in battle and the swearing of oaths.

④Epic: An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significantly to a culture or nation. The first epics are known as primacy, or original

epics.

⑤Ballad: The most important department of English folk literature is the ballad which is a story told in song, usually in 4-line stanzas(诗节), with the second and fourth lines rhymed. The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the struggle of young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of jealousy, the criticism of the civil war, and the matters and class struggle. The paramount(卓越的) important ballad is Robin Hood(《绿林好汉》).

⑥Geoffrey Chaucer杰弗里▪乔叟:He was an English author, poet, philosopher and diplomat. He is the father of English poetry. He obtained a good knowledge of Latin, French and Italian. His best remembered narrative is the Canterbury Tales(《坎特伯雷故事集》), which the Prologue(序言) supplies a miniature(缩影) of the English society of Chaucer’s time. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism”. Chaucer affirms men and women’s right to pursue their happiness on earth and opposes(反对) the dogma of asceticism(禁欲主义) preached(鼓吹) by the church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. Chaucer’s contribution to English poetry lies chiefly in the fact that he introduced from France the rhymed stanza of various types, especially the rhymed

couplet of 5 accents in iambic(抑扬格) meter(the “heroic couplet”) to English poetry, instead of the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.

Canterbury Tales

contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey

Southwark on their return.The tales cover practically all the major types of medieval literature: courtly romance, folk tale, beast fable, story of travel and adventure, saint’s（圣徒）life, allegorical tale, sermon, alchemical account, and others.The main themes of those stories are ove and marriage and revealing church.