英美诗歌选读复习内容

名词解释

1、Epic:

A long and narrative poem written in an elevated style that recounts the adventures of a hero, who often embodies the traits of a nation or people. The earliest epic tales survived for centuries as oral traditions before they were finally written down.

Epics typically share a wide variety of characteristics:

1) the protagonist is a hero of great stature and significance;

2) the setting is vast in scope, often involving more than one nation;

3) the action requires noble, fantastic, and even superhuman actions;

4) the theme reflects timeless values, such as courage and honor, and encompasses universal ideas, such as good and evil or life and death; Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic poem in English.

2、Sonnet

A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy. In the 13th century, sonnet refers to a 14-line lyric poem with a complicated rhyme scheme and a defined structure, usually written in iambic pentameter. Sonnet can be divided into 3 types according to different structures:

1)Petrarchan sonnet. It was derived from the great Italian poet Petrarch;

2)Shakespearean sonnet. The shakespearean sonnet form contains 3 quatrains and a heroic couplet. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. The most famous sonneteer is William Shakespeare;

3)Spenserian sonnet. It was introduced in Britain by Sir Thomas Wyatt. It contains 3 quatrains and a couplet. What is unique to the Spenserian sonnet is the interlocking rhyme scheme:abab bcbc cdcd ee.

3、Pastoral

A pastoral is a poem that presents shepherds in idealized rural settings. Renaissance poets like Marlowe and Raleigh used the pastoral form to express their feelings and thoughts about love and other subjects. Shepherd in pastoral tend to use courtly speech. The poems usually have metrical patterns and rhyme schemes that help give them a musical or songlike quality. The imagery derives from commonplace country settings.

4、Metaphysical poetry

Metaphysical poetry is term adopted by Samuel Johnson to describe a school of highly intellectual poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression. The main themes of the metaphysical poets are love, death, and religion. The metaphysical poetry can be difficult to understand. They share several traits:

1)simple, conventional vocabulary, but complex sentence patterns;

2)Metaphysical conceits, a type pf extended metaphor comparing very dissimilar things;