20.文学术语--完整版

英美文学精华导读（第二版）主编毛龙忠颜静兰王慧副主编王玉胡平华东理工大学出版社2010年3月第2版英诗种类概述PoetryPoetry is one of the three majors types, or genres, of literature, the others being prose and drama. Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas. Many poems employ regular rhythmical patterns, or metres. However, some are written in free verse. Most poems make use of highly concise, musical, and emotionally charged language. Many also use imagery, figurative language and devices of sound like rhyme. Types of poetry include narrative poetry such as ballads, epics, metrical romances; dramatic poetry like dramatic monologues and dramatic dialogues; lyrics such as sonnets, odes, elegies, and love poems.叙事诗Lyric PoemA narrative poem tells a story in verse. Three traditional types of narrative poems include ballads, such as Sir Patrick Spens; epics, such as Beowulf; and metrical romances, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.There are some famous narrative poems in English literature, for example, Spens er’s The Faerie Queene,Milton’s Paradise Lost, Coleridge’s The Rime of the ancient Mariner,and Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott.抒情诗Lyric PoemA lyric poem expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. Unlike a narrative poem, it presents an experience or a single effect, but it does not tell a full story. Types of lyrics include the elegy, the ode, and the sonnet.The lyric poem, flourished in the songs and sonnets of the Renaissance, was revived the Romantic poets, and remained the most common poetic form in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, William Butler Yeats, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas and Stevie Smith all wrote great lyric poems.颂词OdeThe ode is a lyric poem of some length that honors an individual, a thing, or a trait dealing with a lofty theme in a dignified manner. The form dates back to classical times and is originally intended to be sung at festivals or in plays. The English odes are generally of three types:1)the Pindaric ode, following the pattern originated by the ancient Greekpoet Pindar.2)the Cowleyan ode, named after Abraham Cowley, an English poet ofthe 17th century.3)the Horatian ode, named after the ancient Roman poet Horace.Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind is of the Horatian type, i.e. with stanzasof uniform length and arrangement. Here Shelley employed the “tyerzarima”, an Italian measure first used by Dante in his well-known poemLa Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy). Here we find a variant ofthe original Italian Pattern: five 14-lined stanzas of iambic pentameter,each of the stanzas containing four tercets and a closing couplet. Therime scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ee.十四行诗SonnetA sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem with a single theme. Sonnets vary but are usually written in iambic pentameter, following one of two traditional patterns.The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is divided into two parts, an eight-line octave and six-line sestet. The octave rhymes abba abba, while the sestet generally rhymes cde cde or uses some combination of cd rhymes. The octave raises a question, states a problem, or presents a brief narrative, and the sestet answers the question, solves the problem, or comments on the narrative.The Shakespearean or English sonnet has three four-line quatrains plus a concluding two line couplet. The rhyme scheme of such a sonnet is usually abab cdcd efef gg. Each of the three quatrains usually explores a different variation of the main theme. Then the couplet presents a summarizing or concluding statement.素体诗Blank VerseBlank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. Each iambic foot has one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stressed syllable. A pentameter line has five of these feet. Blank verse usually contains occasional variations in rhythm that are introduced to create emphasis, variety, and naturalness of sound. Because blank verse sounds much like ordinary spoken English, it is often used in drama and in poetry. Great English writers of blank verse include Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Browning, and Auden. The following line come from Wordsworth’s blank-verse poem Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. 自由诗Free VerseFree verse is poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern or meter. Instead of having metrical feet and lines, free verse has a rhythm that suits its meaning and that uses the sounds of spoken language in lines of different lengths. Free verse has been widely used in twentieth-century poetry. An example is The Galloping Cat by Stevie Smith:All the same IIntend to go on beingA cat that likes toGallop about doing goodSoNow with my bald head I go,Chopping the untidy flowers down, to and fro.图画诗PictorialismPictorialism is an important poetic device characterized by efforts to achieve striking visual effects. Among its features are irregularity of line, contrast or enchantment of light, color and images. With specific images in mind, poets like E.E. Cummings not only resort to concrete images, with their color and light, for poetic treatment, but also seek to draw every ounce of picturesque value from typographical peculiarities. Other means of pictorialism include personification, juxtaposition and the matching of colors with verbs of action as shown in Sunset by E.E. Cummings with gold “swarms”, silver “chants” and rose “ring”, etc.P23-24韵律RhymeRhyme is the repetition of sounds at the ends of words. End rhymeoccurs when rhyming words appear at the ends of lines. Internal rhymeoccurs when rhyming words fall within a line. Exact rhyme is the use of identical rhyming sounds, as in love and dove. Approximate, or slant rhyme,is the use of sounds that are similar but not identical, as in prove and glove.韵脚Rhyme SchemeA rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem or stanza. To indicate a rhyme scheme, assign each final sound in the poem orstanza a different letter. The following lines from Charlotte Bronte’s On theDeath of Anne Bronte have been marked:There’s little joy of life for me, (a)And little terror in the grave; (b)I’ve lived the parting hour to see (a)Of one I would have died to save. (b)The rhyme scheme of this stanza is abab.格律MeterThe meter of a poem is its rhythmical pattern is determined by the number and types of stresses, or beats, in each line. To describe the meter ofa poem, you must scan its lines. Scanning involes marking the stressed and unstressed syllables,1.iamb: a foot with one stressed syllable followed by one stressedsyllable, as in the word “afraid”.诗节StanzaA stanza is a group of lines in a poem, seen as a unit. Many poems aredivided into stanzas that are separated by spaces. Stanzas often function like paragraphs in prose. Each stanza states and develops one main idea.Stanzas are commonly named according to the number or lines foundin them, as follows:1. a couplet: a two-line stanza2.tercet: a three- line stanza3.quatrain: a four-line stanza4.cinquain: a five-line stanza5.sestet: a six-line stanza6.heptastich: a seven-line stanza7.octave: an eight-line stanza小说分类FictionFiction is prose writing about imaginary characters and events including novels and short stories. Some writers of fiction base their stories on real people and events, while others rely sorely on their imaginations.长篇小说NovelA fictional prose narrative of considerable length, dealing especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of characters.传奇LegendA 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. Englishlegends include the stories of King Arthur and His knights of the Round Table and Robin Hood and His Merrymen under the Greenwood.神话MythA 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, Norse, and Celtic myths are common in English literature. In addition, mythological stories are often retold or adapted, as Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion illustrates. Pygmalion was a character from Greek mythology who created a beautiful sculpture of a woman and then fell love with his own creation.哥特式小说GothicGothic is a term used to describe literary works that make extensive use of primitive, medieval, wild, mysterious, or supernatural elements. Gothic elements offended eighteenth century Neoclassical writers but appealed to the Romantic writers who followed them. Gothic novels, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, are often set in gloomy castles where horrifying, supernatural events take place.现实主义小说RealismRealism is the presentation in art of details from actual life. During the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, realism enjoyed considerable popularity among writers in the English-speaking world. Nowhere, perhaps, was Realism more evident than in the novel. Novels often dealt with grim social realities and presented realistic portrayals of the psychological states of characters.意识流小说Stream of ConsciousnessStream of consciousness is a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind. Lacking chronological order, the events in a stream of consciousness narrative are presented from the character’s point of view, mixed in with the character’s ongoing feelings and memories. Developed by writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, stream-of-consciousness writing is used to reveal a character’s complex psychology and to present it in realistic detail.P95Symbol and symbolism (象征和象征意义)Symbols are a part of our everyday lives. The eagle is a symbol of America; the skull and crossbones on a bottle is a symbol of poison; and the dove is a symbol of peace. The literary symbol shares something similar. Generally speaking, a symbol is a sign which suggests more than its literal meaning.Literary symbols are of two broad types: the conventional ones and the occasionally-coined ones. Certain symbols occur again and again in literature, thus becoming conventional andpossessing almost settled symbolic meanings. For instance, roses symbolize love; spring symbolizes life, and winter death; a journey on the road often symbolizes the journey through life. These conventional symbols are easy to recognize and identify. However, in order to convey particular meanings, writers often create their own symbols in their writing. This type of symbols acquires its suggestiveness not only from qualities inherent in itself but also from the way in which it is used in a given work or context. For example, Whitman and Sandburg both use grass in their poems as a symbol to represent nature. In “Mending Wall”, Robert Frost seems to be talking about a simple and familiar process—mending a wall with a neighbor in spring. Yet, by the end of the poem, the wall, the neighbor, and the act of mending a wall become symbolic; they come to represent things larger than themselves.Symbolism is especially appropriate for poetry because it enables poets to compress a very complex idea or set of ideas into one image or even one word. Therefore, symbolism is one of the most powerful devices that poets employ in creation.Conflict (冲突)Conflict is a struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. Conflict can be external or internal, and it can take one of these forms: (1) a person against another person; (2) a person against society; (3) a person against nature; (4) two elements or ideas struggling for mastery within a person.P137Irony (反语)Irony always involves a contrast, a disparity between the expected and the actual. When the irony implies a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, it is verbal irony, the most familiar kind. Stories often contain other kinds of irony besides verbal irony; whenever we sense a sharp distinction between the ideas or opinions of the narrator of a story and those of the author, we are generally reading a work written from an ironic point of view—especially when the narrator is telling us something that we are clearly expected to doubt or to interpret very differently.Storyteller are sometimes fond of irony of fate (or a cosmic irony)—developments that reveal a terrible, distance between what people deserve and what they get, between what is and what ought to be. O. Henry’s The Cop and the Anthem best exemplifies this kind of irony. The story’s surprise ending suggests that some malicious fate is deliberately frustrating human efforts, and the reader’s sympathy is aroused.Characters and Characterization (人物性格和人物刻画)Characters are persons—or animals, things, or natural forces presented as persons—appearing in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. Characters are sometimes described as dynamic or static. Dynamic characters experience some change in personality or attitude. This change is an essential one and usually involves more than a mere change in surroundings or condition. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, for example, undergoes a major change from being rebellious at the beginning of the novel to being submissive and repentant at the end. Static characters remain the same throughout a narrative. They do not develop or change beyond the way in which they are first presented.Characters in a novel are generally more fully developed than those in a short story. Not only dose the novelist have room to develop perhaps more than one dynamic character, but he or she may reveal a main character in many different stages of change. Pip, in Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, is a character who, in the course of growing up, undergoes important and basic changes in personality and outlook.Characters are sometimes classified as flat or round. Plot characters have only one or two “sides,” representing one or two traits. They are often stereotypes that can be summed up in a few words, for example, an “anxious miser”or a “strong, silent type.”Round characters are complex and have many “sides”or traits. Their behavior is unpredictable because they are individuals, and their personalities are fully developed and require lengthy analysis. Flat characters, when developed by a skillful writer, may be as impressive as round characters.Characterization refers to the personality a character displays; also, it is the means by which an author reveals that personality. Generally, a writer develops a character in one or more of the following ways: (1) by showing the character acting and speaking; (2) by revealing a physical description of the character; (3) by revealing the character’s thoughts; (4) by revealing what other characters think about the character; (5) by commenting directly on the character. The first four methods are indirect methods of characterization. The writer shows or dramatizes the character and allows you to draw your own conclusions. The writer tells you directly what a character is like.Direct characterization is always supported by indirect techniques, as characters must act or speak if the writer is developing a story. Also, if characters are to be believable, the reader must hear or see, rather than simply be told, what the characters think or feel or do.P176Allegory (讽喻)Allegory is a story or narrative, usually of some length, in which characters, actions or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. It usually carries two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. In other words, it is a method of telling one story while seeming to tell another. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan is one of the most famous allegories. It personifies abstract ideas and human virtues and vices in characters such as Mr. Worldly—Wise, Giant Despair, Hopeful, Lechery, Pride, and Christian, the pilgrim.Fable (寓言)A fable is a short story, often with animals as its characters, which illustrates a moral. These animals speak and act like human beings. The fable is an ancient form, dating back to ancient Greek and Roman times in which appeared two world-famous fable writers: Aesop and Phaedrus. P211Plot (故事情节)Plot is the first and most obvious quality of a story. Plot is what happens in a story. Unlike life, which is random and unpredictable, the short story will usually be shaped by a chain of events, one leading inevitably to another in a line of rising action to a moment of crisis—the climax. In “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the grandmother’s secret taking of the cat on the journey; her chance thought to visit the old plantation; and the conversation with Red Sammy are all carefully arranged events by the author that combine to advance the plot, and lead to the final tragedy. Theoutcome of climax we call the denouement, a French word meaning the untangling of a knot.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. The writer will usually add coherence to the plot by signaling to the reader in advance the outcome of the action. We call these hints foreshadowing. When the reader finishes “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, he may realize that actually the outcome is foreshadowed several times in the early episodes. Sometimes the author may interrupt the action in a flashback in order to describe crucial events that occurred earlier. The flashback is one form of exposition, the process of giving the reader necessary information concerning characters and events existing before the action proper of a story begins.P251Point of View (视角)Point of view is the position from which the story is told. It is the author’s relationship to his or her fictional world, especially to the minds of the characters. There are four common points of view as follows.omniscient point of view (全知视角)In the omniscient position, the author, not one of the characters, tells the story, and the author assumes complete knowledge of the characters’ actions and thoughts. The author can thus move at will from one place to another, one time to another, one character to another, and can even speak his or her own views directly to the reader as the work goes along. Examples are Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and Fielding’s Josrph Andrews.limited omniscient point of viewWhen the limited omniscient position is used, the author still narrates the story but restricts his or her revelation—and therefore our knowledge—of the thoughts of all but one character. This character may be either a main or peripheral character. Examples are Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, Crane’s The Open Boat and, for the most part, Jane Austen’s Pride and prejudice.first-person point of view (第一人称视角)In the first-person position, the author is even more restricted: one of the characters tells the story, eliminating the author as narrator. Whereas in the limited omniscient point of view the author can reveal anything about one character, even things the character may be dimly aware of, here the narration is restricted to what one character says he or she observes. The character-narrator may be a major character who is at the center of events or a minor character who does not participate but simply observes the action. Examples of first-person narratives are Dickens’s Great Expectations, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, and Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener.objective point of view (客观视角)In the objective position, the author is more restricted than in any other. Though the author is the narrator, he or she refuses to enter the minds of any of the characters. The writer sees them as we would in real life. This point of view is sometimes called “dramatic”because we see the characters as we would the characters in a play. We learn about them from what they say and do, how they look, and what other characters say about them. But we don’t learn what they think unless they tell us. This point of view is the least common of all. Examples are Hemingway’sHills Like White Elephant and The killers, Stephen Crane’s The Blue Hotel, and Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery.。