英国文学术语

British LiteratureThe Renaissance Period1. Allegory: As a rule, an allegory (also defined as an extended metaphor) is a story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning, and a secondary or under-the-surface meaning. It is a story that can be read, understood and interpreted at two levels ( in some cases at three or four levels). It is closely related to the fable and the parable, which are didactic, comparatively short and simple allegories. The form may be literary or pictorial or both. An allegory has no definite length. The higher levels of meaning are usually concerned with moral, religious, political, symbolic or mythical ideas. In an allegory, characters or personifications represent something other than themselves---virtues, vices, causes or issues. There are two kinds of allegory: those that use personifications, as in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Spenser’s The Faerie Queene; and those that use a special kind of symbolism, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy.2.Blank verse: Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, typically in iambic pentameter, and, as such,the dominant verse form of English dramatic and narrative poetry since the mid-16th century.Blank verse is not written in stanza form. Instead, the poem is developed in verse paragraphs that vary in length. Blank verse is a flexible form of expression that gives the poet a choice of many variations within the metrical pattern. Because of its flexibility, blank verse is especially appropriate for narrative and dramatic poetry and other longer kinds of poetry. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, adapted blank verse from Italian poetry to English in the early 1500’s.Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare used this form with great power and variety in their plays. Many poets of the 1800’s and 1900’s wrote in blank verse. They include William Wordsworth, William Cullen Bryant, John Keats, Lord Tennyson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens.3.Humanism: Broadly, this term suggests any attitude, which tends to exalt the human elementor stress the importance of human interests, as opposed to the supernatural, divine elements—or as opposed to the grosser, animal elements. In a more specific sense, humanism suggests a devotion to those studies supposed to promote human culture effectively---in particular, those dealing with the life, thought, language, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. In literary history the most important use of the term is to designate the revival of classical culture that accompanied the Renaissance.4.Renaissance: It is the rebirth of artistic, literary and academic interest and creativity thatmarks the transition from Medieval Europe to the modern world. Generally dated from the 14th to the mid-17th century, the renaissance emerged in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe.In outlook the renaissance brought new importance to individual expression, self-consciousness, and worldly experience; culturally it was a time of brilliant accomplishments in scholarship, literature, science, and the arts. More generally, it was an era of emerging nation-states and exploration, and the beginning of a revolution in commerce. It is best to regard the renaissance as the result of a new emphasis upon and a new combination of tendencies and attitudes already existing, stimulated by a series of historical events. The new humanistic learning that resulted from the rediscovery of classical literature is frequently taken as the beginning of the Renaissance on its conscious, intellectual side. The influence of the Renaissance on future generations was to prove immense in many fields—from art andliterature to education, political science, and history. For centuries, most scholars have agreed that the modern era of human history began with the Renaissance.5.Sonnet: It is a basic lyric form, consisting of 14 lines of iambic pentameter rhymed in variouspatterns. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is divided clearly into octave and sestet, the first rhyming abba abba and the second in a pattern such as cdc dcd. The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg.In late 16th- century England, sonnets were written either independently as short epigrammatic forms, or grouped in sonnet sequence, i.e. collections of upwards of a hundred poems, in imitation of Petrarch, purportedly addressed to one central figure or muse—a lady usually with a symbolic name like “Stella” or “Idea”. Milton made a new kind of use of the Petrarchan form, and the romantic poets continued in the Miltonic tradition. Several variations have been devised, including the addition of “tails” or extra lines, or the recasting into 16 lines, instead of 14.6. A soliloquy: A speech in which a character, alone on the stage, addresses himself or herself;a soliloquy is a “ thinking out aloud,” a dramatic means of letting an audience know a character’s thoughts and feelings.The Period of Revolution and RestorationThe 17th Century6.Metaphysical：It refers to the school of poets that appeared in the revolutionary period inEngland by using quite unconventional and often surprising conceits; the metaphysical poets wrote poems full of wit and humor. Nut sometimes the logic argument and conceits become pervasive, going to preposterous dimensions. The language is colloquial but very powerful, creating unorthodox images on the reader’s mind. John Donne and Andrew Marvell are the representative metaphysical poets.7.Conceit:奇想；别出心裁的比喻。