英国文学名词解释大全(整理版)

名词解释

1.Epic(史诗)（appeared in the the Anglo-Saxon Period ）

It is a narrative of heroic action, often with a principal hero, usually mythical in its content, grand in its style, offering inspiration and ennoblement within a particular culture or national tradition.

A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.

Epic is an extended narrative poem in elevated or dignified language, like Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey. It usually celebrates the feats of one or more legendary or traditional heroes. The action is simple, but full of magnificence.

Today, some long narrative works, like novels that reveal an age & its people, are also called epic.

E.g. Beowulf （the pagan（异教徒），secular(非宗教的) poetry）Iliad 《伊利亚特》，Odyssey《奥德赛》Paradise Lost 《失乐园》，The Divine Comedy《神曲》

2.Romance （传奇）(Anglo-Norman feudal England)

•Romance is any imaginative literature that is set in an idealized world and that deals with heroic adventures and battles between good characters and villains or monsters.

•Originally, the term referred to a medieval (中世纪) tale dealing with the love and adventures of kings, queens, knights, and ladies, and including supernatural happenings.

Form:long composition, in verse, in prose

Content:description of life and adventures of a noble hero

Character:a knight, a man of noble birth, skilled in the use of weapons; often described as riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournaments(骑士比武), or fighting for his lord in battles; devoted to the church and the king •Romance lacks general resemblance to truth or reality.

•It exaggerates the vices of human nature and idealizes the virtues.

•It contains perilous (dangerous) adventures more or less remote from ordinary life.

•It lays emphasis on supreme devotion to a fair lady.

①The Romance Cycles/Groups/Divisions

Three Groups

●matters of Britain Adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table （亚瑟王和他的圆桌骑士）

●matters of France Emperor Charlemagne and his peers

●matters of Rome Alexander the Great and the attacks of Troy

Le Morte D’Arthur （亚瑟王之死）

②Class Nature (阶级性) of the Romance

Loyalty to king and lord was the theme of the romances, as loyalty was the corner-stone（the most important part基石）of feudal morality.

The romances were composed not for the common but for the noble, of the noble, and by the poets patronized （supported 庇护,保护）by the noble.

3. Alliteration（押头韵）: a repeated initial(开头的) consonant(协调,一致) to successive(连续的) words.

e.g. 1.To his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.

2.Sing a song of southern singer

4. Understatement（低调陈述）（for ironical humor）