英美文学史考试名词解释 |
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1. Epic : An epic is a long oral narrative poem that operates on a grand scale and deals with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance. Most epics deal with the exploits of a single individual and also interlace the main narrative with myths, legends, folk tales and past events. They summarize and express the nature of ideals of an entire nation and reflect the values of the society from which it originated. Beowulf is the first surviving epic written in the English language. As the national epic of the English people, Beowulf is a folk legend brought to England by Anglo, it describes the exploits of a hero and is structurally built around three fights or adventures, each of which involves a battle between the hero Beowulf and a monster. 2. Allegory : The word derives from the Greek allegoria. It loosely describes any writing in verse or prose , in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on literal level, but also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. Probably the most famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan ‟ s Pilgrim‟s Progress, a prose narrative symbolically concerning the human soul ‟ s pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach salvation. 3. Sonnet : Sonnet is a kind of poem which became popular in Italian. During the Renaissance, this kind of poem had been widely used. A sonnet consisting of 14 lines, with rhymes arranged according to one or other of certain definite schemes, of which the Petrarchan and Shakespearean are the principal, namely: (1) abba abba, followed by two, or three, other rhymes in the remaining six lines, with a pause in the thought after the octave; (2)abab cdcd efef gg. The sonnets of Shakespeare are in the latter form. Most sonnets are amatory in nature, and contain a certain narrative development. The famous poets are Shakespeare, Sidney, Daniel, Spenser and so on. 4. Humanism: Broadly, this term suggests any attitude which tends to exalt the human element or stress the importance of human interests, as opposed to the supernatural, divine elements — or as opposed to the grosser, animal elements. The most important use of the term is to designate the revival of classical culture which accompanied the Renaissance. Humanism suggest a devotion to those studies supposed to promote human culture most effectively — in particular, those dealing with the life, thought , language, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. Humanists emphasized the value of human beings and the important of the present life. They proclaimed that man not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but have the ability to perfect themselves and create wonders. 5. Novel of Initiation : The initiation novel begins at the 18th century, first in Germany, and then prevails in Europe, in the 19th century, it comes to America. The initiation novel is to show after suffering a lot of traumas both in physical and mental, the young hero changes his previous world view, or transfigures his disposition, or he changes the both; this change makes him get rid of his innocent childhood, and will finally leads him to the complicated adult society. In the initiation novels, although the people and the stories may be very different, the formations are similar: the story always starts with the young hero‟s sufferings or observations of the villainy, and losing his innocence; these experiences would inevitably shock his little heart, so the youth could transform from a nave child to an adaptable and mature man. The typical works are Nathaniel Hawthorne‟s the Scarlet Letter and Young Mr. Brown, Herman Melville‟s Moby Dick and J. D. Salinger ‟ s The Catch in the Rye. |
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