英美文学术语解释(8)

A word, expression, spelling, or phrase that is out of date in the common speech of an era, but still deliberately used by writer, poet, or playwright for artistic purposes. 35. Atmosphere(基调)

The prevailing mood or feeling of a literary work. Atmosphere is often developed, at least in part, through descriptions of setting. Such descriptions help to create an emotional climate for the werrors to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes. 36. Didactic literature(说教文学)

Didactic literature is said to be didactic if it deliberately teaches some moral lesson, the use of literature for such teaching is one of its traditional justifications.2>most modern literary works during the enlightenment period tended to be didactic. 37. Epigram(警句)

A short, witty, pointed statement often in the form of a poem. 38. Farce(闹剧)

Farce refers to a play full of ridiculous happenings, absurd actions, and unreal situations, meant to be very funny.

39. The Heroic Couplet(英雄对偶句)

The Heroic Couplet means a pair of lines of a type once common in English poetry, in other words, it means iambic pentameter rhymed in two lines. 40. Satire(讽刺)

Satire means a kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general.

2> the aim of satirists is to set a moral standard for society, and they attempt to persuade the reader to see their point of view through the force of laughter.

3> Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a great satire of the English society from different aspects. 41. Sentimentalism(感伤主义文学)

Sentimentalism is a pejorative term to describe false or superficial emotion, assumed feeling, self-regarding postures of grief and pain,

2> in literature it denotes overmuch use of pathetic effects and attempts to arouse feeling by “pathetic” indulgence. 42. Aside(旁白)

Aside refers to words spoken by an actor which the other actors are supposed no to hear, 2> an actor’s asides are usually spoken to the audience.3>Hamlet’s very first line is an aside. 43.Denouement(戏剧结局)

Denouement, pronounced Dee-noo-na, is that part of a drama which follows the climax and leads to the resolution. 44.parable(寓言)

A parable is a very short narrative about human beings presented so as to stress the tacit analogy, or parallel, with a general thesis or lesson that the narrator is trying to bring home to his audience. 45. Genre(流派)

A type or category of literature marked by certain shared features or customs. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction. 46. Irony(反讽)

It refers to some contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality. It is a discrepancy between what is expected and what is revealed. It may be found either in language usage or in the working out of the action of a story.

2> surprise endings always depend on some sort of irony, often crude. Irony may appear in the difference between a character’s understanding of his or her situation and the reader’s estimate of it .

47. Lyric(抒情诗)

Lyric is a short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illustrates some life principle. 2>Lyric often concerns love.

3>the elegy, ode and sonnet are all forms of the lyric. 48. Mock Epic(诙谐史诗)

A mock epic is a long poem that burlesques the classical epic by treating a trivial subject in the lofty style. The poet often takes an elevated style of language, but incongruously applies that language to mundane or ridiculous objects and situations. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock is perhaps the finest mock epic poem in English. 49. Ode(颂歌)

Ode is a dignified and elaborately structured lyric poem of some length, praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. 2> John Keats wrote great Odes, his Ode on a Grecian Urn is a case in point. 50. Picaresque Novel(流浪汉小说)

A humorous novel in which the plot consists of a young knave’s adventures and escapades narrated in comic or satiric scenes. The picaresque novel is usually in nature and realistic in its presentation of the all around aspects of society. 51. Pastoral(田园诗)

A literary work dealing with and often celebrating a rural world and a way of life lived close to nature. It usually idealized shepherds’ lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. Typically, pastoral liturgy depicts beautiful scenery, carefree shepherds, seductive nymphs, and rural songs and dances. A good example of pastoral poetic conventions occurs in Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. 52.Terza Rima(三行诗)

Terza Rima is an Italian verse that consists of a series three-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza with the rhyming