英美文学名词解释

英美文学名词解释1 1. Allegory: A tale in verse or prose in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. 寓言：用诗歌或散文讲的，在这个故事中人物、事件或背景往往代表抽象的概念或道德品质。所有的寓言都是一个具有双重意义、文学内涵或象征意义的故事。 2. Alliteration: The repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry. 头韵：诗歌中单词开头读音的重复。 3. Allusion: A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion. 典故：文学作品中作家希望读者能够认识或做出反应的一个人物、地点、事件或文学作品。典故或来自历史、地理、文学或宗教。 4. American Naturalism: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. American naturalism had been shaped by the war; by the social upheavals that undermined the comforting faith of an earlier age. America’s literary naturalists dismissed the validity of comforting moral truths. They attempted to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by their environment and heredity. In presenting the extremes of life, the naturalists sometimes displayed an affinity to the sensationalism of early romanticism, but unlike their romantic predecessors, the naturalists emphasized that the world was amoral, that men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. Although naturalist literature described the world with sometimes brutal realism, it sometimes also aimed at bettering the world through social reform. 美国自然主义：美国自然主义是一种新的、更具批判性的现实主义。美国自然主义是在战争和影响人们早期信念的社会动乱的影响之下形成的。美国的自然主义者往往否定了广为接受的道德真理的正确性，他们想达到极端的客观与直率，他们所展现的人物往往都是下层社会的人，他们的命运受到环境和遗传的制约。在反应生活方面，自然主义作家往往表现出早期浪漫主义中感伤主义特征，但和浪漫主义不同的是，自然主义者认为，世界缺乏道德，人不论男女都没有自由的意愿，他们的生活都受到遗传和环境的控制，人在生前过着悲惨的生活，死后便被人所遗忘。虽然自然主义文学通过更为苛刻的现实主义手法来展现这个世界，但是他有时也是为了通过社会改革来改善这个世界。 5. American Puritanism: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the Puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the Protestant Church. The first settlers who became the founding fathers of the American nation were quite a few of them. They were a group of serious, religious people, advocating highly religious and moral principles. As the word itself hints, Puritans wanted to purity their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrine of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace form God. As a culture heritage, Puritanism did have a profound influence on the early American mind. American Puritanism also had a enduring influence on American literature. 美国清教主义：清教主义是新教徒的原来的一个分支——清教徒的行为和信仰。在美国的第一批居民中有很多就是清教徒，他们有着严格的宗教信仰和道德准则。就像这个词所暗指的那样，清教徒们想“清化”他们的宗教信仰和行为习惯。他们相信宿命论、原罪说、全体堕落和有限的赎罪。作为一种文化遗产，美国清教主义在早期美国人的思想上有着深刻的影响，他对美国文学的影响也是颇为持久的。 6. American Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience. 美国现实主义：在美国文学史上，内战宣告了浪漫主义的终结和现实主义的开始。现实主义反对浪漫主义和感伤主义的谎言，它从一个陌生的世界转向了普通人的真实生活的描写。它所关心的是普通的下层劳动人民而非理想中的人类本性和现实经历。 7. American Romanticism: The Romantic Period covers the first half of the 19th century. A rising America with its ideals of democracy and equality, its industrialization, its westward expansion, and a variety of foreign influences were among the important factors which made literary expansion and expression not only possible but also inevitable in the period immediately following the nation’s political independence. Yet, romantics frequently shared certain general characteristics: moral enthusiasm, faith in value of individualism and intuitive perception, and a presumption that the natural world was a source of goodness and man’s societies a source of corruption. Romantic values were prominent in American politics, art, and philosophy until the Civil War. The romantic exaltation of the individual suited the nation’s revolutionary heritage and its frontier egalitarianism. 美国浪漫主义：浪漫主义阶段涵盖了19世纪前半页。美国的不断壮大和发展以及随之而来的明珠和平等的思想、工业化的发展、西北边疆的不断扩展和国外的各种影响使浪漫主义作家文学不但成为一种可能，而且使它成为美国政治独立后的一种必然。然而，浪漫主义文学往往有很多共性：他们热心于道德、相信个人主义价值观和对世界的直观感受，并且他们认为自然世界是真、善、美的源泉而人类社会则是堕落的根源。在内战以前，浪漫主义价值观占据是政治、艺术、和哲学等领域，浪漫主义者对个人的赞扬正好迎合了美国的革命遗风和边疆开拓者的品均主义。 8. American Transcendentalism: the emergence of the Transcendentalists as an identifiable movement took place during the late 1820s and 1830s, but the roots of their religious philosophy extended much farther back into American religious history. Transcendentalism and evangelical Protestantism followed separate evolutionary branches from American Puritanism, taking as their common ancestor the Calvinism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the Universe. They stressed the importance of the individual. To them, the individual was the most important element of society. They offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. Nature was, to them, alive, filled with God’s overwhelming presence. Transcendentalism is based on the belief that the most fundamental truths about life and death can be reached only by going beyond the world of the senses. Emerson’s Nature has been called the “Manifesto of American Transcendentalism” and his The American Scholar has been rightly regarded as America’s “Declaration of Intellectual Independence”. 美国超验主义：美国超验主义出现的19世纪20年代末期到三十年代，但是它的根源在宗教史上要远得多。超验主义和福音派新教分别是美国清教主义的两个分支，他们的祖先是17世纪和18世纪的加尔文神教。超验主义者主张文化的复兴，认为“超灵”是宇宙中最重要的事物。他们强调个人的重要性，反对精神上的物质主义。对他们来说，个人是一个社会最重要的元素。他们认为自然就是“精神”或“上帝”的象征，它是有生命的，而上帝又无处不在。他们认为生与死最基本的真理可以超越感官的世界而获得。艾默生的《自然》被称为是“美国超验主义的宣言”，他的《美国学者》则被认为是美国的“文化独立宣言书”。 9. Analogy: (a figure of speech) A comparison made between tow things to show the similarities between them. Analogies are often used for illustration or for argument. 类比：（修辞）把两种事物放在一起进行对比从而发现他们的相同点，类比一般用于或论述。 10. Anapest: It’s made up of two unstressed and one stressed syllables, with the two unstressed ones in front. 抑抑扬格：抑抑扬格由两个非重度音节和一个重读音节组成，两个非重度音节在前。 11. Antagonist: A person or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine. 反面人物：一个故事中和主人公相对立的人物或一种力量，是男女主人公的对手。 12. Antithesis: (a figure of speech) The balancing of two contrasting ideas, words phrases, or sentences. An antithesis is often expressed in a balanced sentence, that is, a sentence in which identical or similar grammatical structure is used to express contrasting ideas. 对偶：（修辞）相互对称的两个短语、句子或思想。对偶往往用一个对称的句子来表达，也就是，一句话中使用相同或相似的语法结构来表达相互对照的两种事物。 13. Aphorism: A concise, pointed statement expressing a wise or clever observation about life. 警句：用一种简练、准确的方式来表达对生活充满智慧的观点。 14. Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which an absent or a dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman is addressed directly. 顿呼：演说或诗歌等中对某人, 常为死者或不在场者, 或对拟人的事物所说的话。 15. Argument: A form of discourse in which reason is used to influence or change people’s idea or actions. Writers practice argument most often when writing nonfiction, particularly essays or speeches. 议论：用讲道理的方法来影响人们的思想或行动的一种文本形式。作家往往是在写非小说文体，尤其是散文或演讲的时候用这种方法。 16. Aside: In drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. An aside is meant to be unheard by the other characters onstage. 旁白：在戏剧中低声说出或直接说给观众的台词。旁白在舞台上其他人物是听不到的。 17. Assonance: The repetition of similar vowel sounds, especially in poetry. Assonance is often employed to please the ear or emphasize certain sounds. 类韵：在诗歌中相同或相似元音的重复，它的目的主要是用来使句子悦耳动听或用来强调某个音。 18. Atmosphere: 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 writers to establish the reader’s expectations and attitudes. 气氛：文学作品中主要的基调或感觉。气氛的渲染主要是通过对环境的描写来展开的，这种描写有助于作家创造一种情绪气氛来时感染读者 19. Autobiography: A person’s account of his or her own life. An autobiography is generally written in narrative form and includes some introspection. 自传：一个人对他或她自己生活的描述，自传是一种叙述性的文体，多包含回忆性的描写。 20. Ballad: A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung. In many countries, the folk ballad was one of the earliest forms of literature. Folk ballads have no known authors. They were transmitted orally from generation to generation and were not set down in writing until centuries after they were first sung. The subject matter of folk ballads stems from the everyday life of the common people. Devices commonly used in ballads are the refrain, incremental repetition, and code language. A later form of ballad is the literary ballad, which imitates the style of the folk ballad. 民谣：民谣是一种做诗配唱的故事。在很多国家，民谣是最早的文学形式之一，都是无名作家所写，它们从开始传唱到真正写下来要在口头流传好几代人。民谣中所采用的手法多为叠句、重复和暗语。后来民谣就变成了有文字的歌谣，其风格模仿民间歌谣。 21. Ballad stanza: A type of four-line stanza. The first and third lines have four stressed words or syllables; the second and fourth lines have three stresses. Ballad meter is usually iambic. The number of unstressed syllables in each line may vary. The second and fourth lines rhyme. 民谣体诗节：一种四行诗节，第一、三行由四个重读单词或音节组成，二、四行由三个重音组成。民谣的韵脚往往采用抑扬格的形式，每一行中非重度音节的数目不等，二、四行押韵。 22. Biography: A detailed account of a person’s life written by another person. 23. Blank verse: Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 素体诗：用五音步抑扬格写的无韵诗。 24. Caesura: A break or pause in a line of poetry. 休止：一行诗中的间断或停顿。 25. Canto: A section or division of a long poem. 诗章：长诗的一部分。 26. Caricature: The use of exaggeration or distortion to make a figure appear comic or ridiculous. A physical characteristic, an eccentricity, a personality trait, or an act may be exaggerated. 漫画：用夸张或扭曲的手法来描写一个人物的外貌特征、怪癖、个性或某个动作来产生滑稽可笑的效果。 27. Character: In appreciating a short story, characters are an indispensable element. Characters are the persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work. Forst divides characters into two types: flat character, which is presented without much individualizing detail; and round character, which is complex in temperament and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity. 人物：在短篇小说的欣赏中，人物是必不可少一个元素。人物是喜剧或小说中所描写的人。福斯特把人物划分为两类，扁平型人物和圆型人物。扁平型人物往往缺乏个人化的细节描写而圆型人物则在性格和行为动机上较为复杂。 28. Characterization：the means by which a writer reveals that personality. 人物描写：一个作家描写某个人物的方法。 29. Classicism: A movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome. Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance, and order. Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes. 古典主义：在艺术、文学或音乐方面反映古希腊、罗马文学原理的运动。古典主义强调传统，追求理性、明晰、平衡和秩序。因为古典主义强调理性和普遍主题，在传统上反对强调感情和个人主题的浪漫主义。 30. Climax: The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a story’s turning point. The action leading to the climax and the simultaneous increase of tension in the plot are known as the rising action. All action after the climax is referred to as the falling action, or resolution. The term crisis is sometimes used interchangeably with climax. 高潮：小说中最紧张、最有趣或最具悬念的转折点。情节中引起高潮的动作和情节紧张度的增加称作“上升”，高潮后的动作称为“回落”或“结局”。有时候高潮又称作“转折点”。 31. Conceit: A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it usually provides the framework for an entire poem. An especially unusual and intellectual kind of conceit is the metaphysical conceit. 新奇的比喻：将两种截然不同的食物进行对比的一种隐喻。它虽被视为是一种隐喻，但是它往往构建了整首诗的框架，最为奇特的应属玄学诗里面的。 32. Conflict: A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. Usually the events of the story are all related to the conflict, and the conflict is resolved in some way by the story’s end. 矛盾：在小说、短篇小说、戏剧或叙事诗中相互对立的两种力量。故事中的事件往往都和矛盾有关，并且在故事的结尾矛盾都会得以解决。 33. Connotation: All the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse. Connotation is distinct from denotation, which is the literal or “ dictionary” meaning of a word or phrase. 内涵：一个词或短语所指的所有的情感和联系。与外延不同，外延则是指一个词的字面意思或词典上的解释。 34. Consonance: The repetition of similar consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words. 谐音：单词词尾或中间相似辅音的重复。 35. Couplet: Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet. 对句：两个连续押韵的诗行。英雄双行体的对句一般都为抑扬格五音步。 36. Critical Realism: The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the forties and in the beginning of fifties. The realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint and delineated the crying contradictions of bourgeois reality. But they did not find a way to eradicate social evils. 批判现实主义：批判现实主义在19世纪40年代达到高潮。批判现实主义作家们往往把从民主的角度批评和揭露资本主义社会的丑恶视为己任，但他们并没有找到治疗社会弊病的良方。 37. Dactyl: It’s made up of one stressed and two unstressed syllables, with the stressed in front. 扬抑抑格：扬抑抑格由一个重度音节和两个非重度音节组成，重读音节在前。 38. Denotation: The literal or “dictionary” meaning of a word. 外延：单词的字面意义或“词典”解释。 39. Denouement: The outcome of a plot. The denouement is that part of a play, short story, novel, or narrative poem in which conflicts are resolved or unraveled, and mysteries and secrets connected with the plot are explained. 结局：情节的结尾部分。在戏剧、小说、短篇小说的结尾部分，矛盾得以解决，和情节相关的秘密都得以揭露。 40. Diction: A writer’s choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision. 措辞：一个作家用词的选择，主要是为了清楚、有效和简练等目的。 41. Dissonance: A harsh or disagreeable combination of sounds; discord. 不和谐音：刺耳或无法融洽的音的组合，噪音。 42. Dramatic monologue: A kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem. The occasion is usually a crucial one in the speaker’s personality as well as the incident that is the subject of the poem. 戏剧独白：在一种叙事诗里面，一个人物对其他的人物讲话但并没有交代他们的回答，这种场合往往对反映说话人的性格特征和诗歌的主题是至关重要的。 43. Elegy: A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual. An elegy is a type of lyric poem, usually formal in language and structure, and solemn or even melancholy in tone. 挽歌：为某个死去的人所做的诗，挽歌往往属于抒情诗，在语言和机构上比较正式，语气上比较庄重甚至是哀伤的。 44. Emblematic image: A verbal picture or figure with a long tradition of moral or religious meaning attached to it. 象征性意象：蕴含道德或宗教意义的文字描述或人物。 45. Enlightenment: With the advent of the 18th century, in England, as in other European countries, there sprang into life a public movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment on the whole, was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeois against feudalism. The social inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people. 启蒙主义：启蒙主义是在18世纪在英国发生的。总体上，启蒙主义是当时的资产阶级对封建主义，社会的不平等、死寂、偏见和其他的封建残余的一种反对。通过将科学的各个分支与人民的日常生活和需要联系起来，启蒙主义者们努力将他们变成为人民大众服务的工具 46. Epic: A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated. Many epics were drawn from an oral tradition and were transmitted by song and recitation before they were written down. 史诗：讲述英雄事迹并反映出这些英雄事迹的社会价值观的长篇叙事诗。在成为之前，很多史诗都来自于口头传统并通过歌唱和背诵流传。 47. Epigram: A short, witty, pointed statement often in the form of a poem. 警句诗：一种简短、智慧、蕴含深刻的诗。 48. Epigraph: A quotation or motto at the beginning of a chapter, book, short story, or poem that makes some point about the work. 题词：在一章、一本书、短篇小说或诗歌的开头指涉作品内容的引文或铭文。 49. Epilogue: A short addition or conclusion at the end of a literary work. 收场白：文学作品末尾简短的补充或结论。 50. Epiphany: A moment of illumination, usually occurring at or near the end of a work. 顿悟：事实得以揭示的时刻，往往发生在作品的结尾或将近收尾部分。 51. Epitaph: An inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone who has died. 52. Epithet: A descriptive name or phrase used to characterize someone or something. 称号：用来描述一个人或事物的描写性词或短语。 53. Era of Modernism: The years from 1910 to 1930 are often called the Era of Modernism, for there seems to have been in both Europe and America a strong awareness of some sort of “break” with the past. The new artists shared a desire to capture the complexity of modern life, to focus on the variety and confusion of the 20th century by reshaping and sometimes discarding the ideas and habits of the 19th century. The Era of Modernism was indeed the era of the New. 现代主义时期：从1910到1930年这一段时间被称作现代主义时期，因为在这一时期，不论是在美国还是在欧洲人们都认识到一种强烈的与过去的“决裂”，新艺术家们都渴望反映现代生活的复杂性，都渴望通过重新构建，有时候甚至放弃19世纪的思想和习惯来聚焦于20世纪的多样性和困惑之上。 54. Essay: A piece of prose writing, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point or view. An essay may be serious or humorous, tightly organized or rambling, restrained or emotional. The two general classifications of essay are the informal essay and the formal essay. An informal essay is usually brief and is written as if the writer is talking informally to the reader about some topic, using a conversational style and a personal or humorous tone. By contrast, a formal essay is tightly organized, dignified in style, and serious in tone. 小品文：小品文一般都是简短的散文，作家通过有线的篇幅发表自己独特的看法。小品文的风格要么严肃要么幽默，组织或严谨或松散，情感或抒发或藏而不露。小品文大体上又分为正式的和非正式的两种。非正式的小品文一般比较短，使用对话的风格和个人化或幽默的语气，似乎在给读者针对一个话题侃侃而谈。相比之下，正式的小品文则组织严谨，风格高雅，语气严肃。 55. Exemplum说教故事: A tale, usually inserted into the text of a sermon that illustrates a moral principle. 劝喻故事：穿插在步道中间来阐述一种道德原则的故事。 56. Fable: A fable is a short story, often with animals as its characters, which illustrate a moral. 寓言：以动物为主人公来写的短小的故事。 57. Farce: A type of comedy based on a ridiculous situation, often with stereotyped characters. The humor in a farce is largely slapstick—that is, it often involves crude physical action. The characters in a farce are often the butts of practical jokes. 闹剧：闹剧是戏剧的一种，它以搞笑的情节为基础，往往使用典型化的人物，闹剧中的幽默很大程度上都是打闹——它往往会有比较激烈的肢体动作。闹剧中的人物一般都是被取笑的对象。 58. Figurative language: Language that is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. By appealing to the imagination, figurative language provides new ways of looking at the world. Figurative language consists of such figures of speech as hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, personification, simile, and synecdoche. 比喻用语：不能用字面意义来解释的用语。通过想象，比喻用语让读者以新的方式看待世界，它一般包括夸张、隐喻、转喻、矛盾修饰法、拟人、明喻和提喻等修辞手法。 59. Flashback: A scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier. 倒叙：在短篇小说、小说、戏剧或叙事诗中穿插在叙述中讲述更早的一件事。 60. Foil: A character who sets off another character by contrast. 衬托：通过对比来烘托另一个人物的人物。 61. Foot: It is a rhythmic unit, a specific combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. 音步：音步是诗歌韵律的一个单元，是一个重度音节和非重度音节的组合。 62. Foreshadowing: The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what will happen later. Writers use foreshadowing to create interest and to build suspense. Sometimes foreshadowing also prepares the reader for the ending of the story. 伏笔：在叙述中使用暗示或线索来预示将要发生的事情，作家们使用伏笔来增加读者的兴趣和产生悬念，有时伏笔又为故事的结尾做好铺垫。 63. Free Verse: Verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern. 自由诗：按照语言的抑扬顿挫和意象模式，而不是按照固定韵律写出的诗。它的韵律建立在音素、语词、短语、句子和段落等形式的基础上，而不是建立在音步传统格律单位上。因此，自由诗消除了很多不自然的成分和诗体表现的某些审美差距。20世纪初，在英国诗法中自由诗已经流行。 64. Hyperbole: A figure of speech using exaggeration, or overstatement, for special effect. 夸张：为了产生特定的效果而使用夸大其词的方法所产生的一种修辞方式。 65. Iamb: It is the most commonly used foot in English poetry, in which an unstressed syllable comes first, followed by a stressed syllable. 抑扬格：在英语诗歌中使用最广泛的一种音步，抑扬格往往是一个非重度音节后跟一个重度音节。 Iambic pentameter: A poetic line consisting of five verse feet, with each foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the m