罗经果英国文学期末考试会出现名词解释(自己整理,超实用!).docVIP

epic 史诗 a long narrative poem, grand in style, about heroes and heroic deeds, embodying heroic ideals of a nation or race in the making. Beowulf is the English national epic that was passed from mouth to mouth and written down by many unknown hands. Other examples of epic poems are Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene, John Miltons Paradise Lost, William Wordsworths The Prelude, Elizabeth Barret Brownings Aurora Leigh, and T. S. Eliots The Waste Land. caesura 停顿 a break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated by the natural rhythm of the language and sometimes enforced by punctuation. In Old English verse, such as Beowulf, the caesura was used rather monotonously to indicate the half line. alliteration 头韵 the repetition of the same sound or sounds at the beginning of two or more words that are close to each other. It is a feature of Beowulf and other Old English poems. alliterative verse 头韵诗 poetry written in alliteration. Nearly all Old English verse, including Beowulf, is heavily alliterative, and the pattern is fairly standard – with either two or three stressed syllables in each line alliterating. kenning 隐喻语 a metaphor usually composed of two words and used for description and association. Beowulf is full of kennings, such as “helmet bearer” for “warrior” and “swan road” for “sea”. romance originally refers to the vernacular (native) language, as opposed to Latin, and later it means a popular literary form in the medieval period which uses narrative verse or prose to sing knightly adventures or other heroic deeds.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a great verse romance. allegory It is a story or description in which the characters and events symbolize some deeper underlying meaning, and serve to spread moral teaching.It has a primary meaning and a secondary meaning . In an allegory, abstract qualities or ideas, such as patience, purity, or truth, are personified as characters in the story. rhythm briefly speaking, rhythm is a regular repeated pattern of mov