英国文学名词解释简答题期末复习.doc

Literary Terms Epic: a long narrative celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes, in a grand ceremonious style./ a long verse narrative dealing with important historical or legendary figures or events. Alliteration: the repetition of the same sounds-usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables-in any sequence of neighboring of words./ the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words in a line of a poem. Middle English：The English language in the transitional stage from old English to modern English through some four centuries (12-15) of development and change has been known as Middle English. Blank verse: the unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Renaissance: the “rebirth” of literature, art, and learning that progressively transformed European culture from the mid-14th century in Italy to the mid-17th century in England, strongly influenced by the rediscovery of classical Greek and Latin literature, and accelerated by the development of printing. The Renaissance is commonly held to mark the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern Western world. Humanism: a 19th century term for the values and ideal of the European Renaissance, which placed a new emphasis on the expansion of human capacities. Reviving the study of Greek and Roman history, arts, and philosophy, the Renaissance humanists developed an image of “Man” more positive and hopeful than that of medieval ascetic Christianity: rather than a miserable sinner awaiting redemption from a pit of fleshly corruption. Anglo-Norman Romance: a fictional story in verse or prose that relates improbable adventures of idealized characters in some remote or enchanted setting; or, more generally, a tendency in fiction opposite to that of realism. / “Romance” in this period refers to some verse narrative that sings of knightly adventures or other heroic deeds and usually emphasizes the chivalric love of the Middle Ages in England. Allegory：a story in which the c