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1. Alliteration: repetition of the initial letter or first sound of several words, marking the stressed syllables in a line of poetry or prose. A simple example is the phrase “through thick and thin “. The device is used to emphasize meaning and thus can be effectively employed in oratory. Alliteration is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, notably by the epic Beowulf; it is still used, with modifications, by modern poets.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Blank verse: Blank verse was first introduced by the Earl of Surrey in his translations of Books 2 and 4 of Virgil’s The Aeneid. It consists of lines of iambic pentameter (five-stress iambic verse) which are
unrhymed—hence the term “blank”. Of all English metrical forms it is closest to the natural rhythms of English speech, and at the same time flexible and adaptive to diverse levels of discourse; as a result it has been more frequently and variously used than any other type of versification. It became the standard meter for Elizabethan and later poetic drama; a free form of blank verse is still the medium in twentieth-century verse plays.
5. Bildungsroman: This is a term more or less synonymous with Erziehungsroman—literally an “upbringing” or “education” novel. Widely used by German critics, it refers to a novel which is an account of the youthful development of a hero or heroine (usually the former). It describes the processes by which maturity is achieved through the various ups and downs of life.
6. Byronic hero: A stereotyped character created by Byron. This kind of hero is usually a proud, mysterious rebel figure of noble origin. With immense superiority in his passions and powers, he would carry on his shoulders the burden of righting all the wrongs in a corrupt society. He would rise single-handedly against any kind of tyrannical rules either in government, in religion, or in moral principles with unconquerable wills and inexhaustible energies. The conflict is usually one of rebellious individuals against outworn social systems and conventions.
7. 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.
8. Critical Realism: The critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the fouties 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. 9. Enlightenment: is a term used to describe the trends in thought and letters in Europe and the American colonies during the 18th century prior to the French revolution. The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity. The enlighteners believed in the power of reason, and that is why the 18th century in England has often been called “the age of reason “.
10. 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.
13.Gothic novel: An alternative term is Gothic romance. It is a story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy
old castle or monastery. Following the appearance of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the Gothic novel flourished in Britain from the 1790s to the 1820s, dominated by Ann Radcliffe, whose The Mysteries of Udolpho had many imitators.
14、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. In a more specific sense, humanism suggests 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. In literary history the most important use of the term is to designate the revival of classical culture that accompanied the Renaissance.
15. heroic couplet: it is a term in poetry applied to two successive lines of verse that form a single unit because they rhyme. Couplets in English are usually written in 10-syllableslines, a form first used by Chaucer. This evolved into the so-called heroic-couplet popular in 17th and 18th century. The heroic couplet, two rhyming iambic pentameter lines, is also called a closed couplet because the meaning and the grammatical structure are couplet within two lines.
16. 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 most common verse line in English poetry. 17. Local Colorism: Local Colorism or Regionalism as a trend first made its presence felt in the late 1860s and early seventies in America. It may be defined as the careful attegogoms in speech, dress or behavior peculiar to a geographical locality. The ultimate aim of the local colorists is to create the illusion of an indigenous little world with qualities that tell it apart from the world outside. The social and intellectual climate of the country provided a stimulating milieu for the growth of local color fiction in America. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to idealize and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. They formed an important part of the realistic movement. Although it lost its momentum toward the end of the 19th century, the local spirit continued to inspire and fertilize the imagination of author.
18. Modernism: A general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in literature of the early 20th century, including Symbolism, Futurism, Expressionism, Imagism, Vorticism, Dada, and Surrealism, along with the innovations of the unaffiliated writers. Modernism takes the irrational philosophy and the theory of psycho-analysis as its theoretical base. It is a reaction against realism. It rejects rationalism which is the theoretical base of realism; it excludes from its major concern the external, objective, material world, which is the only creative source of realism; by advocating a free experimentation on new forms and new techniques in literary creation, it casts away almost all the traditional elements in literature such as story, plot, character, chronological narration, etc., which are essential to realism. As a result, the works created by the modernist writers can often be labeled as anti-novel, anti-poetry or anti-drama.
19.Naturalism: An extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity.
20. Neoclassicism: A revival in the 17th agogo of order, balance, and harmony in literature. Neoclassicism: A style of western literature that flourished from the mid-seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of Romanticism. The neoclassicists looked to the great classical writers for inspiration and guidance, considering them to have mastered the noblest literary forms, tragic epic and the epic. Neoclassical writers shared several beliefs. They believed that literature should both instruct and delight, and the proper subject of art was humanity. Neoclassicism stressed rules, reason, harmony, balance, restraint, decorum, order, serenity, realism, and form---above all, an appeal to the intellect rather than emotion. The Restoration in 1660 marked the beginning of the neoclassical period in England, whose writers included John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, ect.
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2023-02-23
