浪漫主义时期名词解释.doc

课外拓展（浪漫主义时期名词解释） 1. Romanticism: It is a term applied to literary and artistic movements of the late18th and early19th century. It can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified classicism in general and late18th-century neoclassicism in particular. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Inspired in part by the libertarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantics believed in a return to nature and in the innate goodness of humans, as expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau. They emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental. They also showed interest in the medieval, exotic, primitive, and nationalistic. Critics date English literary romanticism from the publication of William Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridges Lyrical Ballads in1798 to the death of Sir Walter Scott and the passage of the first reform bill in the Parliament in1832. 2. Ode: It is an elaborately formal lyric poem, often in the form of a lengthy ceremonious address to a person or abstract entity, always serious and elevated in tone. It aims at praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally. Odes originally were songs performed to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. There are two different classical models: Pindars Greek choral odes devoted to public praise of athletes (5thcenturyBC), and Horaces more privately reflective odes in Latin (c.2313BC). John Keats wrote many celebrated odes such as “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a Nightingale” (both1820). 3. Byronic hero: It is 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. 4. Ottava rima: It is a form of verse stanza consisting of eight lines rhyming abababcc, usually employed for narrative verse but sometimes used in lyric poems. In its original Italian form (“eighth rhyme”), pioneered by Boccaccio in the14th century and perfected by Ariostointhe16th. It used hendecasyllables, but the English version uses iambic pentameters. It was introduced into English by Thomas Wyatt in the 16th century, and later used by Byron in Don Juan as well as by Keats, Shelley, and Yeats. 5. Terza rima: It is a verse form consisting of a sequence of interlinked tercets rhyming aba bcb cdc ded etc. Thus the second line of each tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines of the next, the sequence closes with one line (or in a few cases, two lines) rhyming with the middle line of the last tercet: yzy z (z). The form was invented by Dante Alighieri for his DivinaCommedia (c.1320), using the Italian hendecasyllabic line. It has been adopted by several poets in English pentameters, notably by P. B. Shelley in his “Ode to the West Wind”. 6. Irony: It is a contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. Three kinds of irony are: (1) verbal irony, in which a writer or speaker says one thing and means something entirely different; (2) dramatic irony, in which a reader or an audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know; (3) irony of situation, in which the writer shows a discrepancy between the expected results of some action or situation and its actual results. 7. Lyric: It is a poem, usually a short one that expresses a speakers personal thoughts or feelings. The elegy, ode, and sonnet are all forms of the lyric. As its Greek name indicates, a lyric was originally a poem sung to the accompaniment of a lyre, and lyrics to this day have retained a melodic quality. Lyrics may express a range of emotions and reflections. Robert Herricks “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” reflects on the brevity of life and the need to live for the moment, while T. S. Eliots “Preludes” observes the sordidness and depression of modern life. 8. Motif: It is a recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of literature. A motif generally contributes in someway to the theme of a short story, novel, poem, or play. For example, a motif used by D. H. Lawrence in his story “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is the word luck. The main character of the story, a boy named Paul, discovers that he has the power to predict the winner in a horse race. However, this becomes an ironic kind of luck, for Paul grows obsessed with his power and is finally destroyed by it. At times, motif is used to refer to some commonly used plot or character type in literature. The “ugly duckling motif” refers to a plot that involves the transformation of a plain-looking person into a beauty. Two other commonly used motifs are the “Romeo and Juliet motif” (about doomed lovers) and the “Horatio Alger motif” (about the office clerk who becomes the corporation president). 9. Theme: It is the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in literary work. All the elements of a literary workplot, setting, characterization, and figurative language contribute to the development of its theme. A simple theme can often be stated in a single sentence. But sometimes a literary work is rich and complex, and a paragraph or even an essay is needed to state the theme. Not all literary works have a controlling theme. For example, the purpose of some simple ghost stories is to frighten the reader, and some detective stories seek only to thrill. 10. Symbol: It is any object, person, place, or action that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself, such as a quality, an attitude, a belief, or a value. A rose is often a symbol of love and beauty; a skull is often a symbol of death; spring and winter often symbolize youth and old age. 11. Imagery: It is a rather vague critical term covering those uses of language in a literary work that evoke sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or “concrete” objects, scenes, actions, or states as distinct from the language of abstract argument or exposition. The imagery of a literary work thus comprises the set of images that it uses; these need not be mental “pictures” but may appeal to senses other than sight. 12. Foil: It is a character whose qualities or actions serve to emphasize those of the protagonist (or of some other character) by providing a strong contrast with them. Thus in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre, the passive obedience of Janes school-friend Helen Burns makes her a foil to the rebellious heroine. 13. Synaesthesia: It is a blending or confusion of different kinds of sense-impression, in which one type of sensation is referred to in terms more appropriate to another. Common synaesthetic expressions include the descriptions of colours as “loud” or “warm”, and of sounds as “smooth”. This effect was cultivated consciously by the French Symbolists, but is often found in earlier poetry, notably in Keats. 14. Character: Characters are the persons represented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying itthe dialogueand from what they dothe action. The grounds in the characters temperament, desires, and moral nature for their speech and actions are called their motivation. A character may remain essentially “stable”, or unchanged in outlook and disposition, from beginning to end of a work (Prospero in Shakespeares The Tempest, Micawber in Charles Dickens David Copperfield, or may undergo a radical change, either through a gradual process of development (the title character in Jane Austens Emma) or as the result of a crisis (Shakespeares King Lear, Pip in Dickens Great Expectations).Whether a character remains stable or changes, the reader of a traditional and realistic work expects “consistency”the character should not suddenly break off and act in a way not plausibly grounded in his or