文学术语辞典.docx

1、文学术语辞典A, B, C, D, EAccent The emphasis, or stress, given a syllable in pronunciation. We say syllable not syllable, emphasis not emphasis. Accents can also be used to emphasize a particular word in a sentence: Is she content with the contents of the yellow package? See also meter.Act A major divisio

2、n in the action of a play. The ends of acts are typically indicated by lowering the curtain or turning up the houselights. Playwrights frequently employ acts to accommodate changes in time, setting, characters onstage, or mood. In many full-length plays, acts are further divided into scenes, which o

3、ften mark a point in the action when the location changes or when a new character enters. See also scene.Allegory A narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas. Although the el

4、ements in an allegory may be interesting in themselves, the emphasis tends to be on what they ultimately mean. Characters may be given names such as Hope, Pride, Youth, and Charity; they have few if any personal qualities beyond their abstract meanings. These personifications are not symbols because

5、, for instance, the meaning of a character named Charity is precisely that virtue. See also symbol.Alliteration The repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable: descending dew drops; luscious lemons. Alliteration is based on

6、 the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words; for example, keen and car alliterate, but car and cite do not. Used sparingly, alliteration can intensify ideas by emphasizing key words, but when used too self-consciously, it can be distracting, even ridiculous, rather than effective. See

7、also assonance, consonance.Allusion A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. Allusions conjure up biblical authority, scenes from Shakespeares plays, historic figures, wars, great love stories, and anything else that might enrich an authors work. Allusion

8、s imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the work supplies an emotional or intellectual context, such as a poem about current racial struggles calling up the memory of Abraham Lincoln.Ambig

9、uity Allows for two or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work. Deliberate ambiguity can contribute to the effectiveness and richness of a work, for example, in the open-ended conclusion to Hawthornes Young Goo

10、dman Brown. However, unintentional ambiguity obscures meaning and can confuse readers.Anagram A word or phrase made from the letters of another word or phrase, as heart is an anagram of earth. Anagrams have often been considered merely an exercise of ones ingenuity, but sometimes writers use anagram

11、s to conceal proper names or veiled messages, or to suggest important connections between words, as in hated and death.Anapestic meter See foot.Antagonist The character, force, or collection of forces in fiction or drama that opposes the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story; an op

12、ponent of the protagonist, such as Claudius in Shakespeares play Hamlet. See also character, conflict.Antihero A protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. He or she may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic. Often what antiheroes learn, if th

13、ey learn anything at all, is that the world isolates them in an existence devoid of God and absolute values. Yossarian from Joseph Hellers Catch-22 is an example of an antihero. See also character.Apostrophe An address, either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to some

14、thing nonhuman that cannot comprehend. Apostrophe often provides a speaker the opportunity to think aloud.Approximate rhyme See rhyme.Archetype A term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader. In literature, characters, images, and themes tha

15、t symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences, regardless of when or where they live, are considered archetypes. Common literary archetypes include stories of quests, initiations, scapegoats, descents to the underworld, and ascents to heaven. See also mythological criticism.As

16、ide In drama, a speech directed to the audience that supposedly is not audible to the other characters onstage at the time. When Hamlet first appears onstage, for example, his aside A little more than kin, and less than kind! gives the audience a strong sense of his alienation from King Claudius. Se

17、e also soliloquy.Assonance The repetition of internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not end the same, for example, asleep under a tree, or each evening. Similar endings result in rhyme, as in asleep in the deep. Assonance is a strong means of emphasizing important words in a line. See also al

18、literation, consonance.Ballad Traditionally, a ballad is a song, transmitted orally from generation to generation, that tells a story and that eventually is written down. As such, ballads usually cannot be traced to a particular author or group of authors. Typically, ballads are dramatic, condensed,

19、 and impersonal narratives, such as Bonny Barbara Allan. A literary ballad is a narrative poem that is written in deliberate imitation of the language, form, and spirit of the traditional ballad, such as Keatss La Belle Dame sans Merci. See also ballad stanza, quatrain.Ballad stanza A four-line stan

20、za, known as a quatrain, consisting of alternating eight- and six-syllable lines. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme (an abcb pattern). Coleridge adopted the ballad stanza in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.All in a hot and copper skyThe bloody Sun, at noon,Right up above the mast did st

21、and,No bigger than the Moon.See also ballad, quatrain.Biographical criticism An approach to literature which suggests that knowledge of the authors life experiences can aid in the understanding of his or her work. While biographical information can sometimes complicate ones interpretation of a work,

22、 and some formalist critics (such as the New Critics) disparage the use of the authors biography as a tool for textual interpretation, learning about the life of the author can often enrich a readers appreciation for that authors work. See also cultural criticism, formalist criticism, new criticism.

23、Blank verse Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the English verse form closest to the natural rhythms of English speech and therefore is the most common pattern found in traditional English narrative and dramatic poetry from Shakespeare to the early twentieth century. Shakespeares plays use b

24、lank verse extensively. See also iambic pentameter.Cacophony Language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce, such as this line from John Updikes Player Piano: never my numb plunker fumbles. Cacophony (bad sound) may be unintentional in the writers sense of music, or it may be used consciousl

25、y for deliberate dramatic effect. See also euphony.Caesura A pause within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. A caesura can occur anywhere within a line and need not be indicated by punctuation. In scanning a line, caesuras are indicated by a double vertical line (|). See al

26、so meter, rhythm, scansion.Canon Those works generally considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most important to read and study, which collectively constitute the masterpieces of literature. Since the 1960s, the traditional English and American literary canon, consisting mostly of wo

27、rks by white male writers, has been rapidly expanding to include many female writers and writers of varying ethnic backgrounds.Carpe diem The Latin phrase meaning seize the day. This is a very common literary theme, especially in lyric poetry, which emphasizes that life is short, time is fleeting, a

28、nd that one should make the most of present pleasures. Robert Herricks poem To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time employs the carpe diem theme.Catharsis Meaning purgation, catharsis describes the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristot

29、le discusses the importance of catharsis. The audience faces the misfortunes of the protagonist, which elicit pity and compassion. Simultaneously, the audience also confronts the failure of the protagonist, thus receiving a frightening reminder of human limitations and frailties. Ultimately, however

30、, both these negative emotions are purged, because the tragic protagonists suffering is an affirmation of human values rather than a despairing denial of them. See also tragedy.Character, characterization A character is a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, and characterization is the

31、process by which a writer makes that character seem real to the reader. A hero or heroine, often called the protagonist, is the central character who engages the readers interest and empathy. The antagonist is the character, force, or collection of forces that stands directly opposed to the protagon

32、ist and gives rise to the conflict of the story. A static character does not change throughout the work, and the readers knowledge of that character does not grow, whereas a dynamic character undergoes some kind of change because of the action in the plot. A flat character embodies one or two qualities, ideas, or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary. They are not psychologically complex characters and therefore are readily accessible to readers. Some flat characters are recognized as stock characters; they embody stereotypes such as