英美文学名词解释2

英美文学名词解释

1. Humanism： is the essence of the renaissance. In Greek and Roman civilization, man is the meausure of all things. Contray to the medieval philosophy, the humanists believed that it was justified to praise human nature and that human beings are glorious creatures capable of development in the direction of perfection. the world was theirs not to dislike but to question,explore and enjoy. Thus, by emphasizing the value of human beings and the important of the present life, the emphsized that man not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but have the ability to perfect themselves and create wonders.

2. Alliteration: The repetition of the initial consonant sounds in poetry.

3. Couplet: Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. A heroic couplet is an iambic pentameter couplet.

4. Enlightenment: With the advent of the 18th century, in England, as in other European countries, there sprang into life a public movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment on the whole, was an expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeois against feudalism. The egogo inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. The attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requirements of the people.

5. Realism: The attempt in literature and art to represent life as it really is,

without sentimentalizing or idealizing it. Realistic writing often depicts the everyday life and speech of ordinary people. This has led, sometimes, to an emphasis on sordid details.

6. Renaissance: The term originally indicated a revival of classical (Greek and Roman) arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism.

7. Simile: (a figure of speech) A comparison make between two things through the use of a specific word of comparison, such as like, as than, or resembles. The comparison must be between two essentially unlike things.

8. Terza rima: An Italian verse form consisting of a series of three-line stanzas in which the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza.

9. Personification:is to treat a thing or an idea as if it were human or had human qualities. In poetry it is very common.