英国文学名词解释

 Lakes Poets : Wordsworth, Coleridge and Robert Southey have often been mentioned as the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the Lake District in the northwest part of England and drew inspiration from the Lake District at the beginning of the 19th century .The three traversed the same path in politics and in poetry, beginning as radicals and ending up as conservatives.激进派的开始保守派的终结。

 Humanism is a system of beliefs upheld by writers and artists of the Renaissance period in their fighting against medieval asceticism. It states that man is godly, that man is able to find truth, goodness and beauty, and that man is in control of the present life rather than being controlled by God. Briefly, humanism puts man at the center of their beliefs and takes man to be the measure of every thing while the former asceticism puts God at the center of their beliefs and takes personal salvation to be the most important thing on the earth for man.

 Heroic couplets is a rhyming couplet of iambic pentameter, often containing a complete thought. There is a fairly heavy pause at the end of the first line and a still heavier one at the end of the second. Commonly there is a parallel or an antithesis within a line, or between the two lines. It is called heroic because in England, especially in the 18th century, it was much used for heroic (epic) poems.

 Critical realism is the main trend of the literary thoughts in the 19th century. It reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash upon human nature. Critical realists first and foremost set themselves the task of criticizing capitalist society from a democratic viewpoint of bourgeoisie reality. As far as the literary form or

“genre” is concerned, the major contribution made by the 19th century critical realists lies in their perfection of the novels. Like the realists of the 18th century, the 19th century critical realists made use of the form of novel for full and detailed representation of social and political events, and of the fate of individuals and of whole social classes.

 Gothic Novel is a long prose narrative of horror, often involving medieval castles with secret passageways. As one branch of the English literature, it leads habitually with darkness and horror. Gothic elements include horror, mystery, supernatural phenomenon, misfortune, death, haunted houses, and family curses, etc.

The renaissance 。the renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally ,it refers to the period between 14th century to the 17th century. It first started in Italy ,with the flowering of painting,sculpture and literature. From the Italy it went to embrace the rest of Europe. The renaissance which means ‘rebirth’or ‘revival’ is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events ,such as the re-discovery of ancient greek and roman culture. The new discovery of geography and astrology. The religious reformation and the economic expansion .

The enlightenment the18th century Is known as the age of enlightenment or the age of reason。The enlightenment on the whole ，was an expression of struggle of the then progressive bourgeoisie against the feudalism .the enlighteners attempted to place all branches of science at service of mankind

and repudiate the false religious doctrines about the viciousness of human nature ,and prove that human is born kind and honest ,at the same time ,they were prone to accept bourgeoisie relationship as the reasonable relationships among people.

Romanticism, as a literary movement came into being in English in the latter half of 18th century, and it made its first appearance in English as a renewed interest in medieval literature ,with the publication of wordsworth’ lyrical ballads in collaboration with Coleridge ,romanticism began to bloom and found a firm place in the history of English literature .in fact,the first 19th century recorded the triumph of romanticism .it was greatly influenced by industrial revolution and the French revolution.