英国文学史术语.doc

Literary terms of British Literature
1. Sonnet: It’s a form of poetry in iambic pentameter.
2. Humanism: It’s an important thought in Renaissance of the 16th century. Its may concern was in man and the fought for emancipation of man. Typically, renaissance humanism assumed the dignity and central position of human beings in the universe, emphasized the importance in education of studying classical imaginative and philosophical literature, although with emphasis on its moral and practical rather than its aesthetic values; and insisted on the primacy, in ordering human life, of reason( considering the distinctively human faculty) as opposed to the instinctual appetites and animal passions. Many humanists also stressed the need for a rounded development of an individual‘s diverse powers, physical, mental, artistic, and moral, as opposed to a merely technical or specialized kind of training.

3. The Enlightenment: The Enlightenment Movement was a progressive intellectual movement which flourished in France and swept through the whole Western Europe at the time .The movement was a furtherance of the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its purpose was to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic ideas. It celebrated reasons or rationality, equality and science.
4. The Renaissance: The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. The English Renaissance refers to the period between 16th and mid-17th century. It first started in Italy. The Renaissance means rebirth of revival of classical arts and sciences after the dark ages of medieval obscurantism. Humanism is the core of Renaissance. The humanists hold their chief interest in man and bravely fight for the freedom of individuals. Among the literary giants in this period are Shakespeare, Spenser, Bacon, Donne and Milton.
5.Romanticism: It is a movement that flourished in literature during most of the nineteenth century, beginning as a revolt against classicism. It sees the individual as the very center of all life and all experiences. It also places the individual at the center of art. The Romantic period is an age of poetry. Nature is the dominant subject matter for most romantic poets, such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats.
1) Subordinates form to content;
2) Encourages freedom of treatment;
3) Emphasizes imagination, emotion and introspection;
4) Celebrates nature, the common man, and freedom of spirit;
5) Tries to find a solution, a way out, for the human race faced with the breaking down of the old order.
6. 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 life. This has led, sometimes, to an emphasis on sordid details.
1) takes an interest in the details rather than the “story”;
2) Attempts to reflect reality faithfully and recreate familiar everyday aspects of life;
3) Prefers a straight-forward and matter-of-fact manner of narration;
4) focus on common people, especially social underlings and their sufferings;
5) Adopts a critical tone, exposing social ills and criticizing social injustice.
7 Modernism:
1) is marked by a strong and conscious break with the traditional form and techniques of expression, being richly experimental;
2) Employs a distinctive kind of imagination, one that insists on having its general frame of reference within itself;
3) Implies a historical discontinuity, a sense of alienation, loss and despair;
4) Rejects traditional values, assumptions as well as rhetoric;
5) Elevates the individual and the inner being over the social being;
6) Prefers the subconscious, unconscious to the self-conscious.