2024年4月1日发(作者：)

Definition:

1)Heroic couplet: A pair of rhyming lines in iambic pentametre. Used as early as

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, it was the dominant form of poetry in the

Restoration and the 18

th

century. The master of the form is Alexander Pope (An Essay

on Criticism).

2)Blank verse: Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentametre. (Surrey)Introduced

into English poetry in the 16

th

century, it has become the standard form for

Renaissance drama, and employed by John Milton in his Paradise Lost.

3)Tragedy: Dramatic works in which events move to a fatal or disastrous conclusion.

Tragedy often portrays the main character’s struggle against fate, his enemy, or forces

in society, and his life, despite the disastrous ending, represents something

significant.(William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear)

4)Soliloquy: The speech by a dramatic character when he speaks alone on stage.

When a soliloquy is delivered, the character appears to be thinking aloud, thereby

communicating his inner thoughts and feelings to the audience. (Shakespeare:

Hamlet)

5)Epic: A long narrative poem in serious style, celebrating the adventures and

achievements of legendary tribal or national heroes. Homer’s Odyssey is the most

famous and influential epic in western literature. Beowulf is an epic written in Old

English, concerning the legendary adventures of the Anglo-Saxon hero Beowulf.

6)Ode: A lyric poem that addresses a certain person or treats a theme in a dignified

and serious manner. In its Greek origins, odes were written to commemorate victories,

and sung by a chorus. The form later developed to cover a wide range of themes, and

could be used to convey personal feelings. It is a form favored by the Romantic poets,

and John Keat’s odes (To the Nightingale, To Psyche, To Autumn) are among the most

memorable.

7)Sonnet: A lyric poem with fourteen lines, divided into two, three, or four sections.

There are many rhyming patterns for sonnets, and in English they are usually written

in iambic pentametre. Since its origins in the 12

th

-century Italy, it has been one of the

most popular poetic forms. Among the famous English sonnet writers are Shakespeare,

Donne, Wordsworth, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

8)Lyric: Poetry concerned with a specific feeling or attitude of the speaker in the

poem, who may not necessarily be the poet him/herself. Originally designed for

musical accompaniment, it has evolved to include a wide range of poetic forms,

including the sonnet, ode and elegy.

9)Gothic novel: A type of fiction that employs mystery, terror, horror, suspense, and

sometimes the supernatural as its conventional elements. Horace Walpole’s the castle

of Otranto is considered to be the work that established the tradition of this form.

10)Stream of consciousness: Narrative technique which attempts to render the

consciousness of a character by representing as directly as possible the flow of the

feelings, thoughts and impressions. The term ―interior monologue‖ is also sometimes

used. Writers typically known for the employment of this technique are Virginia

Woolf, James Joyce, and the American novelists William Faulkner.

Iambic Pentameter: ―Iambic‖ is the most common rhythm in English poetry,

consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word

―repeat‖. Iambic pentameter is a line of a poetry which consists of five iambics, as

this line from Pope’s An Essay on Man: ―The proper study of mankind is man.‖

Paraphrase:

1)Chaucer: “The Prioress”

THE PRIORESS

Also there was a nun, a PRIORESS

And she went smiling, innocent and coy;

The greatest oath she swore was by Saint Loy;

And she was known as Madame Eglentine.

TRANSLATION

还有个修女是修道院长，

满面的笑容诚挚又温和。

她效法圣罗伊从不发誓，

起了个芳名叫玫瑰女士。