TERMS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
1. Allegory寓言；讽喻
A narrative in which the characters and the setting stand for abstract qualities and ideas. The writer of an allegory is not primarily trying to make the characters and their actions realistic, but to make them representative of ideas or truths.
2. Alliteration (头韵)
The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonant clusters, in a group of words . Some-times the term is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds.
3. Assonance（腹韵，半谐音）
The repetition of similar vowel sounds , especially in poetry . Here is an example of assonance from John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn : “Thou foster child of silence and slow time .”
4. Ballad民谣；叙事诗歌
A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung .
5. Blank Verse无韵诗，素体诗（不押韵的五音步诗行）
Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
6. Byronic Hero拜伦的，拜伦风格的，冷笑而浪漫的
The hero with the characteristic of Lord Byron or the hero in his poetry, who is contemptuous of and rebelling against conventional morality, or defying fate, and who is a mixture of good and evil, selflessness and sin, isolated, rebellious, passionate and self-reliant, etc.
7. Characterization特性描述； （对书或戏剧中人物的）刻画，塑造
The personality a character displays; also, the means by which a writer reveals that personality. Generally, a writer develops a character in one or more of the following ways:
1)through the character’s actions;
2)through the character’s thoughts and speeches;
3)through a physical description of the character;
reaction paper to metaphor4)through the opinions others have about the character;
5)through a direct statement about the character telling what the writer thinks of him or her.
8. Classicism古典主义，古典风格
A movement or tendency in art, literature, or music that reflects the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome . Classicism emphasizes the traditional and the universal, and places value on reason, clarity, balance , and order . Classicism, with its concern for reason and universal themes, is traditionally opposed to Romanticism, which is concerned with emotions and personal themes .
9. Climax
The point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative . The climax usually marks a story’s turning point.
10. Comedy
In general, a literary work that ends happily with a healthy, amicable armistice between the protagonist and society.
11. Comedy of Manners
A term most commonly used to designate the realistic, often satirical comedy. In the stricter sense of the term, the type is concerned with the manners and conventions of an artificial, highly sophisticated society. The fashions, manners and outlook on life of this social group are reflected. The characters are more likely to be types than individualized personalities. Plot, though often involving a clever handling of situation and intrigue, is less important than atmosphere, dialogue and satire, The dialogue is witty and finished, often brilliant. Satire is directed against the deficiencies of typical characters.
12. Conceit (文学中)巧妙的比喻，别出心裁的对比
A kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things.
13. Consonance（谐辅音）
The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words . Sometimes the term refers to the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words, as in this line from Thomas Gray’s “ Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard ”: “ And all the air a solemn stillness holds . ” Sometimes the term is used for slant rhyme (or partial rhyme) in which initial and final consonants are the same but the vowels different : litter/letter , green/groan .
14. Couplet相连并押韵的两行诗，对句
Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.
15. Dramatic Monologue
A poem in which there is an imaginary speaker, at some specific and critical moment, addre
ssing an imaginary, silent but identifiable audience, thereby unintentionally revealing his or her essential personality or temperament. In Browning’s My Last Duchess, for example, he penetrates to the depth the psychology of his characters and through their own speeches, he analyzes and reveals the innermost secret of their lives.
16. Heroic Couplet（两行相互押韵、每行分五音节的）英雄偶句诗
An iambic pentameter couplet.
17. Elegy悲歌;挽歌;挽诗
A poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual.
18. Epic叙事诗； 史诗； 史诗般的作品
A long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated.
19. Fable寓言
A story with a moral lesson, often employing animals who talk and act like human beings.
20 The Graveyard School
A group of 18th-century poets, and among them are Thomas Gray, Robert Blair, Thomas Parnell, and Edward Young, who wrote on funeral subjects.
21. Iambic Pentameter五音步抑扬格
A poetic line consisting of five verse feet (penta-is from a Greek word meaning “five”), with each foot an iamb—that is, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Iambic pentameter is the most common verse line in English poetry.