| 释义 |
‖ ubi sunt Literary Criticism.|ˌʊbɪ ˈsʊnt|
[L., lit. ‘where are’.]
An interrogatory phrase taken from the opening words or the refrain of certain mediæval Latin works, used chiefly attrib. to designate a mood or theme in literature of lament for the mutability of things.
1914B. C. Williams Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon 45 The ubi sunt motivation is an old one, perhaps of equal age with riddle, charm, and spell. 1957N. Frye Anat. Crit. 160 Themes of..the wheel of fortune in social affairs, of the ubi sunt elegy. 1965English Studies XLVI. 307 Cresseid's ubi sunt lament underscores the narrator's sympathy. 1969Dunning & Bliss Wanderer 97 The adaptation of the Ubi sunt commonplace from a Latin milieu to an Anglo-Saxon one takes place in the sermon in much the same fashion as in The Wanderer. 1977Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Feb. 224/4 The ubi sunt motif (‘where are Caesar and Alexander [now]?’). 1977M. McC. Gatch Preaching & Theology in Anglo-Saxon England 229/1 Characteristically, the device is employed in discussions of the brevity of life (‘Brevis est hujus mundi felicitas, modica est hujus saeculi gloria, caduca est et fragilis temporalis potentia. Dic ubi sunt reges? ubi principes? ubi imperatores?..’—Isidore of Seville, Synonyma ii. 91... ælfric's use of the rhetorical tag ubi sunt?, however, is quite different here... I know of no strict ubi sunt? passage in ælfric. |