一、引言叙述速度即故事发生时间和文本篇幅的时空比重。目前已经存在许多关于叙述速度、叙述时间及叙述节奏的理论,但是由于这些理论的研究依赖的文本资料过于繁杂,所以对于叙述速度的发展规律的分析缺乏说服力。那么,本文将根据英国14世纪至20世纪的小说经典之作,对英国长篇小说叙述速度的发展规律进行分析。研究的文本材料包括《坎特伯雷故事》(约1387—1400)、《汤姆·琼斯》《呼啸山庄》(19世纪)等多部小说,它们都是当时文学作品的代 I. Introduction The narrative speed is the ratio between the time of the story and the space of the text. There are already many theories about the speed of narration, the time of narration and the tempo of narration. However, the analysis of the law of the development of narration speed is not convincing because the textual data depend on these theories are too complicated. So, this article will be based on the British novel from the fourteenth Century to the twentieth Century classic, the development of the British novels narrative speed analysis. The texts of the study include many novels such as The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), Tom Jones and Wuthering Heights (19th Century), all of which were contemporary literary works