| Names of Characters in English Classic Literature (henceforth NCECLs), have their own peculiarity in meaning, compared with common nouns. When they are used in ordinary communication, they are not proper nouns any more; as a result, meaning generalization occurs. The present thesis analyzes the meaning of GNCECLs from multiple perspectives, mainly from the cultural perspective, from the perspective of"descriptions", from the perspective of componential stratum, and from the perspective of componential analysis, in hopes of providing a more scientific and systematic interpretation of the meaning of GNCECLs.Following a cognitive approach, based on a considerable amount of data analysis, the present research shows that GNCECLs'initial meaning gaining mechanism is metonymy and goes further to explain how the initially generalized meaning is motivated by metonymy within different idealized cognitive models (ICM); GNCECLs display polysemy, and then attention is fixed on attempting to construct a general model of polysemous framework to present sense relations among the generalized senses, aiming at providing an understanding of the cognitive process of the generalization of NCECLs, testifying the fundamental cognitive mechanisms.Based on an empirical study of the Big Four English learner's dictionaries, their treating deficiencies and problems are revealed. The inspirations from meaning analysis of GNCECLs and cognitive interpretation of their semantic generalization are applied to lexicographic practice towards a standardized treatment of GNCECLs in learner's dictionaries. Finally, the research suggests some necessary principles for selecting GNCECLs in the macro structure; as to the learner's dictionaries'micro structure, special attention is attracted towards sense ordering and how to transmit GNCECLs'cultural information, with implications made on study towards further improvement of treating GNCECLs in learner's dictionaries.
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