AP Literature terminology Black terms

Antithesis

Contrasting or combining two terms, phrases, or clauses with opposite meanings.

• example: Love “builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair”

Asyndeton

Lists of words, phrases, or expressions without conjunctions such as ‘and’ and ‘or’ to link them.

• Example: Reduce, reuse, recycle

Euphemism

A mild or indirect word or expression used to replace one that may be considered harsh or blunt.

• example: saying "passed away" instead of "died."

Euphuism

A style of writing that emphasizes elaborate language, often using alliteration and parallelism.

• Example:“Is it not far better to abhor sins by the remembrance of others' faults than by repentance of thine own follies?”

Idyll

a pastoral or descriptive poem depicting a peaceful, idealized, rural scene or setting.

• Example: “The Shepherd” by William Blake

Litotes

A deliberate understatement for effect; the opposite of hyperbole.

• Example: a good idea may be described as “not half bad,”

Meiosis

a euphemistic figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies that it is lesser in significance or size than it really is

• Example: “the concert was a bit loud”

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself. Often the substitution is based on relation between things.

• Example: the British monarchy is often referred to as the Crown

Parataxis

Linking clauses just by sequencing them, often without conjunction(s) and only by means of associations that are implied, not stated.

• Example: I came, I saw, I conquered.

Syntactic Permutation

Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved

• Example: the children played happily in the

Anastrophe

a scheme in which the writer inverts ( words are written out of order) the words in a sentence, saying, or idea.

• Example: A chance will I take

Chiasmus

Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA.

• Example: John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”).

Diacope

figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated with a small number of intervening words.

• Example: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,

Envoi

The brief stanza that ends a poem such as the ballade or the sestina.

• Example:

Epanalepsis

figure of speech in which the beginning of a sentence is repeated at the end of that same sentence, with words intervening.

• Example: “The king is dead, long live the king!"

Epithet

a literary device that describes a person, place, or object by accompanying or replacing it with a descriptive word or phrase.

• Example: A dog is referred to “ a man’s best friend”

Metaphysical conceit

an extended metaphor that makes an outstretched comparison between a person's spiritual faculties and a physical object in the world

• Example: Flea by John Donne

Hyperbaton

figure of speech in which the typical, natural order of words is changed as certain words are moved out of order.

• Example: Sweet, she was.

Polysyndeton

is a literary device that uses multiple repetitions of the same conjunction (and, but, if, etc)

• Example: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers.

Polyptoton

Polyptoton is a figure of speech that involves the repetition of words derived from the same root (such as "blood" and "bleed")

• Example: Who shall watch the watchmen?

Scansion (iamb, anapest; dactyl; spondee; trochee)

the breaking up of poem's lines or verses into metrical feet and identifying the stressed and unstressed syllables.

Iamb: one unaccented or weakly accented syllable followed by one strong accent ( ex: impossible)

anapest: two weakly accented syllables followed by one strong stress. (ex: contradict)

dactyl: one strong stress, followed by two weakly accented syllables (ex:

Stanzaic (i.e. strophic) form (v. Stichic)

Stanzaic: Structure of the arranged lines in a poem ( broken into stanzas)

Strophic: is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music.

Stichic: Poetry made up of lines of the same approximate meter and length, not broken up into stanzas.

Synecdoche

figure of speech where a part of something is used to refer to its whole.

Example: "The captain commands one hundred sails" is a synecdoche that uses "sails" to refer to ships—ships being the thing of which a sail is a part.

Teleutons

The 6 end-words of a sestina repeated in a fixed pattern throughout the six stanza. The envoi (end of a poem has to include all 6 words)

Example: make your own stupid sestina.

Volta

Turn of thought or argument. A change in the the tone or implication of the poem.

Example: Shakespeare sonnet 130

Zeugma

when you use a word in a sentence once, while conveying two different meanings at the same time.

Example: They left the room with tear-filled eyes and hearts.

Aubade

a morning love song or a song or poem about lovers separating at dawn.

Example: The sun rising by John Donne

Blazon (v. contrablazon )

blazon: catalogues the physical attributes of a subject, usually female.

Example: Her eyes are like sapphires shining in the bright sun.

Contrablazon: describing “wrong” parts of the female body or negating them completely example: My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun

Bucolic

a short poem descriptive of rural or pastoral life.

example: The passionate Shepherd to his love

Burlesque

Style that mocks or imitates a subject by representing it in an ironic or ludicrous way; resulting in comedy.

Significance: it’s supposed to be a fun, entertaining piece of work that serves as a parody.

complaint

A poem of lament, often directed at an ill-fated love- a grievance

example: Henry Howard’s Complaint of the Absence of Her Love Being upon the sea

Confessional

disclosure of personal revelations and secrets, often in first-person, non-fiction forms such as diaries and memoirs.

example: Robert Lowell's Life Studies

Doggerel

poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for comic effect.

example: henry king

Eclogue

A brief, dramatic pastoral poem, set in an idyllic rural place but discussing urban, legal, political, or social issues.

Example: Edmund Spenser’s “Shepheardes Calendar

Ekphrastic

a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art

example: The Starry Night by Anne Sexton

Folk Ballad

anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event

Example: “ Barbara Allen” or “ John Henry”

Idyll

a pastoral or descriptive poem depicting a peaceful, idealized, rural scene or setting

example: “To Autumn” by John Keats.

lament

Any poem expressing deep grief, usually at the death of a loved one or some other loss.

example: Thom Gunn’s “Lament”

pantoum

a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next.

example: Carolyn Kizer's “Parent's Pantoum,”

sestina

usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a three-line envoi. The end words are repeated in a different order throughout the poem and the closing envoi contains all six words

example: Camille Guthrie's "Beautiful Poetry,"

villanelle

highly structured poem made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain, with two repeating rhymes and two refrains.

example: Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art,”

valediction

a poem meant to represent saying goodbye or expressing farewells over a separation

example: a valediction:forbidding mourning by John Donne