AP Literature - Summer Vocab (Easy Definitions)

ALEXANDRINE

A line of poetic verse consisting of six iambic feet (iambic hexameter).

ALLEGORY

A story with two meanings: a literal surface story and a deeper symbolic meaning.

ALLITERATION

The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words.

ALLUSION

A brief reference to a famous person, place, event, or literary work that the reader is expected to know.

ANALOGY

A comparison made between two things to show their similarities or explain something unfamiliar.

ANTAGONIST

The person or force that opposes the main character (protagonist) in a story.

ANTIPASTORAL

A realistic depiction of rural life that rejects traditional, idealized country scenes.

ANTI-PETRARCHAN

Poetry that rejects or mocks the traditional, idealized conventions of romantic love sonnets.

ANTISTROPHE

The second part of a classical choral ode, answering the strophe.

ANTITHESIS

The balancing of two opposing or contrasting ideas using parallel grammatical structure.

APHORISM

A concise, clever statement that expresses a wise observation about life.

APOSTROPHE

A figure of speech where a speaker directly addresses an absent person, dead person, or object.

ASIDE

Lines spoken by an actor directly to the audience that the other characters onstage supposedly cannot hear.

ASSONANCE

The repetition of similar vowel sounds inside a group of words, especially in poetry.

ATMOSPHERE

The prevailing mood or emotional feeling created by a literary work, often through setting.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

A person's written account of their own life, usually structured as a unified narrative.

BALLAD

A narrative story told in verse, often featuring tragic subjects and originally meant to be sung.

BALLAD STANZA

A four-line stanza where lines 1 and 3 have four stresses, and lines 2 and 4 have three stresses and rhyme.

BIOGRAPHY

A detailed account of a person's life written by someone else.

BLANK VERSE

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter, heavily used by Shakespeare and Milton.

CAESURA

A natural pause or break in a line of poetry.

CANTO

A major section or division of a long epic poem.

CARICATURE

The use of distortion or exaggeration to make a character appear ridiculous or comic.

CARPE DIEM TRADITION

A literary theme meaning "seize the day" that urges people to live for the present moment.

CHARACTERIZATION

The methods a writer uses to reveal a character's personality and traits.

CLASSICISM

A style of literature that values reason, clarity, balance, order, and ancient Greek/Roman ideals.

CLIMAX

The turning point or point of highest emotional intensity and suspense in a story.

COMEDY

A literary work that features ordinary characters and ends happily or harmoniously for the protagonist.

CONCEIT

An elaborate and unusual metaphor that compares two startlingly different things.

CONFLICT

The struggle between opposing forces that drives the plot of a story.

CONNOTATION

The emotional associations or feelings that a word suggests beyond its literal dictionary definition.

CONSONANCE

The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially in the middle or end of words.

COUPLET

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme and usually form a complete thought.

DACTYL

A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

DENOTATION

The literal, objective dictionary definition of a word.

DÉNOUEMENT

The final outcome or resolution of a plot where mysteries and conflicts are wrapped up.

DICTION

A writer's deliberate and precise choice of words for clarity and effect.

DISSONANCE

A harsh, clashing, or disagreeable combination of sounds.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

A narrative poem where a single character speaks to a silent listener at a crucial life moment.

ELEGY

A formal poem of mourning, usually honoring someone who has died or reflecting on death.

EMBLEMATIC IMAGE

A verbal picture or poem shape that carries a traditional moral or religious meaning.

EPIC

A long narrative poem detailing the grand deeds of a hero and reflecting cultural values.

EPIGRAM

A short, witty, and pointed statement, often written as a brief poem.

EPIGRAPH

A quotation or motto placed at the beginning of a work to hint at its theme.

EPILOGUE

A short concluding section added to the very end of a literary work.

EPIPHANY

A sudden moment of deep insight, illumination, or realization for a character.

EPITAPH

An inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone deceased.

EPITHET

A descriptive name or phrase used routinely to characterize a specific person or thing.

EPODE

The third and final part of a classical choral ode.

ESSAY

A brief piece of prose writing that examines a specific subject from a personal viewpoint.

EXEMPLUM

A brief story or anecdote told within a sermon to illustrate a moral lesson.

EXPOSITION

The introductory part of a story where essential background information is revealed.

FABLE

A brief story, usually featuring talking animals, told to teach a practical moral lesson.

FALLING ACTION

The events in a plot that follow the climax and lead directly to the resolution.

FARCE

A type of fast-paced comedy based on ridiculous situations and physical slapstick humor.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Language used imaginatively rather than literally, utilizing figures of speech like metaphors and similes.

FIGURE OF SPEECH

An expression that compares unlike things and is not meant to be taken literally.

FLASHBACK

A scene that interrupts the chronological flow of a story to show an event that happened earlier.

FOIL

A character who highlights the traits of another character through direct contrast.

FOOT

The basic unit of rhythmic meter in a line of poetry.

FORESHADOWING

The use of clues or hints in a narrative to suggest events that will happen later.

FREE VERSE

Poetry that has no regular meter, rhythm, or rhyme scheme.

HEROIC COUPLET

A rhyming pair of poetry lines written in iambic pentameter.

HYPERBOLE

A figure of speech that uses deliberate and extreme exaggeration for emphasis or effect.

IAMB

A metrical foot in poetry consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

A poetic line containing five iambic feet, the most common meter in English poetry.

IMAGERY

Descriptive words or phrases that appeal to the five senses to create mental pictures.

INCREMENTAL REPETITION

The repetition of lines in a poem with slight variations each time to advance the story.

IN MEDIAS RES

A storytelling technique that begins a narrative right in the middle of the action.

INTERLOCKING RHYME

A rhyme scheme where a rhyme sound from one stanza is carried over into the next.

INTERLUDE

A short, non-religious comedic play popular in the late fifteenth century.

INTERNAL RHYME

A rhyme that occurs within a single line of poetry rather than at the end.

INVERSION

The technique of reversing the normal word order of a sentence for emphasis or meter.

INVOCATION

A prayer or call to a muse or deity for inspiration at the start of an epic poem.

IRONY

A contrast between what is stated and what is meant, or between expectations and reality.

KENNING

An elaborate, metaphorical phrase used in Old English poetry to rename an item indirectly.

LYRIC

A short, melodic poem that expresses the highly personal thoughts or feelings of a single speaker.

MASQUE

An elaborate, spectacular court entertainment combining poetry, music, dance, and lavish costumes.

MAXIM

A brief statement expressing a general truth or rule of moral conduct.

MELODRAMA

A suspenseful drama with exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and clear good-versus-evil conflicts.

METAPHOR

A direct comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as".

METAPHYSICAL CONCEIT

A highly intellectual and complex metaphor comparing two shockingly different ideas.

METAPHYSICAL POETRY

Seventeenth-century poetry marked by clever wit, irregular meter, conversational language, and complex imagery.

METER

The regular, repeating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

METONYMY

A figure of speech where something closely related to a thing stands in for the thing itself.

MIRACLE PLAY

A popular medieval religious drama based on the lives of saints or biblical history.

MOCK EPIC

A comedic work that treats a trivial, minor subject in the grand style of a serious epic poem.

MONOMETER

A line of poetry consisting of only one metrical foot.

MOOD

The overall atmosphere or emotional climate created for the reader within a literary work.

MOTIF

A recurring element, idea, image, or situation that appears throughout a work to reinforce a theme.

MYTH

An ancient story involving gods or heroes that explains natural events or cultural beliefs.

NARRATIVE

Any account of connected events or experiences, whether told in prose or verse, fiction or non-fiction.

NATURALISM

A nineteenth-century literary movement viewing characters as controlled by uncaring forces like environment and heredity.

NEO-CLASSICISM

A revival of ancient Greek and Roman ideals of balance, order, and reason in the 17th and 18th centuries.

NOVEL

A long, complex fictional prose narrative allowing deep character and plot development.

OCTAVE

An eight-line stanza or poem, specifically the first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.

ODE

A complex, long, and formal lyric poem written in a dignified style to praise a serious subject.

ONOMATOPOEIA

The use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their actual meaning.

OXYMORON

A figure of speech that places two opposite or contradictory terms side-by-side.

PARABLE

A simple, brief story featuring human characters that teaches a moral or religious lesson.