AP Lit Terms

Allegory

an extended narrative in prose or verse in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story; the underlying meaning may be moral, religous, political, social, or satiric

Alliteration

the repitition of initial sounds in a successive or neighboring words (Ex. while I nodded, nearly napping)

Allusion

a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical

Anaphora

a rhetorical device of repeating the same word or words at the starts of two or more lines of poetry or successive phrases or sentences in prose

Antithesis

a rhetorical device contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, balancing one against the other in strong opposition. The contrast is reinforced by the similar grammatical structure

Aphorism

a consice statement which expresses succinctly a general truth or idea often using rhyme of balance

Apostrophe

a rhetorical device in which an absent or imaginary person or an abstraction is directly addressed as though present (Ex. “Death, be not proud”)

Assonance

the repitition of vowel sounds between different consonants, such as in neigh/fade

Blank Verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Caesura

a pause in a line of poetry created not by the meter, but by the natural speaking rhythm, sometimes coinciding with punctuation

Cacophony

harsh, awkward, or dissonant sounds used deliberatly in poetry or prose; the opposite of euphony

Chiasmus

a statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed (Ex. “Out went the taper as she hurried in”)

Colloquilaism

informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing

Complaint

a lyric poem of lament, regret, and sadness which may explain the speaker’s mood, describe its cause, discuss remedies, and appeal for help

Conceit

an elaborate figure of speech in which two seemingly dissimilar things or situtations are compared

Connotation

the implied or associative meaning of a word (as opposed to denotation)

Consonance

though the final consonants in several stressed syllables agree, the vowel sounds that precede them are different

Denotation

the literal meaning of a word (as opposed to connotation)

Diction

word choice

Dissonance

the grating of sounds that are harsh or do not go together

Elegy

a formal powm focusing on death or mortality, usually beginning with the recent death of a particular person

Ellipsis

the omission of a word or phrase which is prammatically necessary but can be deduced from the context (Ex. Kathleen wants to be a firefighter; Sara, a nurse)

End-stopped line

a line of poetry that ends when the grammatical units ends. Opposite is enjambment

Enjambment

from the french meaning “a striding over” this term decribes a line of poetry in which the sense and grammatical construction continue on to the next lne. In an enjambed line, the lack of completion created pressure to move rapidly to the closure promised in the next line

Epigram

a consice, witty saying in poetry or prose that either stands alone or is part of a larger work; may also refer to a short poem of this type

Euphemism

an indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant (ex. laid to rest for buried)

Euphony

a succession of harmonious sounds used in poetry or prose; the opposite of cacophony

Exemplum

a breif tale used in medieval times used to illustrate a sermon or teach a lesson

Foil

a character who, by contrast, highlights the characteristics of another character

Free Verse

poetry that is written without a regular meter, usually without rhyme

Hyperbole

a deliberate exaggeration in order to create humor or emphasis

Idyll

a short descriptive narrative, usually a poem, about an idealized country life; also called a pastoral

Internal Rhyme

a rhyme occuring within a line of poetry, as in Edgar Allan Poe’s “the Raven”: While I nodded, nearly napping, suddlenly there came a tapping

Irony

a situation or statement where the truth is the opposite of appearances

Litites

a type of understatment in which something affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite (Ex. “The teacher was not overly impressed by the poor test results”)

Lyric

a type of melodious, imaginative, and sibjective poetry that is usually short and personal, expressing the thoughts and feelings of a single speaker rather than telling a story

Metonymy

a figure of speech that uses the name of an object, person, or idea to represent something with which it is associated, such as using “the crown” to refer to a monarch

Motif

a standard theme or dramatic situtation which recurs in various works

Mood

the atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience

Non Sequitur

an inference that does not logically follow from the premise(s)

Ode

a long lyric poem, usually serious and elevated in tone; often written to praise someone or something

Onomatopoeia

the formation of a word from the imitation of natural sounds, such as hiss and boom

Oxymoron

an expression in which two words that contradict each other are joined (Ex. jumbo shrimp)

Parable

a short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory

Paradox

a statement that seems to contradict itself but that turns out to have a rational meaning, as in this quotation from Henry David Thoreau: “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude”

Pastoral

a poem about idealized rural life, or shepherds, or both; also called an idyll

Pathos

the quality in a work that prompts the reader to feel pity or sorrow

Polysyndeton

the use of many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect

Stock Character

a standard character who may be stereotyped, such as the miser or the fool, or universally recognized, like the hard-boiled private eye in detective stories

Syllepsis

the linking of one word with two other words in two strikingly different ways (Ex. The migrants “exhausted their credit, exhausted their friends.”)

Symbol

an object which is something in itself yet is used to represent something else

Synecdote

the use of one part of an object to represent the entire object, such as using “board” to mean “a stage” or “wheels” to mean “a car”

Synesthesia

describing one kind of sensation in terms of another (Ex. sound as color, color as sound, sound as taste, color as temperature)

Syntax

the arrangement of words within a sentence - includes a sentence length and complexity; the variety and pattern of sentence form; inversion of natural word order; unusual juxtaposition; repitition; parallelism; use of active or passive voice; level of discourse

Tautology

needless repitition which adds no meaning or understanding (Ex. widow woman; free gift; close proximity)

Tone

the attitude of a writer, usually implied, toward the sibject or audience (may be described with words such as sardonic, apologetic, light-hearted, or somber)

Understatement

the deliberate representation of something as less in magnitude than it really is