AP Lit terms

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds.

Allusion

A reference in a written or spoken text to another text or to some particular body of knowledge.

Ambiguity

Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work.

Antagonist

The character who opposes the interests of the protagonist.

Apostrophe

The direct address of an absent person or personified object as if he/she/it is able to reply.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words.

Characterization

The process by which the writer reveals the personality of the character including indirect and direct characterization.

Complexity

A quality of literature that implies tension or seeming contradiction.

Conceit

An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are strikingly different, often as an extended metaphor.

Connotation

The implied meaning of a word, in contrast to its directly expressed 'dictionary meaning'.

Couplet

Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Denotation

The 'dictionary definition' of a word, in contrast to its connotation, or implied meaning.

Diction

Word choice, which is viewed on scales of formality/informality, concreteness/abstraction, and denotative/connotative value.

Didactic

Literature intended, as least in part, to teach.

Dynamic Character

One who changes during the course of the narrative.

Flat Character

A figure readily identifiable by memorable traits but not fully developed.

Hyperbole

An exaggeration for effect.

Imagery

The use of sensory experiences (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell) in a literary work to evoke a certain feeling, idea, or theme.

Irony

1. Verbal Irony: the use of words to mean something different from what a person actually says. 2. Situational Irony: discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens. 3. Dramatic Irony: when the audience is aware of something the characters are not.

Juxtaposition

A poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated words or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise or wit.

Metaphor

An implied comparison that does not use the word like or as.

Microcosm

A small representation of a larger system.

Mood

The feeling or atmosphere a writer creates for the reader.

Motif

A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme.

Oxymoron

Juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings.

Parallelism

A set of similarly structured words, phrases, or clauses that appears in a sentence or paragraph.

Paradox

A seemingly contradictory situation that is actually true.

Protagonist

The major character in a piece of literature; the figure in the narrative whose interests the reader is most concerned about and sympathetic toward.

Round Character

Has multiple dimensions to their personalities---they are complex, just as real people are.

Simile

A type of comparison that uses the word like or as.

Static Character

A figure who remains the same from the beginning to the end of a narrative.

Symbol

In a text, an element that stands for more than itself and, therefore, helps to convey a theme of the text.

Syntax

Sentence structure often characterized by length (short to long), complexity (simple to complex), or order of words.

Theme

The message conveyed by a literary work.

Tone

The attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.

Unreliable Narrator

An untrustworthy or naïve commentator on events and characters in a story.

Elegy

a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.

Ode

a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner

Sonnet

A poem of 14 lines using any number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically following iambic pentameter

Villanelle

A 19 line poem with two rhymes throughout. The first and third lines repeat throughout the poem.

Ballad

A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas

dramatic monologue

A poem in the form of a speech or narrative in which the speaker reveals their character while describing the situation or series of events

Epic

a long poem narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures

Satire

The use of humor, irony, or exaggeration to expose and criticize people's stupid or vices. Can be prose or poetry.