Essential Literary Terms AP Lit Summer Assignment

abstract language

Language that exists as ideas, feelings, or qualities not as material objects;intangible ideas, rather than real-world objects. ,

absurdist drama

Plays that focuses not on logical acts, realistic occurrences, or traditional character development; they focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical

accentual meter

Type of poetic meter where each line has the SAME number of stresses, but VARIES in the total number of syllables.

accentual-syllabic meter

BOTH the number of stressed syllables and the number of total syllables is fixed

adjectives

A word/phrase that names an attribute, added to or gramatically related to a noun to modify or describe it

allegories

Story poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning (typically moral/political)

alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

allusions

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference

anagnorisis

The point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character's true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances

analogy

A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification

anapestic foot

Two short syllables followed by a long one in classical quantitative meters. In accentual stress meters, it is two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable.

anapestic trimeter

A poetic meter that has three anapestic metrical feet per line (each foot has 2 unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable)

anaphora

Repetition of a word/expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or verses

ancient Greek drama

A form of performance art where a limited number of actors and a chorus conduct a tragedy or comedy based on the works of ancient playwrights.

antagonist

Someone who opposes or is hostile to someone or something (the mc)

anthology citations

Citation format: Last name of author, first name of author. “Title of book.” Title of Anthology. Edited by First naame and last name, edition, Publishers, Year of publication, pages.

antihero

A central character who lacks conventional heroic attributes

antinovels

Avoids the familiar conventions of a novel and establishes its own conventions

antithesis

Rhetorical device in which an opposition or contrast of ideas is expressed by parallelism of words that are opposites of or strongly contrasted with

aphorisms

A pithy observation that contains a general truth

apostrophe

A punctuation mark used to indicate either possession or the omission of letters or number

appositive

Two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way (Ex: The book, a thrilling mystery, kept me up all night.)

Asides

A speech or short comment that a character delivers directly to an audience

Assonance

The repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible

Atmosphere

The way an author uses setting, objects, or internal thoughts of characters to create emotion, mood, or experiences for the reader

Author information

Naming authors and other contributions in your citations to credit them for their work

Ballad meter

Four-line stanzas usually rhyming abcb with the first and third lines carrying four accented syllables and the second and fourth carrying three

Bibliographic information

A list of works on a subject or by an author that were used or consulted to write a research paper, book, or article

Bildungsroman

Depicts the intellectual and emotional development of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood

Blank Verse

verse without rhyme, especially that which uses iambic pentameter

blacking of asides

deliberate positioning and choreography of actors on stage

Caesuras

a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins

Catalectic foot (catalexis)

a missing unstressed syllable at the end of a trochaic or dactylic line

Catharsis in tragedy

The purging of the emotions of pity and fear that are the viewer of a tragedy feels

Characterization

the techniques by which an author of a work of fiction, drama, or narrative poetry represents the moral, intellectual, and emotional nature of the characters

Chiasmus

A figure of speech in which two successive phrases or clauses are parallel in syntax, but reverse the order of the analogous words

Classical Tragedy

a literary genre, the oldest of which is Greek (roughly from the 5th century BCE); it tells a story of a hero and his subsequent demise

Closed couplets

Two line units of verse that do not extend their sense beyond the line's end. The lines are usually rhymed. When the lines are in iambic pentameter, they are referred to as heroic

Closed form of poetry

consists of poems that follow patterns of lines, meter, rhymes, and stanzas, whereas open form poetry does not

Closet drama

a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or sometimes out loud in a large group

Colloquial language

the linguistic style used for casual communication; everyday language

Comedy

literary form with a light tone for the most part, the main effects are to engage and amuse the audience, the situations and characters tend to be drawn from ordinary and daily life, and the resolution is happy (at least for major characters)

Common meter

a poetic meter consisting of four lines that alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

Complete predicate

contains the main verb and all of the words that are attached to the verb. This would include things like adverbs, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases

Complete subject

the simple subject, or the main word or words in a subject, along with any of the modifiers that might describe the subject

Complex sentences

sentence that contains not only an independent clause but also one or more subordinate clauses (a clause that lacks either subject or predicate and cannot stand alone)

Compound sentences

sentence that contains more than one independent clause with no subordinate clauses

Conceit, metaphysical

a specialized form of metaphor or simile which features an ingenious, often far-fetched or startling, vehicle

Concrete language

refers to tangible or perceivable characteristics in the real world

Conjunctions, coordinating

a conjunction placed between words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of equal rank

Consonance

repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different

Coordinated Clauses

a clause (a word group containing a subject and predicate) that is introduced by one of the coordinating conjunctions--most commonly and or but (FANBOYS)

Coordinating Conjunctions

a conjunction placed between words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of equal rank (FANBOYS, most common: and, but, or.)

Coordination

a reference to the equivalent importance of two clauses that are linked in compound sentences

Cosmic irony

occurs when a higher power (e.g., God, fate, the Universe) intervenes to create an ironic situation

Couplets

a pair of rhymed lines of the same length and meter

Cumulative Sentence

one which does not begin to run until the expiration of a prior sentence

Curtal sonnet

an eleven-line (or, more accurately, ten-and-a-half-line) sonnet rhyming abcabc dcbdc or abcabc dbcdc with the last line a tail, or half a line

Dactylic feet

In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight

Dactylic tetrameter

Each foot has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, the opposite of an anapest, sometimes called antidactylus

dependent clause

a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate but cannot stand alone in a grammatical unit

detail selection and order

crucial to a literary work's meaning and tone; the deliberate choices that the author makes in the course of drafting and revising work; choices include nature and specificity of details and the order in which they appear

Dialogue

the presentation of what characters say

Diction

denotes the word choice and phrasing in a literary work

Dimeter

A line that has two feet

Direct discourse

writing that reflects a character's exact words, often with an attributive tag using quotation marks

Direct Object

completes the predicate by indicating who or what receives the action expressed by the verb

Direct Satire

the narrator speaks directly to the reader

Doggerel Tragedy

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

Domestic Tragedy

drama in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or lower-class individuals

Double Rhyme

poetry that is irregular in rhythm and rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect; the first-person narrator addresses a specific audience, either the reader or an invented listener, whom he or she will emphasize with the views expressed

Drama

is the major literary form that presents characters directly to the audience, usually without the intermediary of a narrator, most performed by live actors, who speak the dialogue and move in accordance with the stage directions written by the playwright

Dramatic Irony

occurs when the audience is privy to knowledge that one or more of the characters lacks

Dramatic Monologue

a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of events

Dramatic Poetry

a poem written in verse (meaning it possesses a metrical rhythm or rhyme) that is meant to portray a story or situation

18th Century Drama

major themes included politics, satire, celebrity culture, war, religion, and historical events; represented by John Dryden in tragedy and William Congreve and Richard Brinsley Sheridan in comedy

Elizabethan Drama

refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642. This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson.

Email, in order of works cited

Sender's Last Name, First Name. "Subject Line." Received by First and Last Names, Day Month Year

Endnotes, MLA style

information that doesn't fit into the text itself and is placed on a separate page with the heading "Notes" just before your works cited list

End Rhyme

rhyme of the terminal syllables of lines of poetry

End-stopped lines

a metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period

English medieval drama

dramas from medieval time period divided into morality plays and mystery plays; the authors of medieval plays are anonymous

English (Shakespearean) Sonnets

sonnet with 3 quatrains and a final couplet which rhyme: abab cdcd efef gg; it gives more leeway to writers in english (a language with fewer rhyming words than itialian)

Enjambments

the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza

Epic Poetry (epics)

a long narrative poem on a serious and exalted subject

Epigrams

a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way

Epiphany

an experience of a sudden and striking realization.

Epistolary NEquivoqueovels

an experience of a sudden and striking realization

Equivoque

a special form of the pun in which a word or phrase that has disparate meanings is used in a way that makes each meaning equally relevant

Essay, understatement

a form of irony in which a point is deliberately expressed as less, in magnitude, value, or importance, than it actually is

Exposition

a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory

Extended metaphors

also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature

Eye Rhyme

a similarity between words in spelling but not in pronunciation (EX: love and move)

Fallacy, Pathetic

a special type of personification, in which inanimate aspects of nature, such as the landscape, the season, or the weather, are represented as having human qualities or feelings

Falling Meters

lines ending on an unstressed syllable

Farce

a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situation

Feet, metrical

a single unit of measurement that is repeated within a line of poetry made up of stressed and unstressed syllables

Feminine Ending

rhymes that end on an unstressed syllable

Fiction

A narratice about invented characters and events

Fictional Narrator

the fictional construct the author has created to tell the story through.