AP lit vocab m-r

Metaphor

A comparison, like a simile but usually implied and without a comparative word such as like or as. Example: 'My heart is a singing bird'; 'He is wolfed his food.'

Mock heroic

Burlesquing or mocking heroic manner, action, or character.

Monometer

A verse written in one-foot lines.

Mood

The atmosphere of the literary work. In verbs, an expression of the manner in which the action is done.

Motif

A main theme or subject.

Myth

A fictional tale that explains the actions of gods or heroes or the causes of natural phenomena.

Narrative

The telling of any story, or the story itself; the plot.

Natural order of a sentence

This involves constructing a sentence, so the subject comes before the predicate e.g., Oranges grow in California.

Novel

A fictional prose narrative, usually long enough to be published in a book by itself.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words that sound like what they mean. Buzz, clang, and hiss are onomatopoeic.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which opposites or contradictory ideas or terms are combined; for example: thunderous silence, sweet sorrow, and jumbo shrimp are oxymoronic.

Parable

A brief story, usually with human characters, that teaches a moral lesson. The most famous parables are those told by Christ in the Bible.

Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory, unbelievable, or absurd but that may actually be true in fact.

Parallelism

Refers to a grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or parts of a sentence.

Parody

A literary work that initiates and makes fun of another work, type of work, or specific author.

Pedantic

An unnecessary display of scholarship lacking judgement or sense of proportion.

Pentameter

A verse written in five-foot lines.

Periodic Sentence

A periodic sentence makes sense only when the end of the sentence is reached. E.G. That morning, after a turbulent flight and some exciting experiences, we reached Edmonton.

Personification

The treatment of an object or an abstract idea as if it were a person.

Point of view

In fiction, point of view is the person or intelligence the writer creates to tell the story to the reader.

Prose

The ordinary form of written or spoken language, without rhyme or meter; speech or writing that is not poetry.

Prosody

The science or art of versification, including the study of metrical structure, rhyme, stanza forms, etc.

Pun

Play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings.

Repetition

A device in which words, sounds, and ideas are used more than once to enhance rhythm and create emphasis.

Rhetoric

The skill of using spoken or written communication effectively.

Rhetorical Question

A question that expects no answer. It is used to draw attention to a point.

Rhyme scheme

A regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem.

Romance

A story that presents remote or imaginative incidents rather than ordinary, commonplace experiences.

Rhetorical modes/Forms of discourse

Narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative