AP English Lit Term 2021

Allegory

Allegory

a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.

Allusion

A reference in a work of literature to something outside the work. These are largely historical, literary, biblical, or mythological

Connotation

an idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

Denotation

The literal or primary meaning of the word

Diction

The use of words in a literary work

Colloquialism

the everyday usage of a group, including terms and constructions accepted in that group but not universally acceptable

Literal Language

Exactly what is written

Slang

a group of newly coined words which are not acceptable for formal usage yet

Farce

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

Parody

an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

Theme

The main thought expressed by a work

Tone

The manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice expressing meaning; described by adjectives; possibility to change stanza to stanza or line to line

Shift

A rhetorical _____ occurs when speakers or writers alter their style or tone in a piece, often accompanied by a shift in focus

Comedy

A work written to amuse or entertain a reader

Tragedy

Serious and dignified style, treats the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual

Convention

Defining characteristics, or must-haves, of a given genre

Caesura

a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause.

End-Stopped

a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are and example of this.

Enjambment

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next

Parallelism

a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry

Apostrophe

a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present.

Metonymy

a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself

Conceit

an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. Can be a brief metaphor, but it can also form the framework for a whole poem, can also be an oxymoron or an idiom

Figurative Language

writing that uses figures of speech (opposed to literal language) such as a metaphor

Metaphor

a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like "as," "like," or "than."

Mixed Metaphors

the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous (not in harmony)

Extended Metaphor

an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem

Pathetic Fallacy

a type of personification that gives human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature

Personification

a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics

Synecdoche

a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole

Irony

The contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning

Verbal Irony

A figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. Lighter and less harsh in wording than sarcasm, more cutting in effect because of indirectness, achieved mostly through hyperbole and understatement

Sarcasm

a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it

Hyperbole

a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration, can be used in serious or comic effect

Overstatement

A reasonable exaggeration

Undertatement

Opposite of hyperbole, a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is

Litotes

ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (you're not wrong)

Similie

a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects, usually with "like," "as," or "than."

Pun

A play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have a sharply different meaning, can be serious or humorous

Paradox

a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense (no one goes there because it's always so crowded)

Oxymoron

A form of paradox that combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression (wise fool)

Symbol

Something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else

Imagery

The images of a literary work, sensory details, figurative language of a work, two types: visual auditory/tactile images & images from figurative language

Synesthesia

a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.

Alliteration

The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, usually at the beginning of words

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds

Consonance

The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words, endings usually constant but vowels vary (ball, bell, bill, bull)

Cacophony

a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones, can occur unconsciously or consciously

Euphony

a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate

Onomatopoeia

The use of words whose sound suggests their meaning

Rhyme

close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse, for true rhyme the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants like fan and ran

Feminine Rhyme

a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as "waken" and "forsaken" and "audition" and "rendition." Feminine rhyme is sometimes called double rhyme.

Masculine Rhyme

rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words like keep and sleep, glow and no

Internal rhyme

rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end

Prosody

the patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry

Didactic Poem

a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. The distinction between didactic poetry and non-didactic poetry is difficult to make and usually involves a subjective judgement of the author's purpose on the part of the critic or the reader

Dramatic Poem

a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends, dramatic monologue is an example

Elegy

a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations upon death or another solemn theme

Lyric Poem

any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings; love is the most common theme but religion and reading can be used also sonnets and odes are examples

Narrative Poem

a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short, examples include epics and ballads

Ode

a lyric poem of some length, usually of serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzic structure; can also refer to a choric song of classical Greece that is accompanied by a dance and performed at a festival or as a part of a drama

Satire

writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapproval of an object by ridicule; usually comedy that exposes errors within an eye to correct vice and folly

Sonnet

normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. Rhyme schemes include: the conventional Italian, or Petrarchan, rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

Villanelle

a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain

Meter

The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry

Iambic Pentameter

a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable

Poetic Foot

a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it.

Rhythm

the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables

Scansion

a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line

Refrain

a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Stanza

usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme

Syntax

the ordering of words into patterns or sentences

Blank Verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Fixed Form

Poems that have a set number of lines, rhymes, and/or metrical arrangements per line.

Free Verse

poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical

Couplet

A two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same

Heroic Couplet

two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit

Quatrain

A four line stanza with any combination of rhymes

Sestet

A six-line stanza. Most commonly refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet.

Octave/octet

An eight-line stanza; The first eight lines of a sonnet, especially of an Italian sonnet.

Aside

a remark or passage by a character in a play that is intended to be heard by the audience but unheard by the other characters in the play.

Monologue

A long speech by one actor in a play

Soliloquy

an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud, usually alone and for the purpose of sharing feelings or thoughts with the audience

Exposition

a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.

Flashback

a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story.

Flash Forward

A scene in a movie, novel, etc, set in a time later than the main story

Foreshadowing

A hint of what is to come later in the story

Climax

The point at which the highest level of interest and emotional interest is achieved; the turning point

Resolution

The end of the story

Reversal

The turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement

Denouement

the final part of a play, movie, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved.

Deus Ex Machine

an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.

In Medias Res

into the middle of a narrative; without preamble

Antagonist

a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary.

Archetype

a very typical example of a certain person or thing

Foil

A character whose purpose is to accentuate or draw attention to the qualities of another character

Narrator

A character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem; not necessarily the speaker

Protagonist

The leading character or one of the major characters

Stock Character

a character in literature, theater, or film of a type quickly recognized and accepted by the reader or viewer and requiring no development by the writer; always flat and static

Stream-Of-Consciousness

a person's thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow