AP SPAN LIT VOCAB GRUPO 6

Lector

The person who reads and interprets a literary text.

Tragedia

A dramatic genre featuring serious themes where a noble protagonist faces an inevitable downfall or death due to fate or a tragic flaw. A classic course example is Federico García Lorca's La casa de Bernarda Alba.

Atmósfera

The overall emotional mood or feeling created by the setting, descriptions, and tone of a work.

Crónica

A historical narrative that records events in chronological order, often written by an eyewitness. Hernán Cortés's Segunda carta de relación

Aparte

A dramatic device where a character speaks directly to the audience or to themselves while other characters on stage supposedly cannot hear.

Realismo

• A 19th-century literary movement that aimed to depict everyday life, society, and human behavior objectively without idealization. Emilia Pardo Bazán's short story Las medias rojas illustrates realism through its stark portrayal of rural poverty and domestic abuse.

Leitmotivo

A recurring image, phrase, symbol, or theme that repeats throughout a text to reinforce its central message. In La casa de Bernarda Alba, the constant heat and thirst act as a leitmotif representing repressed passion and confinement.

Catarsis

The emotional release or purification experienced by the audience at the end of a tragedy through feelings of pity and fear. In La casa de Bernarda Alba, Adela's tragic suicide brings the intense tension to a devastating emotional climax.

Hipérbole

An extreme exaggeration used for emphasis, humor, or dramatic effect.

Enumeración

The rapid listing of words, details, or ideas to create a sense of abundance, chaos, or intensity.

Polisíndeton

The deliberate repetition of conjunctions (like y, o, ni) in close succession to slow down the rhythm or add emphasis.

Ritmo

The musical flow or beat of a poem created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables, pauses, and rhyme. Nicolás Guillén creates a strong, drum-like Afro-Caribbean rhythm in Balada de los dos abuelos.

Redondilla

A four-line stanza of octosyllabic (8-syllable) verses with a consonant rhyme scheme of ABBA.

Romance

A traditional Spanish ballad consisting of an indefinite number of octosyllabic (8-syllable) lines with assonant rhyme in the even-numbered lines and no rhyme in the odd-numbered lines.

Diéresis

A poetic license where a diphthong (two vowels in one syllable) is split into two separate syllables to add an extra syllable to a line of verse, often marked with two dots (ü).