AP Lit Poetry Terms

Shift

A change that indicates a narrators attitude toward the subject of the of the text

Juxtaposition

Placing two words or concepts near one another to emphasize how they’re different

antithesis

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins

Figurative Language

Non literal language that explains or expands on an idea

Imagery

Something that targets your senses

Symbol

Something that represents something else

Metaphor

Comparison not using like or as

Simile

Comparison using like or as

Tenor

The thing being described in the comparison

Vehicle

The thing that describes

Conceit

a comparison expanded through a large portion of the text

Motif

A pattern of imagery or symbolism that caries throughout the whole text

Metonymy

Use of assosiation to describe a thing

Synechdoche

Connecticy

Allusion

Reference to another work

Personification

Giving an inanimate object human like qualities

Apostrophe

Addressing something as non human as if it were human

Hyperbole

Overstatement

Understatement

Understatement

Onomatopoeia

A word that is a sound

Paradox

A contradiction that is somehow true

Oxymoron

Two opposite words