Full AP Lit Terminology

Allegory

prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance

• ex: Death as a grim reaper or the Prodigal Son

Alliteration

the sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants and usually heard in closely prosimate stressed syllables

• ex: Peter Piper pickeda peck of pickled peppers

Allusion

a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place

Anapestic

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed

• ex: Twas the night before Christmas and allthrough the house Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse

Anaphora

the regular reptition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of succesive phrases or clauses

Anecdote

a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature

Antagonist

any force that is in opposistion to the main character or protagonist

Antithesis

the juxtaposistion of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure or ideas

• ex: Laugh and Weep at the beginning of two lines

Apostrophe

an address or invocation to something that is inanimate

• ex: O little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie

Archetype

recurrent designs, patterns of actions, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature

• ex: femme fatal

Assonance

a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those in stressed syllables of close proximity

• ex: The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain

Asyndeton

a style in which conjuctions are omitted, usually producing a fast paced, more rapid prose

• ex: I came I saw I conquered

Attitude

the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the modd of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject

Ballad

a narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Characterized by repetition and refrain

Ballad Stanza

a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four beat and three beat lines: one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter, and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter

• ex: In Scarlet Town, where I was born / There lived a fair maid dwellin; / Made many a youth cry well a day, / And her nam was Barbara Allen

Blank Verse

the verse form that most resembles common speech. Consists of unfhymed lines in iambic pentameter

• ex: When the North Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour / Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, / She left the Heaven of heroes and came down / To make a man to meet the mortal need

Ceasura

a pause in a line of verse indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical Patterns

• ex: Alas how Changed!! || What sudden horror rise!! || A naked lover || bound and bleeding lies!

Caricature

a depiction in which a characer’s characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd

Chiasmus

a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first two parallel clauses is reversed in the second

• ex: Pleasure’s a sin, and sometime’s sin’s a pleasure

Colloquial

ordinary language, the vernacular

Conceit

a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literarure, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem

• ex: love affair as a flower blooming, coming to fruition, and dying, Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Connotation

what is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of a word

• ex: awesome, sweet, gay

Consonance

the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels

• ex: pitter patter, pish posh, clinging and clanging

Couplet

two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a signle idea or connection

• ex: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this and this gives life to thee

Dactylic

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two stressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable

• ex: Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight / Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pines

Dennotation

a direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of the word

Denouement

the final resolution of the main conflict in a play or story. It generally follows the climax

Dialect

the language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people

Diction

the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect

• ex: this: I haden’t so much forgot as I couldn’t bring myself to remember. instead of: I chose not to remember

Dramatic Monologue

a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience. aka aoliloquy

Elegy

a poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation

Enjambment

the continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next

• ex: Oh, may I join the choir invisible / Od those immortal dead who line again / In minds made better by their presence

Epic

a poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievement of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing of a culture; it uses elevated language and grand, high style

• ex: The Illiad and the Odyssey

Exposistion

that part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play

Extended Metaphor

a detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of a work, aka conceit

Fable

a legend or short moral story ofter using animals as characters

• Aseop’s Fables

Falling Action

that part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled. aka denouement

Farce

a play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor

Flashback

retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative

Foreshadowing

to hint at or to present an indication of the future beforehand

Formal Diction

language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Often used in epic poetry

Free Verse

poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter and nonrhyming lines

Genre

a type or class of literature such as epic or narrative or poetry or belles lettres

Hyperbole

overstatement characterized by exaggerated language

• ex: Im starving!

Iambic

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Often in sets of five called iambic pentameter

• ex: Shall I compar thee to a summer’s day?

Idyll

a short poem describing a country or pastoral scene, praising the simplicity and peace of rustic life

Imagery

any sensory detail or evocation in a work, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, call to mind an idea or describe an object. Involves all senses

Informal diction

language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech

In medias res

in the middle of things; opening of a story in the middle of the action and filling in past details through exposistion or flashback

Irony

a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant

Jargon

specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group

Juxtaposistion

the location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another. Placing two items side by side creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude, or accomplishes some purpose of the writer

Limited point of view

a perspective confinced to a single character, whether a first person or a third person

Litote

a figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement

• ex: not bad for something extraordinary

Loose Sentence

a sentence grammatically complete and usualy stating its main idea before the end

• ex: The child ran as if being chased by demons

Lyric

originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation

• ex: Sonnets and odes

Message

a misleading term for theme; the central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation

Metaphor

one thing is pictured as if it were something else without using like or as

Meter

the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

Metonymy

a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something

• ex: The white house announced today

Mood

a feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer or narrator’s attitude and point of view

Motif

a recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event

• ex: the green light in the great gatsby

Narrative Structure

a textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework

Narrator

the character who tells the story, or in poetry the persona

Occasional Poem

a poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private

Ode

a lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, is elevated in style, and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure which is oftern patterned in sets of three. Written to praise or exalt a person

Omniscient point of view

also called unlimited focus: a perspective that can be seen from one character’s point of view, and others in any character at any time

Onomatopoeia

a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes

• ex: buzz, clang

Overstatement

exaggerated language. aka hyperbole

Oxymoron

a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, sometimes resulting in a humorous image or statement

• ex: tight slacks, jumbo shrimp, deafening silence

Parable

a short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy

Parrallel structure

the use of familiar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts

• ex: Jane likes reading, writing, and skiing

Parody

a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original

Pastoral

a work that describes the simple life of country folk, usually about shepards living in a world full of beauty and love

Periodic Sentence

a sentence that is not grammatically complete until the end

Persona

the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author

• ex: Nick Carraway

Personification

treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by endowing it with human qualities

Petrarchan Sonnet

aka Italian sonnet, a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six (sestet) with the abba abba ced cde rhyme scheme

Plot

the arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of the events

Protagonist

the main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic

Quatrain

a poetic stanza of four lines

Realism

the practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail

Refrain

a repeated stanza or lines in a poem or song

Rhetorical Question

a question that is asked simply for stylistic effect and is not expected to be answered

Rhyme

the repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the ends of lines

Rhythm

the modulation of weak and strong elements in the flow of speech

Rising Action

the development of action in a work, usually at the beginning

Sarcasm

a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical

Satire

a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure

Scansion

the analysis of verse to show its meter

Setting

the time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play

Shakespearean Sonnet

a sonnet form that divides the poem into three quatrains and a couplet following the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg

Shaped Verse

another name for concrete poetry; poetry that is shaped to look like an object

Simile

a direct explicit comparison of one thing to another using like or as

Soliloquy

a monologue in which the character is a play is alone and speaking only to themself

Speaker

the person who is the voice of the poem

Stereotype

a characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions on some aspect of a person

Stock Character

one who appears in a number of stories or plays

Structure

the organization or arrangement of the various elements in a work

Style

a distinctive manner of expression expressed through diction, rhythm, imagery etc