AP Lit Literary Terms

Prose

pov, text structure, shift, contrast, diction, syntax (esp. parallelism and sentence variety), setting, imagery, all figures of speech including irony

Lexical field

all words that contribute to a central concept or idea

Allegory

a narrative either in verse or in prose, in which characters, action, and sometimes setting represent abstract concepts apart from the literal meaning of the story

Anaphora

figure of repetition that occurs when the first word or set of words in one sentence, clause, or phrase is/are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, or phrases

Apostrophe

a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea

Archetype

a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life, often include a symbol, theme, setting, or character that have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race

Aside

in drama, a few words or short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other characters cannot hear the speaker’s words

Assonance

the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in stressed syllables or words

Asyndeton

the omission of conjunctions from constructions in which they would be normally used

Ballad

a narrative poem that usually includes a repeated refrain

Blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter, a line of five feet

Cacophany

the use of words in poetry that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds

Caesura

a pause within a line of poetry

Carpe diem

Latin for “seize the day,” the name applied to a theme frequently found in lyric poetry: enjoy life’s pleasures while you are able

Catharsis

purification or purging of emotions (pity or fear)

Chiasmus

A scheme in which the author introduces words or concepts in a particular order then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out, creating a “crisscross” pattern