AP Lang Glossary Quiz 2

Foreshadowing

When an author gives hints about what will occur later in a story.

Genre

The major category into which a literary work fits.

Gothic

Writing characterized by gloom, mystery, fear and/or death. Also refers to an architectural styleof the middle ages, often seen in cathedrals of this period.

Imagery

Word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind.

Invective

A long, emotionally violent, attack using strong, abusive language.

Irony

When the opposite of what you expect to happen does.

Verbal irony

When you say something and mean the opposite/something different.

Dramatic irony

When the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out.

Situational irony

Found in the plot (or story line) of a book, story, or movie. Sometimes it makes you laugh because it's funny how things turn out.

Juxtaposition

Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison.

Mood

The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through word choice (diction).

Syntax

is often a creator of mood since word order, sentence length and strength and complexity also affect pacing and therefore mood.

Motif

a recurring idea in a piece of literature.

Oxymoron

When apparently contradictory terms are grouped together and suggest a paradox

Pacing

The speed or tempo of an author’s writing. Writers can use a variety of devices

Paradox

A seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true

Parallelism

Sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other,

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences or clauses in a row.

Chiasmus

When the same words are used twice in succession, but the second time, the order of the words is reversed.

Antithesis

Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure.

Zuegma (Syllepsis)

When a single word governs or modifies two or more other words, and the meaning of the first word must change for each of the other words it governs or modifies.

Parenthetical Idea

Parentheses are used to set off an idea from the rest of the sentence.

Parody

An exaggerated imitation of a serious work for humorous purposes.

Persona

The fictional mask or narrator that tells a story.

Poetic device

A device used in poetry to manipulate the sound of words, sentences or lines.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words.

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.

Consonance

The repetition of the same consonant sound at the end of words or within words.

Onomatopoeia

The use of a word which imitates or suggests the sound that the thing makes.

Internal rhyme

When a line of poetry contains a rhyme within a single line.

Slant rhyme

When a poet creates a rhyme, but the two words do not rhyme exactly – they are merely similar.

End rhyme

When the last word of two different lines of poetry rhyme.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of a poem’s end rhymes. For example, the following lines have a rhyme scheme of a b a b c d c d:

Stressed and unstressed syllables

In every word of more than one syllable, one of the syllables is stressed, or said with more force than the other syllable(s).

Meter

A regular pattern to the syllables in lines of poetry.

Free verse

Poetry that doesn’t have much meter or rhyme.

Iambic pentameter

Poetry that is written in lines of 10 syllables, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.

Sonnet

A 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. Usually divided into three quatrains and a couplet.