AP Literary Terms

Apostrophe

when the speaker addresses someone absent, dead, or nonhuman

Didactic

Either poetry or prose that is intended to teach a lesson

Epigram

A pithy saying. Ex: “only those deserving of scorn are apprehensive of it.”

Grotesque

characterized by fantastic representations of human and animal forms often combined into formal distortions of the natural point of absurdity, ugliness, or caricature

Hyperbole

Exaggeration

Jargon

Obscure and often pretentious language marked by long words

Paradox

statement that although seems contradictory / absurd can actually be well founded / true. Ex: “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Parody

composition imitating another, usually serious, piece. designed to ridicule a work, its style, or author

Litotes *****

form of understatement in which a thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its opposite. Ex: saying ‘she was not unmindful’ when one means that ‘she gave careful attention’

Synecdoche

figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole, the whole for a part, the species for the genus, the genus for the species, or the name of the material for the thing made.

Metonymy

substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself. form of synecdoche. Ex: a monarch as the crown

Parallelism

an arrangement that one element of equal importance with another is similarly developed and phrased

Chiasmus

pattern in which the second part is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed. Ex: ‘flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike.’

Epistrophe

rhetorical term applied to the repetition of the closing word or phrase at the end of several clauses. Ex: ‘all night weep Philoclea,… Philoclea,… Philoclea

Zeugma

use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a manner that it applies to each in a different sense or makes sense with only one. Ex: ‘opened door to homeless boy’ (literally and figuratively)

Apposition

grammatical construction in which a noun or noun equivalent is followed by another that explains it. Ex: ‘my friend the doctor.’

Idiolect

individuals’ unique use of language

authorial intrusion

instance where the author interrupts the narrative to speak directly with the reader, breaking illusion of fictional world

horatian satire

uses humor to ridicule a person or event in a comedic way

juvenalian satire

formal satire in which the speaker attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation