AP Literary Terms

Allusion

reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture. An indirect reference to something

Ambiguity

deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work. An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way - this is done on purpose by the author, when it is not done on purpose, it is vagueness, and detracts from the work

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer’s point more coherent

Anastrophe

Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence. Purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony. It is a fancy word for inversion

Antithesis

balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure

anthropomorphism

attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object (personification)

Apostrophe

calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. Of the character is asking a god or goddess for inspiration it is called an invocation

Apposition

Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first (often set off by a colon).

Asyndeton

Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally

Chiasmus

In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. “Flowers are lovely, love is flower like”

Colloquialism

A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations

Conceit

an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. often an extended metaphor

Connotation

the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition

couplet

two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry

dialect

a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area

epanalepsis

device of repetition in which the same expression is repeated at both the beginning and end of the line, clause, or sentence. “common sense is not so common”

Epic

a long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

Epigraph

a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme

epithet

an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. “Father of our country” “the great emancipator”

Foil

a character who acts as contrast to another character. often a funny size kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero

Inversion

the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase

Irony

a discrepancy between appearances and reality

juxtaposition

poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise or wit. “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”

Litotes

a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form. “the wearers of petiticoat and farthingale… stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, intro the throng…”

implied metaphor

does not state explicitly the two terms of which the comparison. “I like to see it lap the miles” is this in which the verb lap implied a comparison between it and some animal that laps up water

extended metaphor

a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it (conceit if it is quite elaborate)

dead metaphor

a metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no lover vivid: “the head of the house”

mixed metaphor

a metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible: “the president is a lame duck who is running out of gas”

metonymy

a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it “we requested from the crown support for our petition” (crown = monarch)

mood

an atmosphere created by a writer’s diction and the details selected

motif

a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme

polysyndeton

sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series.

quatrain

a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit

rhythm

a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a language

satire

a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change

soliloquy

a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage

stereotype

a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social or racial prejudices

stream of consciousness

a style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character’s mind

syndoche

a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole

theme

the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work

tone

the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization

understatement

a statement that says less than what is meant

vernacular

the language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality

impressionalism

nineteenth century movement in literature and art which advocated a recording of the artist’s personal impressions of the world, rather than a strict representation of reality

modernism

a term for the bold new experimental styles and forms that swept the arts during the first third of the twentieth century

naturalism

a nineteenth century literary movement that was an extension of realism and that claimed to portray life exactly as it was

plain style

writing style that stresses simplicity and clarity of expression, and was the main form of the puritan writers.

puritanism

writing style of america’s early english-speaking colonists, emphasizes obedience to God and consists of mainly journals, sermons, and poems

rationalism

a movement that began in europe in the seventeenth century, which held that we can arrive at truth by using our reason rather than relying on the authority of the past, on the authority of the church, or an institution. ALSO CALLED NEOCLASSICISM AND AGE OF REASON

realism

a style of writing, developed in the nineteenth century, that attempts to depict life accurately without idealizing or romanticizing it

regionalism

literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and that reproduces the speech, behavior, and attitudes of the people who live in that region.

romanticism

a revolt against Rationalism that affected literature and the other arts, beginning in the late eighteenth century and remaining strong throughout most of the nineteenth century

surrealism

movement in art and literature that started in Europe during the 1920s. they wanted to replace conventional realism with the full expression of the unconscious mind, which they considered to be more real that the “real” world of appearances

symbolism

a literary movement that originated in the late nineteenth century France, in which the writers rearranged the world of appearances in order to reveal a more truthful version of reality

transcendentalism

a nineteenth century movement in the romantic tradition which held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritually intuition, which transcends reasons and sensory experience

TIME LINE

Puritanism - 1620s - 1770s

Neoclassic - 1770s - early 1800s

Romanticism - ear;y 1800s - 1870s

Realism - 1850s - 1900s

Regionalism - 1884 - early 1900s

Naturalism - late 1800s - mid 1900s

Modernism - 1920s - 1945