AP Lit: Lit Terms Assignment

Allegory

A narrative with a literal and a secondary, symbolic meaning.

Allusion

A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural, literary, or political significance.

Apostrophe

Addressing an absent person, an abstract idea, or a thing.

Chiamus

Repetition of words, grammatical constructions, or concepts in reverse order.

Connotation/denotation

The implied or associated meaning of a word beyond its literal definition/ literal meaning

Diction

The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.

elegy

melancholic poem or song of serious reflection

epithet

a descriptive word or phrase used to characterize a person, place, or thing, either by highlighting a real quality

euphemism

A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered too harsh or blunt.

Farce

highly exaggerated, improbable situations, physical humor, and absurdly stereotyped characters.

hyperbole

Exaggerated statements not meant to be taken literally.

Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the senses.

irony

A contrast between expectation and reality.

Juxtaposition

Placement of two or more ideas, characters, or settings side by side for comparison and contrast.

Metaphor

A comparison between two unlike things.

mood

the emotional setting or vibe that a writer shapes within a piece of literature to evoke specific feelings in the reader.

simile

A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as".

metonymy

substituting the name of an object or concept with the name of something else that is closely associated with it

paradox

A statement that appears contradictory but may reveal an underlying truth.

Parody

an imitation of the style, tone, language, or themes of a specific author, genre, or work, deliberately exaggerated for comic effect, ridicule, or critique.

point-of-view

the perspective, lens, or vantage point from which a story is narrated and communicated to the reader

personification

Assigning human traits to non-human entities.

onomatopoeia

a word that phonetically mimics, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes.

oxymoron

A figure of speech with contradictory terms in conjunction.

rhetorical question

a question asked for effect, emphasis, or to make a point, rather than to solicit a literal answer.

satire

Literature that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to criticize or mock individuals or society.

Elizabethan sonnet

a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter, structured into three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme.

Petrarchan sonnet

a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter, split into an eight-line octave with an ABBAABBA rhyme scheme, followed by a six-line sestet that resolves the poem.

Synecdoche

a specific type of metaphor where a part of something is used to represent the whole, or conversely, the whole is used to represent a part

Tone

the author’s, narrator's, or speaker's attitude toward a specific subject, character, or audience within a piece of writing