AP Lit Terms Quiz #5 (copy)

Iamb

A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one; the most common poetic foot in the English language.

One unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, and mimics a human heartbeat da-DUM.

ex. Shakespearean Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?"

• Hamlet (Shakespeare): "To be, or not to be, that is the question"

• "So long / as men / can breathe / or eyes / can see

• John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV: "As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend."

• T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws"

• William Wordsworth: "I wandered lonely as a cloud"

• a-BOVE. at-TEMPT. in-LOVE.

Idyll

A type of lyric poem which extols/praises the virtues of an ideal place or time. Perfect scene?

ex.

1. The Shepherd

by William Blake (Poem)

From Songs of Innocence, this poem epitomizes the pastoral, innocent, and pure lifestyle of the idyll

• Example: "How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot! / From the morn to the evening he strays..."

2. Lycidas

by John Milton (Pastoral Elegy)

Milton employs idyllic conventions to mourn a friend, utilizing a traditional shepherd setting to accentuate lost innocence.

• Example: "Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves... And all their echoes mourn."

AP Lit Analysis: Nature itself mourns, using the setting to evoke nostalgia and beauty.

3. The Solitary Reaper

by William Wordsworth (Poem)

This poem depicts a woman singing alone in a Scottish valley, capturing a profound, simple, and isolated moment of beauty.

• Example: "Behold her, single in the field, / Yon solitary Highland Lass!..."

• AP Lit Analysis: It highlights the connection between humanity, nature, and art in a serene landscape.

4. The Idylls of the King

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Narrative Poem)

Tennyson uses this form to create "little pictures" of Camelot’s idealized, peaceful existence before its downfall.

English with Mrs. Lamp

• Example: "The great brand / Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon..."

AP Lit Analysis: It demonstrates how an idyll establishes a "perfect" scene, intensifying the impact of later disruption.

Image

A verbal approximation of a sensory impression, concept, or emotion.

It utilizes descriptive language to appeal to the five senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile) to evoke emotion or represent abstract ideas.

• Example: In Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," the line "The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you" creates a powerful, violent sensory image.

• Analysis: While this provides a visual, it functions primarily to evoke the deep emotional impression of oppression, trauma, and spite.

• Example 2: "The house sagged beneath the weight of years, its paint peeling like sunburnt skin"

Auditory: "...words like 'whisper,' 'clatter,' or 'rumble'".

Imagery

The total effect of related sensory images in a work of literature.

Total Effect: Imagery isn't just one metaphor; it is the accumulated sensory experience throughout a scene or work.

Related Images: The images often share a thematic link, such as "decay" or "coldness," building a cohesive atmosphere.

ex. In Langston Hughes’s poem "Harlem," the imagery of a "festering sore" or a "raisin in the sun" symbolizes deferred dreams.

ex. AP Literature Example: The Great Gatsby (Decay/Decadence)

• Visual: "I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal."

• Tactile/Visual: "A stout, middle-aged man... with enormous, faded eyes."

Impressionism

Writing that reflects a personal image of a character, event, or concept. The Secret Sharer is a fine example.

The narrative is filtered through a character's unique sensations and emotions.

ex. instead of detailed, realistic depictions, writers focus on light, shadow, and mood, such as the "lurid glare under the stars" in Heart of Darkness.

Irony

An unexpected twist or contrast between what happens and what was intended or expected to happen. It involves dialogue and situation, and it can be intentional or unplanned. Dramatic irony centers around the ignorance of those involved, while the audience is aware of the circumstance.

ex.

Verbal Irony (saying the opposite of what is meant):

In Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator constantly insists on his sanity while describing acts that are clearly insane.

Situational Irony (the outcome is the opposite of expectation):

In O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi", a wife sells her hair to buy her husband a watch chain, while the husband sells his watch to buy his wife combs for her hair.

Dramatic Irony (audience knows more than characters):

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the audience knows the lovers are dead, while the characters believe they are sleeping or in a state of crisis.

Lyric Poetry

A type of poetry characterized by emotion, personal feelings, and brevity/exact&concise use of words; a large and inclusive category of poetry that exhibits rhyme, meter, and reflective thought.

ex. Metaphor: Robert Burns' "My love is a red, red rose".

• Imagery/Simile: Lord Byron’s "She walks in beauty, like the night".

• Personification: John Donne's "Busy old fool, unruly Sun".

Metaphor

A direct comparison between dissimilar things. “Your eyes are stars" is an example.

ex. "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare) — Compares Juliet to the sun to emphasize her radiance and Romeo's adoration.

• "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough" (In a Station of the Metro, Ezra Pound) — An imagist metaphor equating human faces to petals.

• "The fog comes / on little cat feet." (Fog, Carl Sandburg) — Gives the fog the silent, stealthy qualities of a cat.

• "Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul" ("Hope" is the Thing with Feathers, Emily Dickinson) — Represents hope as a persistent, living bird

Metaphysical Poetry

Refers to the work of poets like John Donne who explore highly complex, philosophical ideas through extended metaphors and paradox.

ex. Metaphysical Conceit: A far-fetched, intellectually rigorous extended metaphor.

• Example: In John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", the speaker compares the souls of two lovers to the two legs of a draftsman’s compass. While one leg (the speaker) moves away, the other (the beloved) leans toward it, and they reunite perfectly—representing how separation makes their love stronger.

• Example: spiritual paradox

Happy those early days! when I

Shined in my angel infancy.

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy aught

But a white, celestial thought; […]

• Example: John Donne's "Holy Sonnet 14" ("Batter my heart, three-person'd God") contains the lines "for I, / Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, / Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me".

• Example: In "The Flea," the speaker argues that because their blood is already mingled inside a flea that bit them both, they are already "one" in the eyes of God, so sleeping together is not a sin.

Meter

A pattern of beats in poetry.

ex. Meter is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that defines the rhythm of some poetry. These stress patterns are defined in groupings, called feet, of two or three syllables. A pattern of unstressed-stressed, for instance, is a foot called an iamb.

The type and number of repeating feet in each line of poetry define that line's meter. For example, iambic pentameter is a type of meter that contains five iambs per line (thus the prefix “penta,” which means five).

pentameter, monometer, dimeter, hexameter, trimeter, tetrameter etc.