AP Lit Key Terminology

Diction

the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect

Allegory

a prose of poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance

Alliteration

the sequential repitition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually head in closely prosimate stressed syllabyles

Allusion

a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place

Anaseptic

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed

Anaphora

the regular repition of the same word or p

Anecdote

a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature

Antagonist

aby force that is in opposistion to the main character or protagonist

Antithesis

the juxtaposistion of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas

Apostrophe

an address or invocation to something that is inanimate

Archetype

recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature

Assonance

a repition of identical or similar vowel sounds usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity

Asyndeton

a style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose

Attitude

the sense expressed by the tone of voice/and or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting, or even the theme

Ballad

a narrative poem that is or originally was, meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain characterize this.

Ballad Stanza

a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain(four lines) that alternates four-beats and three-beat lines: one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter

Blank Verse

the verse form that most resembles c

Caesura

a pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns

Caricature

a depiction in which a character’s characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd

Chiasmus

a figure of speech by which the ord

Colloquial

ordinary language, the vernacular

Conceit

a comparison of two unlikel things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem

Connotation

what is suggested by word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of the word