AP Lit Vocab

Aphorism

A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life

Archaism

The use of deliberately old-fashioned language

Aside

A line spoken by an actor to the audience but not intended for others on the stage

Bombast

Speech or writing that sounds grand or important but has little meaning

Burlesque

A theatrical entertainment of broad and earthy humor

Caesura

In modern verse, a pause near the middle of a line

Cadence

Rhythmic flow of a sequence of sounds or words

Canto

A major division of a long poem

Chorus

In Greek drama, the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it

Conceit

A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy seemingly dissimilar objects

Couplet

Two consecutive lines in a poem that rhyme

Enjambment

The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of verse into the next line without a pause

Elegy

A formal poem presenting a meditation on death or another solemn theme

Farce

A comedy that contains an extravagant and nonsensical disregard of seriousness, although it may have a serious, scornful purpose

Foot

The basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry

Lampoon

Ridicule with satire

Lyric

Of or relating to a category of poetry that expresses emotion (often in a songlike way)

Metonym

A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with

Parable

A simple story that illustrates a moral or religious lesson

Refrain

The repetition of one or more phrases or lines at definite intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Requiem

A song of prayer for the dead

Rhapsody

An intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise

Stanza

A fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem

Travesty

A grotesque or grossly inferior imitation

Volta

The "turn" or shift in thought, feeling, or argument that occurs within a poem (often seen in sonnets)

Zeugma

When a word is used with two adjacent words in the same construction, but only makes literal sense with one of them