AP_Literary_Terms_DEFINED

Allegory

A story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people, events, or abstract ideas.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.

Allusion

A reference to someone or something known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, or another branch of culture.

Ambiguity

Deliberately suggesting two or more different meanings in a work.

Analogy

A comparison made between two things to show how they are alike.

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row.

Anastrophe

Inversion of the usual order of the parts of a sentence for rhythm or emphasis.

Anecdote

A brief story told to illustrate a point or serve as an example.

Antagonist

An opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero in a story.

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.

Antithesis

Balancing contrasting words, phrases, or ideas often through grammatical structure.

Antihero

A central character who lacks traditional heroic qualities.

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects.

Aphorism

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

Apostrophe

Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a personified abstract idea.

Apposition

Placing two or more coordinate elements in immediate succession, with the latter explaining the first.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds.

Asyndeton

The use of commas without conjunctions to separate a series of words.

Balance

Constructing a sentence so that both halves are of equal length and importance.

Characterization

The process by which a writer reveals the personality of a character.

Indirect Characterization

Revealing a character's personality through their actions, thoughts, and effects on others.

Direct Characterization

The author directly tells the reader what a character is like.

Static Character

A character who does not change much throughout the story.

Dynamic Character

A character who changes in an important way as a result of the story's action.

Flat Character

A character with only one or two personality traits.

Round Character

A character with complex personalities and dimensions.

Chiasmus

A rhetorical balance in poetry where the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but reversed.

Cliché

A word or phrase that has become lifeless due to overuse.

Colloquialism

A word or phrase used in everyday conversation but inappropriate for formal situations.

Comedy

A story that ends with a happy resolution of conflicts faced by the main characters.

Conceit

An elaborate metaphor comparing two startlingly different things.

Confessional Poetry

Poetry that uses intimate material from the poet's life.

Conflict

The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.

External Conflict

A conflict that exists between two people, a person and nature, or a person and society.

Internal Conflict

A conflict that occurs within a person's mind.

Connotation

The emotional associations attached to a word beyond its strict dictionary definition.

Couplet

Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Dialect

A way of speaking characteristic of a specific social group or geographical area.

Diction

A speaker or writer's choice of words.

Didactic

A form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral.

Elegy

A poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.

Epanalepsis

A device of repetition where the same expression is repeated at both the beginning and end of a line or sentence.

Epic

A long narrative poem recounting the deeds of a heroic character.

Epigraph

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

Epistrophe

A device of repetition where the same expression is repeated at the end of two or more lines or sentences.

Epithet

An adjective or phrase applied to a person or thing to emphasize a characteristic quality.

Essay

A short piece of nonfiction prose discussing some aspect of a subject.

Argumentation

A form of discourse using logic, ethics, and emotional appeals to convince the reader.

Persuasion

A form of argumentation relying more on emotional appeals than on facts.

Causal Relationship

A form of argumentation claiming that one thing results from another.

Description

A form of discourse that uses language to create a mood or emotion.

Exposition

A major form of discourse that explains or sets forth something.

Narrative

The form of discourse that tells about a series of events.

Explication

The act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text.

Fable

A very short story that teaches a practical lesson about life.

Farce

A type of comedy involving ridiculous and often stereotyped characters in silly situations.

Figurative Language

Words used to describe that are inaccurate if interpreted literally.

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the chronological sequence of events to depict something that happened earlier.

Foil

A character who contrasts with another character, often highlighting particular qualities.

Foreshadowing

The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot.

Free Verse

Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech that uses exaggeration for effect.

Hypotactic

A sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses, showing logical relationships.

Imagery

The use of language to evoke a picture or concrete sensation.

Inversion

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

Irony

A discrepancy between appearances and reality.

Quatrain

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

Refrain

word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem.

Rhythm

word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem.

Rhetoric

art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.

Rhetorical question

question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer

Verbal Irony

When someone says one thing but means another.

Romance

general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful

satire

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

simile

figure of speech that makes an explicitly comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as , than, or resembles

soliloquy

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

stereotype

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

Situational Irony

A discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience knows something that a character does not.

Juxtaposition

Placing normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases next to one another for effect.

Litotes

A form of understatement emphasizing a positive form through negation.

Local Color

Fiction or poetry emphasizing a particular setting and its customs.

Loose Sentence

A sentence where the main clause comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units.

Lyric Poem

A poem expressing personal feelings or thoughts, not telling a story.

Metaphor

A figure of speech making a comparison between two unlike things without using specific comparison words.

Implied Metaphor

A metaphor that does not explicitly state the two terms of comparison.

Extended Metaphor

A metaphor developed as far as the writer wants to take it.

Dead Metaphor

A metaphor that has become lifeless due to overuse.

Mixed Metaphor

A metaphor that mixes terms in a way that is visually or imaginatively incompatible.

Metonymy

A figure of speech referring to something closely associated with it.

Mood

The atmosphere created by a writer's diction and details.

Motif

A recurring image, word, phrase, or situation used throughout a work.

Motivation

The reasons for a character's behavior.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words whose sounds echo their sense.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech combining opposite or contradictory terms.

Parable

A short story teaching a moral or lesson about how to lead a good life.

Paradox

A statement that appears self-contradictory but reveals a truth.

Parallel Structure

The repetition of words or phrases with similar grammatical structures.

Paratactic Sentence

A sentence that simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences.

Parody

A work that makes fun of another by imitating its style.