AP Literary Terms

Allegory

Animal farm; a story in which the characters, events, and settings represent specific ideas or people.

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds

Allusion

The reference to a known literary source or historical event (can be more than that)

Analogy

The comparison between two ideas to show how they are alike

Anastrophy

YODA; a fancy word for the inversion of a sentence or phrase

Ancdote

A small flashback or story to reveal the character of an individual

Antagonist

The villain or major character of conflict

Antithesis

The repetition of a grammatical structure; balancing several phrases with the same grammatical structure

Anthropomorphism

The fancy word for personification

Apostrophe

Calling out to the dead or speaking to an inanimate object. (Calling out to a god or being such as that is an invocation).

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds (need for speed)

Indirect characterization

The author does not directly describe the character’s looks and personality. The reader figures it out by the author’s description of events, and listing the character’s private thoughts and feelings.

Direct characterization

The author tells us precisely what the character is like. Leaves nothing for us to puzzle out.

Static character

A character that does not change.

Dynamic character

A character that goes through complex changes that influence the story’s action

Cliche

A phrase or saying that is overused

Colloquialism

A word or phrase in everyday use tat is inappropriate for writing (y’all, gonna)

Comedy

In most cases the story ends with the characters happy and the conflicts are resolved.

Conceit

an long metaphor that compares two things that are strikingly different

Conflict

The struggle between opposing forces

External conflict

The conflict that occurs between two or more people, or maybe another fantastical force included within the story

Internal conflict

The conflict a character feels within themselves; being pulled in two directions and not sure which way to go

Connotation

The way a word can sound based off of the context surrounding the word; can be positive or negative (determined vs stubborn)

Couplet

Two rhyming lines of poetry

Dialect

The way an author speaks in relation to a certain culture/geographical area

Diction

The author’s word choice

Elegy

A poem of mourning about a person who has died (O Captain! My Captain!)

Epic

Oedipus the King; a long narrative poem that specifically uses heightened language, and recounts the deeds of a hero.

Epigraph

A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a work that is suggestive of the theme (“‘Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.’”)

Fable

A story, usually told in poetry form, meant to teach a lesson; most of the time used with animal characters

Farce

A comedy in which ridiculous and stereotyped characters are involved in far-fetched situations.

Figurative languge

Language that would not make sense if interpreted literally; normally used to describe

Flashback

An interruption in the chronological order of things to give context over a certain situation or to depict something that happened earlier in time.

FOIL

A character who acts as contrast to another (a funny side-kick)

Foreshadowing

Hints or clues that have relation to things that happen later in the story

Free verse

A form of poetry in which that are no rules or regulations the poet has to abide to.

Hyperbole

An extreme exaggeration

Imagery

The use of language to create a clear/concrete image of something in the reader’s mind

Irony

A discrepancy between appearances and reality

Verbal irony

When someone says something but really means something else

Situational irony

What you think one thing is going to happen, but something you didn’t expect happens instead

Dramatic irony

The audience knows something the characters don’t

Juxtaposition

(Not FOIL) a poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.

Metaphor

The comparison between two things without using the words, “like” or “as”.

Extended metaphor

A developed metaphor that is developed as for as the writer wants to take it. (Becomes a conceit when elaborate)

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which a noun is referred to by something closely associated with it (crown = royalty)

Mood

The atmosphere created by the author’s diction and details.

Motif

A reoccurring image that holds importance the story, unifying most of all.

Motivation

Reason for action or behavior

Onomatopoeia

Sound words: “pop” or “zap”

Oxymoron

Combining opposite terms in a short phrase: “pretty ugly” or “bitter-sweet”

Parable

A story told to teach a lesson about life

Paradox

A STATEMENT that appears self-contradictory, but reveals truth: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Parallel structure

Seems similar to antithesis, but is not repetition. Phrases that have similar grammatical structures.

Parody

A work that makes fun or another work. (Imitating some aspect of the writer’s style)

Plot

The series of events in a story

Exposition

The introduction to characters, setting, situation, etc.

Rising action

Complication begin to arise.

Climax

The height of the story or turning point. The point with the most intensity.

Resolution

The conclusion when most of the conflicts have been resolved

First person POV

One of the characters tells the story

Third person POV

An unknown narrator who tells the story from the outside; they usually focus on one character at a time

Omniscient POV

Third person attributes, but tells us everything about many characters

Objective POV

The narrator is impersonal and objective, who gives no comment on any characters or events.

Proatgonist

The “good guy”, the hero, or the main character. They drive the story forward.

Pun

A “play on words”; can be based on multiple meanings or on words that sound alike but mean different things

Quatrain

A poem consisting of only four lines

Refrain

The repetition of a word, phrase, line, or group for effect

Rhythm

The alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language

Satire

The type of writing the ridicules people or institutions to bring about change

Similie

A comparison that can use the words, “like” or “as”

Soliloquy

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

Stereotype

A fixed idea about a character that does not allow for individuality; based on previous prejudices.

Stream of conciousness

A style of writing that portrays the chaotic workings of a character’s mind

Style

The distinctive use of diction tone and syntax

Suspense

The feeling of uncertainty about what will happen next in the story

Symbol

A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.

Synecdote

A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. (Wheel vs whole car)

Theme

The insight about human life that is revealed in the literary work

Tone

The attitude the writer takes toward the subject of a work

Understatement

A statement that says less than what it means.

Trancendentalism

A movement in the Romantic tradition, which said that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition.

Romanticism

Early 1800s to the 1870s

Realism

1850s to the early 1900s

Modernism

1920s to 1945

Post-Modernism

1945 to today