AP Literature - Princeton Review Glossary

Abstract

This type of style is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its point

Academic

As an adjective describing style, this word means dry and theoretical writing; when a piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis

Accent

The stressed portion of a word. In poetry, it is often a matter of a opinion

Aesthetic

An adjective meaning "appealing to the senses," as a noun, it is a coherent sense of taste

Allegory

A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds

Allusion

A reference to another work or famous figure

Anachronism

"Misplaced in time;" if the actor playing Brutus in a production of Julius Caesar forgets to take off his wristwatch

Analogy

A comparison; usually involve two or more symbolic parts and are employed to clarify an action or a relationship

Anecdote

A short narrative or story

Antecedent

The word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun refers to or replaces

Anthropomorphism

In literature, when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation

Anticlimax

Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect

Antihero

A protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of unsavory qualities

Aphorism

A short and usually witty saying, such as" "'Classic'? A book which people praise and don't read" - Mark Twain

Apostrophe

An address to someone not present or to a personified object or idea

Archaism

The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. Authors sometimes use it to create a feeling of antiquity - "Ye Olde Candle Shoppe"

Aside

A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage

Aspect

A trait or characteristic

Assonance

The repeated use of vowel sounds, as in "Old king Cole was a merry old soul"

Atmosphere

The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene

Ballad

A long, narrative poem usually in very regular meter and rhyme, typically has a naive folksy quality

Pathos

When the writing of a scene evokes a feeling of dignified pity and sympathy

Bathos

When writing strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to elicit tears from every little hiccup

Black Humor

The use of disturbing things in comedy; when Didi and Gogo comically debate over which should commit suicide first

Bombast

This is pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; when one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words

Burlesque

A broad parody, one that takes a style or a form such as tragic drama and exaggerates it into redicolousness; a parody

Cacophony

In poetry, using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds

Cadence

The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense

Canto

The name for a section division in a long work of poetry, similar to the way chapters divide a novel

Caricature

A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality

Catharsis

A term drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage

Chorus

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

Classic

Typical, or an accepted masterpiece

Coinage (Neologism)

A new word, usually one invented on the spot

Colloquialism

A word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't part of accepted "schoolbook" English. For example, "I'm toasted. I'm a crispy-critter man, and now I've got this wicked headache"

Complex (Dense)

Suggests that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words (image, idea opposition); there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit

Conceit (Controlling Image)

Refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or one developed and expanded upon over several lines; when an image dominates and shapes the entire work, it's called a "controlling image"

Connotation

Everything that a word suggests or implies

Denotation

A word's literal meaning

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at their beginnings): "a flock of sick, black-checkered ducks"

Couplet

A pair of lines that end in rhyme

Decorum

In order to observe it, a character's speech must be stylized according to her social situation and in accordance with the occasion

Diction

The author's choice of words

Syntax

The ordering and structuring of the words

Dirge

A song for the dead. Its tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy

Dissonance

The grating of incompatible sounds

Doggerel

Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme; limericks

Dramatic Irony

When the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not

Dramatic Monologue

When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience

Elegy

A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner; often use the recent death of a noted person or loved one as a starting point; the memorialize specific dead people

Elements

The basic techniques of each genre of literature

Enjambment

The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause

Epic

A very long narrative poem on a serious theme and in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter: a great war, a heroic journey, the Fall from Eden, a battle with supernatural forces, and so on

Epitaph

Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place; usually a line or handful of lines, often serious or religious but sometimes witty and even irrelevant

Euphemism

A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality

Euphony

When sounds blend harmoniously

Explicit

To say or write something directly and clearly

Farce

Extremely broad humor; in earlier times, meant simply a funny play, a comedy

Feminine Rhyme

Lines rhymed by their final two syllables: "running" and "grunning"

Properly, the penultimate syllables are stressed and the final syllables are unstressed

Foil

A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast

Foot

The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed

Foreshadowing

An event or statement in a narrative that suggests, in miniature, a larger event that comes later

Free Verse

Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern

Genre

A subcategory of literature

Hubris

The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall; an example of hamartia

Hyperbole

Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement

Implicit

To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly; "meaning" is definitely present but it's in the imagery, or "between the lines"

In Medias Res

"In the midst of things"

Interior Monologue

Writing that record the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; related, but not identical to stream of consciousness; tends to be coherent, as though the character were actually talking

Inversion

Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase

Irony

A statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean

Lament

A poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss

Lampoon

A satire

Loose Sentence

Complete before its end: "Jack loved Barbara despite her irritating snorting laugh, her complaining, and her terrible taste in shoes"

Periodic Sentence

Not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase: "Despite Barbara's irritation at Jack's peculiar habit of picking between his toes while watching MTV and his terrible haircut, she loved him"

Lyric

A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world; when used to describe a tone, refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness

Masculine Rhyme

A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable

Melodrama

A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure

Metaphor

A comparison or analogy that states one thing is another

Simile

Like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as

Metonym

A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with: "a herd of 50 cows" could be called "50 head of cattle"

Motif

A recurring symbol

Nemesis

The protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty

Objective

Kind of treatment of subject matter that consists of an impersonal or outside view of an events

Subjective

Kind of treatment of subject matter that uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional resposnes

Onomatopoeia

Words that sound like what they mean

Opposition

A pair of elements that contrast sharply; it is not necessarily "conflict" but rather a pairing of images whereby each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one

Oxymoron

A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction

Parable

A story that instructs, like a fable or an allegory

Paradox

A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself but on closer inspection it does not

Parallelism

Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect

Paraphrase

To restate phrases in your own words; to rephrase

Parenthetical Phrase

A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail

Parody

A work that makes fun of another work by exaggerating many of its qualities to ridiculousness

Pastoral

A poem set in tranquil nature, or even more specifically, one about shepherd

Persona

The narrator in a non-first-person novel; in a third person novel, the author's personality, the shadow-author

Personification

Giving an inanimate object human qualities or form

Plaint

A poem or speech expressing sorrow

Point of View

The perspective from which the action of a novel is presented, whether the action is presented by one character or from different vantage points over the course of the novel