AP English Literature and Composition Terms

aesthetics

"philosophical investigation into the nature of beauty and the perception of beauty, especially in the arts; the theory of art or artistic taste"

example: Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray," in which the emphasis on beauty and the visual imagery of the portrait represent a strong aesthetic quality within the narrative, illustrating the "Aestheticism" movement in literature where art is valued above morality

allegory

a story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning; in written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale

example: the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell; it uses animals as main characters with human characteristics, and the animals' revolt against the human who owns the farm speaks of a lesson surrounding authoritarianism, oppression, and tyranny

allusion

an indirect or passing reference to some event, person, place, or artistic work, the nature and relevance of which is not explained by the writer but relies on the reader's familiarity with what is mentioned

example: Lazarus as a biblical allusion in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

ambiguity

containing two or more meanings

example: when the oracle at Delphi told Croesus that if he waged war on Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, Croesus thought the oracle meant his enemy's empire; in fact, the empire Croesus destroyed by going to war was his own

analogy

a resemblance of relations; an agreement or likeness between things in some circumstances or effects when the things are otherwise entirely different

example: "Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get."

anaphora

repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences

example: Richard de Bury's statement that "In books, I find the dead as if they were alive; in books, I foresee things to come; in books, warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace."

anecdote

a very short tale told by a character or literary work

example: "The Miller's Tale" and "The Carpenter's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

antagonist

the character, force, or collection of forces in fiction or drama that opposes the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story

example: Darth Vader from the original Star Wars trilogy

anti-hero

a protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero; [a character who] may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic

example: Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

aphorism

a brief statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation

example: "Drive thy business; let it not drive thee" from Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack

apostrophe

a figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman

example: "O Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?" from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

archetype

a term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader; in literature, characters, images, and themes that symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences

example: the wise old man (mentor or sage)

aside

a device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play

example: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet includes one when Juliet reveals her true grief for Romeo rather than her own cousin Tybalt; in another moment, Romeo has his own aside where he debates whether he should interrupt Juliet's soliloquy already taking place

asyndeton

the omission of a conjunction from a list; gives the impression that the list may not be complete

example: "She likes pickles, olives, dates, raisins, pretzels" vs. "She likes pickles, olives, dates, raisins, and pretzels"

canon

a Greek word that implies rule or law and is used in literature as the source which regulates which selection of authors or works would be considered important pieces of literature

catharsis

meaning "purgation," describes the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy

example: in his Poetics, Aristotle discusses the importance of catharsis; the audience faces the misfortunes of the protagonist, which elicit pity and compassion; simultaneously, the audience also confronts the failure of the protagonist, thus receiving a frightening reminder of human limitations and frailties

chiasmus

a term from classical rhetoric that describes a situation in which one introduces subjects in the order of A, B, and C, and then talks about them in the order of C, B, and A

example: "And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them" from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

climax

the decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads; this is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict

example: in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the climax occurs when Tessie discovers that she had "won" the lottery and is to be stoned to death

colloquialism

spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech

example: words ("y'all" or "gonna"), phrases ("old as the hills" or "graveyard dead"), or aphorisms ("There's more than one way to skin a cat")

comedy

a literary work which is amusing and ends happily; modern comedies tend to be funny, while Shakespearean comedies simply end well

example: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare or the film Love Actually

conceit

a far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things

example: "Roses danced in the apples of her cheeks" or "Her eyes shined brighter than the moon"

connotation

the emotional implications and associations that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotative meanings

example: to communicate the size of my textbook, one may describe it as a "tome" because of the word's connotation.

denotation

the basic dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to its connotative meaning

example: if one were to look up the word "rose" in the dictionary, one would find something like, "a bush or shrub that produces flowers, usually red, pink, white or yellow in color"

deus ex machina

an unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the conflict; the term means "the god out of the machine" and refers to stage machinery

example: if a character fell off a cliff and a flying robot suddenly appeared out of nowhere to catch them

diction

an author's choice of words; since words have specific meanings, and since one's choice of words can affect feelings, a writer's choice of words can have great impact in a literary work

example: "Could you be so kind as to pass me the milk?" versus "Give me that!"

didactic

describes a work designed to impart information, advice, or some doctrine of morality or philosophy; usually a sort of "beating you over the head with a lesson" kind of thing

example: the John Bunyan tale about a pilgrim learning to embrace good and avoid evil, embracing religious, moralizing themes

dystopia

an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives; an imaginary place or state where everything is as bad as it can possibly be (or a description of such a place)

example: In George Orwell’s 1984, the world is under complete government control; the fictional dictator Big Brother enforces omnipresent surveillance over the people living in the three inter-continental superstates remaining after a world war

epistrophe

similar to anaphora, but with the repetition at the end of the phrase, clause, or sentence

example: "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" from Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address

epigraph

a brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work

example: in Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, “The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position,” an Akan proverb

epigram

a pithy, sometimes satiric couplet or quatrain which was popular in classic Latin literature and in European and English literature of the Renaissance and the neo-Classical era

example: "There are no gains without pains" from Benjamin Franklin

epithet

in literature, a word or phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character

example: in the Iliad, Zeus-loved Achilles

exegesis

critical interpretation of a text, especially a biblical text; from the Greek ex- and egeisthai meaning "to lead out"

example: Romans 12:2, in which Paul instructs readers to "not be conformed to this world"; this passage can be interpreted through exegesis to mean that believers should avoid allowing the prevailing values and temptations of the world to affect their faith

farce

a type of comedy based on a humorous situation such as a bank robber who mistakenly wanders into a police station to hide; it is the situation which provides the humor, not the cleverness of plot or lines

example: in ancient Greek theater, audiences were often treated to a short "satyr play" in between tragedies; these plays used very crude, but very effective, forms of humor, especially sexual jokes and physical comedy; the idea was to let the audience get some comic relief in between the difficult emotional experiences of the tragedies

formalism

strict observance of the established rules, traditions, and methods employed in the arts; formalism can also refer to the theory of art that relies heavily on the organization of forms in a work rather than on the content

example: Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnets and their forms which dictate the structure, rhyme scheme, and often the thematic development

framing device

a story in which one or more other stories are told

example: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

genre

a recognizable and established category of written work employing such common conventions that will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it for another kind

example: fantasy, comedy, drama

gothic

characterized by gloom and mystery and the grotesque

example: the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

hubris

comes from Aristotle, the Greek tragedies, and mythology; protagonists suffering from excessive pride and subsequently being punished by the gods/fate for it

example: in Greek mythology, the legend of Icarus involves an iconic case of hubris: Icarus is given artificial wings made of wax and feathers so that he can fly (a superhuman feat), but he ignores his father's warnings and flies too close to the sun, melting his wings and drowning in the ocean

hyperbole

a figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration is used for deliberate effect

example: "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse."

idiom

a specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon or a style or manner of expression peculiar to a given people

example: "under the weather" for feeling ill or getting a cold

imagery

the collection of images within a literary work; used to evoke atmosphere, mood, tension

example: images of crowded. steaming sidewalks flanking streets choked with lines of shimmering, smoking cars suggests oppressive heat and all the psychological tensions that go with it

in medias res

in or into the middle of a sequence of events, as in a literary narrative

example: in The Odyssey by Homer, the narrative of this poem takes place one decade after the Trojan war; the protagonist is Odysseus, and he finds himself a prisoner of the immortal goddess Calypso; while captive, he risks losing his wife Penelope to a group of admirers, all vying to win her love

intentional fallacy

assuming from the text what the author intended to mean

example: when critics attempt to analyze Leonardo da Vinci’s authorial intent for his popular painting, Mona Lisa, there is much debate over whether or not da Vinci intended for the woman in the painting to appear as smiling

inversion

reversal of the normal order of words for dramatic effect

example: "I had never met someone so interesting" becomes "Never had I met someone so interesting"

irony

a device that depends on the existence of at least two separate and/or contrasting levels of meaning embedded in one message; in verbal irony, the speaker says something other than what they really mean (sarcasm relies on verbal irony); in dramatic irony, the audience is more aware than the characters are in a work; situational irony occurs when the opposite of what is expected happens (this type of irony often emphasizes that people are caught in forces beyond their comprehension and control)

example: The Titanic was touted as an “unsinkable” ship, yet it sank on its first voyage

litotes

a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite

example: "This is no small problem"

magical realism

a literary technique where the disbelief of the reader and writer produces a momentary shift in the real world wherein an element of the surreal enters and leaves with ease

example: Beloved by Toni Morrison, in which a former slave is haunted by an abusive ghost

malapropism

an incorrect usage of a word, usually with comic effect

example: "He is the very pineapple of politeness"

metaphor

a type of figurative language in which a statement is made that says that one thing is something else, but literally, it is not; in connecting one object, event, or place to another, a metaphor can uncover new and intriguing qualities of the original thing that we may not normally notice or even consider important; metaphoric language is used in order to realize a new and different meaning

example: "This place is a zoo," describing a chaotic place and implying that the people inside are behaving like animals

metonymy

a figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests

example: "Wall Street," to describe the U.S. financial and corporate sector

minimalism

a style of art in which objects are stripped down to their elemental, geometric form and presented in an impersonal manner; in literature, minimalists use short descriptions and simple sentences

example: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a post-apocalyptic novel so minimalistic that its characters and locations are left unnamed; punctuation like apostrophes and speech marks do not feature in the prose; the bare descriptions in the novel match the barren world that the man and boy travel through

monologue

thoughts of a single person, directed outward

example: in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Polonius’s speech to his son, Laertes, before Laertes goes to France; here, he gives advice for how Laertes should conduct himself overseas

motif

a recurrent image, word, phrase, represented object, or action that tends to unify the literary work or that may be elaborated into a more general theme

example: blood in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

naturalism

a type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings; unlike realism, which focuses on literary technique, naturalism implies a philosophical position

example: The Call of the Wild by Jack London, containing themes of the fight for survival, determinism, violence, etc.

nemesis

a villain who has a particular interest in defeating a hero or group of heroes and who is often of particular interest to the hero(es) in return

example: Voldemort in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series

oxymoron

a combination of contradictory terms

example: icy hot

parallelism

the repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure or that restate a similar idea

example: The Bach Sonata was beautiful, moving, and inspiring (adjectives)

parable

a brief and often simple narrative that illustrates a moral or religious lesson

example: some stories in the Bible, in which Jesus uses parables to teach his disciples

parody

a literary form in which the style of an author or particular work is mocked in its style for the sake of comic effect

example: Space Balls, for the Star Wars franchise

pathetic fallacy

the attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature

example: angry clouds or cruel wind

pastoral

of, relating to, or being a literary or other artistic work that portrays or evokes rural life, usually in an idealized way

example: the poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Christopher Marlowe; this poem is an early example of the pastoral mode and uses the romantic shepherd character

persona

in literature, the persona is the narrator, or the storyteller, of a literary work created by the author; as Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing puts it, the persona is not the author, but the author's creation—the voice "through which the author speaks"

example: in terms of literary personae, T.S. Eliot is well-known for the unique personae of the narrators of some of his poems, such as the persona of J. Alfred Prufrock, who narrates the poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

personification

a figure of speech where animals, ideas, or inorganic objects are given human characteristics

example: James Stephens's poem "The Wind," in which wind performs several actions; he writes, "The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his two fingers."

point of view

the “vantage point” from which the narrative is passed from author to the reader; in the omniscient point of view, the person telling the story, or narrator, knows everything that is going on in the story; in the first person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story (using the pronoun “I,” the narrator tells us their own experiences but cannot reveal with certainty any other character’s private thoughts); in the limited third person point of view, the narrator is outside the story—like an omniscient narrator—but tells the story from the vantage point of one character

example: Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a great example of the omniscient third person point of view; in the novel, the narrator sees and knows all, and moves around between the lives of the different characters, dipping into their internal lives and thoughts, and commenting on the narrative as a whole

polemic

a controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine

example: The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison from 1788-1789

polysyndeton

the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some could otherwise be omitted; it is used to achieve a variety of effects: it can increase the rhythm of prose, speed or slow its pace, convey solemnity or even ecstasy and childlike exuberance; another common use is to create a sense of being overwhelmed, or in fact directly overwhelm the audience by using conjunctions, rather than commas, leaving little room for a reader to breathe

example: "He ran and jumped and laughed for joy"

protagonist

the central character of a literary work

example: Harry Potter

realism

broadly defined as “the faithful representation of reality” or “verisimilitude”; realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing; although, strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle class life

example: Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the first time a novel captured the distinctive life and voice of middle America

rhetoric

the art of persuasive argument through writing or speech—the art of eloquence and charismatic language

example: William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, in which the Jewish Shylock asks another Venetian a series of rhetorical questions; Shylock’s questions are not meant to be answered; instead, the answers are self-evident as he illuminates that Jewish people are the same as Christians

roman à clef

a novel in which actual persons and events are disguised as fictional characters

example: Animal Farm by George Orwell; Orwell intended his allegorical novel to be read as a depiction of the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and a critique of Stalinism, all depicted through the prism of animals in a barnyard

romanticism

a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century that favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual; relies on nature to teach

example: Emily Dickinson's "'Hope' Is the Thing with Feathers"; Dickinson's poem, published after her death, is a testament to hope; Dickinson imbues the short piece with many of the hallmarks of Romantic literature—a reverence for nature, a connection with emotions (in this case, a desire for comfort and optimism), personification of "the little Bird," and a deep sense of isolation from the rest of the world

satire

a literary work which exposes and ridicules human vices or folly; historically perceived as tending toward didacticism, it is usually intended as a moral criticism directed against the injustice of social wrongs

example: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, about English society and humans in general

stock character

a fictional character that relies heavily on cultural types or stereotypes for its personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics; these characters are instantly recognizable to members of a given culture

example: the femme fatale; Cat-woman in DC Comics

stream of consciousness

a technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence; the writer attempts by the stream of consciousness to reflect all the forces, external and internal, influencing the psychology of a character at a single moment

example: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is an example of stream of consciousness writing; the book gives readers access to almost all of the protagonist’s thoughts over the course of a single day

subtext

the hidden meaning lying behind the overt

example: "A student goes to turn in his paper. After looking through two pages, his teacher asks, 'Are you sure you want to turn this in?'" The subtext of this question is the intended clue to the student that the paper is not ready yet to be turned in and he should edit through it again

synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part

example: wheels for an automobile or society for high society

syntax

the way in which linguistic elements (words and phrases) are arranged to form grammatical structure

example: "The boy ran hurriedly," reads differently than, "Hurriedly, the boy ran"

soliloquy

a dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to oneself or reveals one’s thoughts without addressing a listener

example: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech, from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1; Hamlet contemplates whether to continue living or end his life in this speech

tone

the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers; it may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, or otherwise

example: in an informal tone, which is casual, friendly, and conversational, one might say or write, "Hey folks, today we'll be chatting about the latest trends in tech"

theme

(1) the abstract concept explored in a literary work; (2) frequently recurring ideas, such as “enjoy life while you can”; (3) repetition of a meaningful element in a work

example: “coming of age” works like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë or Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; references to sight, vision, and blindness in Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

tragedy

a serious play in which the chief figures, by some peculiarity or character, pass through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe

example: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

tragic flaw (hamartia)

the character flaw or error of a tragic hero that leads to their downfall

example: in Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth’s unchecked ambition, which leads him to commit terrible crimes to gain the throne

trope

the intentional use of a word or expression figuratively, used in a different sense from its original significance in order to give vividness or emphasis to an idea

example: antonomasia, irony, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche

utopia

an imaginary and indefinitely remote place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions

example: Utopia by Sir Thomas More

vernacular

the everyday speech of the people, as distinguished from literary language

example: in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo is known for her boyish qualities and inability to act like a proper lady, especially when she is angry; using common phrases further showcases her social class and her tendency to use improper language

vignette

a small illustrative sketch

example: a vignette in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has nothing at all to do with the main characters or plot of the story; it simply gives us a snapshot of what Christmas was like for different people in Victorian England, emphasising the mood of the novel and making it a richer reading experience

voice

in writing, a metaphor drawn from the spoken, encompassing the writer's tone, style, and manner

example: the witty and observant perspective of Jane Austen in "Pride and Prejudice"