AP Literary Devices Grade 12 (copy)

Allegory

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

EXAMPLE: Animal Farm; Dante’s Inferno; Lord of the Flies 

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. An indirect reference to something.

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. The purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony. It is a fancy word for inversion.

Anecdote

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

Antagonist

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

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.

Moliere: “One should eat to live, not live to eat.” In poetry, this is called chiasmus.

Antithesis

Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted. Often by means of grammatical structure.

Antihero

A central character who lacks qualities traditionally associated with heroes.

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object. (personification)

Aphorism

A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. Also called maxim, epigram

Apostrophe

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

Invocation: asking a god or goddess for inspiration

Apposition

Placing in immediately succeeding order two or more coordinate elements, with the latter explaining or modifying the first. (often set off by a colon)

Assonance

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

Asyndeton

Commas used without conjunctions to separate a series of words, emphasizing the parts equally.

instead of X, Y, and Z... the writer uses X,Y,Z....

Balance

Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance.

Characterization

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

Indirect Characterization

Revealing a character's personality through their actions, thoughts, looks, how they dress and how others perceive them.

Direct Characterization

The author tells us directly what the character is like.

Static Character

A character who does not change much in the course of a story.

Dynamic Character

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

Flat Character

A character with only one or two personality traits, one-dimensional.

Round Character

A character with complex personalities, resembling real people.

Chiasmus

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

Coleridge: “Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike.” In prose this is called antimetabole.

Cliché

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

Colloquialism

A word or phrase in everyday use that is inappropriate for formal situations.

Comedy

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

Conceit

An elaborate metaphor comparing two startlingly different things. Often extended metaphor

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

Conflict existing between two people, a person and nature, or a person and society.

Internal Conflict

A conflict involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.

Connotation

The associations and emotional overtones attached to a word or phrase.

Couplet

Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Dialect

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

Diction

A speaker or writer’s choice of words.

Didactic

Fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral.

Elegy

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

Epigraph

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

Epanalepsis

Repetition of the same expression at the beginning and end of a line or sentence.

Epic

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

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same expression (single word or phrase) 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. “Father of our country” and “the great Emancipator” are examples. A Homeric ________ is a compound adjective used with a person or thing: “swift-footed Achilles”; “rosy-fingered dawn.”

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 using language to create a mood or emotion.

Exposition

A major form of discourse explaining or "setting 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 which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms.

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 using incredible exaggeration for effect.

Hypotactic

A sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses, showing logical relationships. (Use of such syntactic subordination of just one clause to another is known as hypotaxis).

I am tired because it is hot.

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.

Verbal Irony

When someone says one thing but means another.

Situational Irony

A discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what really 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 the positive through negation.

Hawthorne--- “...the wearers of petticoat and farthingale...stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng...”

Local Color

fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect and landscape.

Loose Sentence

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

See periodic sentence. Hawthorne: “Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of this footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.”

Lyric Poem

A poem expressing the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker.

Metaphor

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

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.

“The President is a lame duck who is running out of gas.”

Metonymy

a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. “We requested from the crown support for our petition.” The crown is used to represent the monarch.

Mood

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

Motif

A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, 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.

“Jumbo shrimp.” “Pretty ugly.” “Bitter-sweet”

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.

I am tired: it is hot.

Parody

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

Periodic

A sentence placing the main idea at the end, after introductory elements.

Personification

A figure of speech giving human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes to an object or animal.

Plot

The series of related events in a story or play.

Exposition (1 in Plot)

Introduces characters, situation, and setting.

Rising Action (2 in plot)

Complications in conflict and situations in a plot.

Climax (3 in plot)

The point in a plot creating the greatest intensity or suspense.

Resolution (4 in plot)

The conclusion of a story when conflicts are settled.

Point of View

The vantage point from which the writer tells the story.

First Person Point of View

A character tells the story.

Third Person Point of View

An unknown narrator tells the story, focusing on one character's thoughts.