AP LIT

Ballad

A narrative poem that is usually sung or recited, with a regular meter and rhyme, popular in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Ballad of Birmingham)

Blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter; common in Shakespeare's plays and most English-language poetry

Elegy

A poem of sorrow, often about the death of someone admired by the poet. (Ex: Whitman's elegy for Abraham Lincoln)

Epic

A long narrative poem that tells the deeds of a legendary hero's history/tradition

Free verse

A peom without a set rhyme or meter

Haiku

A short poem about an essence of things linked to nature; traditionally Japanese poems of 3 lines

Limerick

A humorous five-line poem, with the 1st, 2nd, and 5th lines in 3 beats and rhymed. Ex: "There once was a man who supposed / that the street door was completely closed / but some very large rats, ate his coat and his hats / while the lazy old gentleman dozed"

Lyric verse

Poems that are like songs, with a musical quality, that express a poet's emotions; often tell a brief story that engages the reader in the experience. (a ballad is a form of lyrical poetry)

Narrative poetry

Poetry that tells a story. Ex: Longfellow's "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."

Ode

Usually a long, serious poem written in honor or praise of someone or something. Ex: John Keats' "Ode to a Grecian Urn"

Sonnet

14 line poem usually in iambic pentameter and with a traditional rhyme scheme

Villanelle

A fixed form, 19 lines, in which the first and third lines are repeated in a set pattern throughout the poem. It creates an acoustic chamber for single words

Connotation

The attitudes or feelings associated with a word. Ex: contrast "pupil" (neutral connontation) with "scholar" (positive connotation)

Denotation

The literal or dictionary meaning of a word. Ex: love means "tender feelings of affection."

Diction

Writer/speaker's choice of words and way of arranging words in sentences. Ex: choice between "smile" and "grin" is a question of diction

Epithet

A brief descriptive phrase that points out traits associated with a particular person or thing

Figurative language

Language that is based on a comparison that is not literally true. Ex: "The team hammered their opponents."

Imagery

Description that helps the readers imagine how something looks, sounds, feels, smells, or tastes. Ex: "blue black cold."

Inversion (inverted synthax)

A reversal in the expected order of words. Ex: "when rest I took" in Anne Bradstreets "Upon the Burning of Our House"

Style

The way a work of literature is written. Ex: a writers ecision to use mostly short, choppy sentences

Metaphor

Comparison of two unlike objects not using "like" or "as," a statement that one thing is another.

Metonymy

A trope which substitutes the name of an entity with somethign else that is closely associated with it. Ex: "the throne" is a synonym for "the king"

Pathetic Fallacy

A special kind of personification, which uses inanimate aspects of nature, such as weather/landscape, having human qualities or feelings. Ex: "The air was pitilessly raw.."

Personification

When a non human thing or quality is talked about if it were human. Ex: "In the fall, the trees weep."

Simile

Comparison of two unlike objects using "like" or "as." Ex: "A Chevy truck is like a rock."

Synecdoche

A figure of thought in which the term for something is used to represent the whole, or, less commonly, the term for the whole is used to represent a part. Ex: Manual laborers are called "blue collar" workers, "all hands on deck" means all sailors, "wheels" for cars.

Anaphora

Greek for "repetition" - is the intentional repetition of words or phrases at the BEGINNING of successive lines, stanzas, sentences, or paragraphs to create emphasis. Ex: Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a replete with anaphora using "Blessed are the.."

Antithesis

Greek for "opposition" - a figure of speech where words/phrases that are parallel in order and sythax express opposite of contrasting meanings. Ex: Charles Dicken's opening sentence "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.."

Apostrophe

An address to a dead/absent person or an inanimate object/concept, to elevate the style or to give emotional intensity to the address. Ex: Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" - apostrophizes a personification of night "Come, civil night."

Chiasmus

Greek for "criss-cross" has two successive phrases or clauses that are parallel in syntax, but reverse the order of the analogous words. Ex: Robert Frost "The Gift Outright" - "The land was ours before we were the land's" - pattern of noun, verb, possessive pronoun of the first clause becomes that of the second clause.

Rhetorical question

A question is posed not to solicit a reply but to emphasize a foregone or clearly implied conclusion. The goal is to create a stronger effect.

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. Ex: "Consonants Closely Cramped and Compressed."

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds within words of a line. Ex: "Old king cOle was a merry Old sOul."

Cacophony

Harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition. Ex: "The grackles squawked "Squarx! Cralk! Shreq!"

Consonance

Repeiition of consonant sounds wthin words (rather than at their beginnings, which is alliteration) Ex: "a floCK of siCK, blaCK-cheCKered, duCKs."

Foot

A measure of rhythm in a line of poetry, usually 2/3 syllables. Ex: There are five feet in iambic pentameter.

Iambic pentameter

A line consisting of five units of one stressed and one unstressed syllable. Ex: the line in most Shakespearean sonnets annd blank verse, as in "My LIPS, two BLUSHing PILGrims, READY STAND."

Onomatopoeia

Words or phrases that sound like the thing to which they refer. Ex: "bees buzz"

Rhythm (also meter)

Pattern or flow of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry; a regular pattern is called meter.

Stress

Emphasis on a particlar syllable. Ex: "football" has a stress on the first syllable

Couplet

Two rhyming lines together (see rhyme/end rhymes)

End rhyme

Similar or identical sounds at the end of lines, a kind of rhyme. Ex: "But at my back I always HERE / Time's winged chariot hurrying NEAR"

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence from one line of a poem to the next without a pause. Ex: "I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox / and which/ you were probably / saving / for breakfast."

Internal rhyme

Similar or identical sounds in the middle of a line; a kind of rhyme. Ex: "wolves CROON at the MOON in JUNE"

Line

The basic unit of a poem, may be of any length (1 word or more)

Quatrain

A four line stanza

Sestet

A six line stanza

Octave

An eight line stanza

Rhyme

Repetition of similar or identical sounds, can be within or at the end of lines. Ex: "Tyger, Tyger burning BRIGHT / In the forests of the NIGHT"

Slant (Near) rhyme

Rhymes that are not exact (ex: moon / June), but only approximate (ex: soul / all)

Stanza

A group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit; the lines may or may not rhyme

Refrain

One or more words repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza