Quarter 1 AP Lit Allusions

1 - Achilles’ Heel

-Mythology (Greek)

-As a baby, his mom dipped him in River Styx for immortality, held by his heel, which became his area of vulnerability. He was killed in the Trojan war by a poison arrow in his heel.

Term 1 - Metaphor

-Direct comparison of 2 things - capture the quality of something familiar to help understand something less familiar.

-Ex: Social media is a trap.

2 - Pound of flesh

-Literature

-Shakespeare’s merchant of Venice. In this play, Shylock, a money lender, agrees to finance a fleet of ships for a young merchant, Antonio. Shylock demands a pound of Antonio’s flesh as payment if something happens to the ships. When the ships are lost at sea, Shylock insists for the pound of flesh, as the contract demanded. Antonio is spared because of a technicality: the contract didn’t say Shylock was entitled to any blood. Thus, he cannot take flesh unless he can do so bloodlessly, an impossibility.

-Describes someone’s insistence on being repaid, even if the repayment will destroy or harm the debtor.

Term 2 - Onomatopoeia

-A word formed from the imitation of natural sounds

-”Oink” sounds like what it describes

-Ex: “The murmur of meandering bees moving in their hive moment by moment.”

3 - Sacred Cow

-Category: language and idioms

-In Hinduism, cows are sacred; thus, cows are not harmed/killed for food. If a cow goes into a shop, the merchant can only try to lure it out with food; he is not allowed to interfere with it by poking, even if it is causing damage.

-It refers to something that cannot be interfered with or harmed in any way.

Term 3 - Personification

-Endowing non-human objects/creatures with human qualities/characteristics

-Purpose: to compare something familiar to the reader with something less familiar

4 - Crossing the Rubicon

-Category: history, culture, and ideas

-After defeating the Gauls (Gallic Wars), Julius Caesar was ordered home by his senate enemies, so he traveled south to Italy. The Rubicon was the river forming the northern border of Italy. By Roman law, a general was forbidden from crossing into Italy with an Army. Nevertheless, Caesar led his army across the river, making civil war inevitable. After he crossed, there was no turning back for him and his troops.

-To cross the Rubicon is to take an irreversible step, often involving some danger

Term 4 - Juxtaposition

-Placing 2 elements side by side to present a comparison/contrast

5 - Pearls before Swine

-Category: Biblical

-In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus admonished his followers to “cast not your pearls before swine.” This is, his followers were to deliver their message to those who would appreciate it, not to those incapable of appreciating something of value. Swine, or pigs, would be unable to appreciate pearls if the jewels were given to them.

-To “cast one’s pearls before swine” is to offer something precious to someone, or a group of people, unable to appreciate the value of what they are being given.

-Ex: When he makes a profound point that we students just do not understand, our teacher sometimes shakes his head and mutters, “Pearls before swine.”

Term 5 - Alliteration

-The repetition of initial sounds in successive or nearby words.

-Ex: Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore.

-The purpose is to emphasize important concepts.

6 - Once in a Blue Moon

-Category: Language and Idioms

-A blue moon is a second full moon within the same calendar month, a phenomenon that occurs approximately every three years. It is thought that calendar makers traditionally pictured the first full moon in red and a second full moon in the same month in blue.

-This phrase describes something that occurs very rarely.

-Ex: I almost always turn in my homework on time, but once in a blue moon I get lazy and decide to take the consequences of skipping an assignment.

Term 6 - Flat Character

-A character embodying a single quality without developing in the course of the story (antonym: round character).

-Ex: Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible represents religious righteousness and doesn’t quite change or develop. A flat character can be admirable; they just don’t need to be developed.

7 - Mrs. Grundy

-Category: literature

-In the 1798 play by Morton, Mrs. Grundy is a character who never appears on stage. However, other characters frequently ask, “What would Mrs. Grundy say?” Mrs. Grundy is a narrow-minded, conventional, prudish person.

-The word “Grundyism” and the phrase “Mrs. Grundy” refer to such an attitude of narrow-minded prudishness.

-Ex: My mother said, “At the risk of being a Mrs. Grundy, I really don’t think you should go out in public in that outfit.”

Term 7 - Round Character

-A character demonstrating complexity and development over the course of a work

-Ex: In the Crucible, John Proctor is a round character because he develops his personal sense of morals despite the beliefs of the time.

8 - Crocodile Tears

-Category: language and idioms

-Crocodiles were once thought to shed large tears before devouring their prey. This belief, which dates to ancient times, comes from the fact that crocodiles have small ducts in the corner of their eyes which release “tears” when the crocodile opens its jaws wide. Obviously, a cold-blooded reptile has no real feelings of sympathy for its prey.

-To shed crocodile tears is to show false sympathy for someone.

-Ex: The villain in the play shed crocodile tears for the hero, but the audience knew that the hero’s downfall was directly caused by the villain's trickery.

Term 8 - Synesthesia

-Describing one sensation in terms of another.

-Ex: Those pants are loud; that music is sweet.

9 - Sirens

-Category: Greek Mythology

-Sirens were sea creatures who lured sailors to their deaths on the rocky shores by singing a beautiful, irresistible song. They are usually depicted as women, or as half-women, half bird.

-In modern usage, “sirens” can refer to anything that tempts a person away from safety and toward a destructive path. A “siren song” is the temptation used to lure a person.

-Ex: I had intended to stay home and study for finals, but the siren song of my friends describing all the fun we could have at the lake was too much for me to resist.

Term 9 - Tone

-The attitude of a writer toward the subject or audience. The tone is usually implied, not explicitly stated.

10 - Read the Riot Act

-Category: history, culture, ideas

-Under English Common Law, an unruly crowd had to be read the Riot Act before action could be taken, to force them to disperse.

-To “read the riot act” is to issue a stern warning that if unacceptable behavior does not cease, severe consequences will follow.

-Ex: After asking us to be quiet several times, my father stormed upstairs and read us the riot act. After this, we knew it was really time to go to sleep.

Term 10 - Understatement

-The deliberate representation of something as less in magnitude than it really is.

-Understatement can help establish tone or help the reader understand the complexity of a situation.

-Ex: That AP Physics final exam was a little difficult.

11 - Thirty Pieces of Silver/Betrayed with a Kiss

-Category: Biblical

-In the Bible, Judas Iscariot was the disciple who agreed to betray Jesus to the authorities in exchange for payment. The thirty pieces of silver were the price of Judas’ betrayal. The way Judas identified Jesus for the authorities was to approach Jesus and greet him with a kiss of identification.

-”Thirty pieces of silver”  refers to payment received for an act of treachery. “Betrayed with a kiss” refers to a supposed friend’s treachery.

-Ex: Patrick Henry warned his listeners about the supposed friendliness of the British. He warned, “Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.”

Term 11 - Litotes

-A type of understatement in which something is expressed by negating its opposite.

-It was not a pretty picture. This is no small problem.

12 - Gordian Knot

-Category: mythology and legend

-According to legend, Gordius was a Greek king. He tied an extremely complex knot, and an oracle prophesied that whoever untied it would rule all of Asia. Alexander the Great “untied” the knot simply by cutting through it with his sword.

-A “Gordian knot” is an extremely complex problem, and “cutting the Gordian knot” refers to solving such a problem in a quick, decisive manner.

-Ex: Each year, school counselors face the Gordian knot of scheduling classes so that teachers will have reasonable class sizes and students will have the opportunity to take the classes they need.

Term 12 - Omniscient Narrator

-A narrator able to know, see, and tell all, including inner thoughts of characters (compare to: limited narrator)

-Few pieces of literature include a truly omniscient narrator: most readers prefer to be limited in a deeper perspective

13 - Ivory Tower

-Category: language and idioms

-A French poet, Alfred deVigny, was said to have shut himself in an ivory tower so that he could compose his poems. Furthermore, ivory towers are mentioned in various fairy tales. The term thus refers to a beautiful, unreachable place. It has come to have negative connotations of being out of touch with reality.

-A person who is secluded or protected from the real world and thus out of touch with reality is said to be residing in an ivory tower.

-Ex: the engineers feared that the leaders of the company, sitting in their ivory tower, did not understand why the people in the field needed increased resources to ensure the new bridge truly would be safe.

Term 13 - Epiphany

-A moment of sudden revelation or insight.

-In “A&P”, “Greasy Lake”, and “Cathedral”, the main characters all end with an epiphany, a deeper understanding of the way they relate to the world.

14 - All that Glitters is not Gold

-Category: language and idioms

-This is a proverb derived from a Latin translation of Aristotle. The proverb read, “Do not hold as gold all that shines as gold.” In other words, just because something looks like gold, one should not assume that it actually is gold.

-The message of the proverb is that something which appears valuable on the outside, may in fact be less valuable. Appearances can be deceptive.

-Ex: When I expressed envy for the superstar who seemed to have everything, my friend simply said, “Remember all that glitters…”

Term 14 - Colloquialism

-Also known as: colloquial language, vernacular

-Informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing

-Stories like “Sweat” not only use phonetical dialect but colloquialisms as well.

-The Things They Carried will use colloquialisms of the soldiers in the Vietnam War.

Allusion 15 - Sound and Fury

-Category: literature

-In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when Macbeth is informed that his wife has died, he speaks of the inevitability of death: Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

-Thus, the phrase refers to a great, tumultuous, and passionate uproar that actually is unimportant or meaningless.

-Ex: the “Y2K” hysteria leading up to the turn of the millennium turned out to be just so much sound and fury.

Term 15 - Paradox

-An apparently contradictory statement which actually contains some truth

-In Animal Farm, the paradox “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others” is meant to show the hypocrisy of government: those in power often have privilege above those they govern.