AP lit terms

Archetype

A commonly recurring character type, situation, image, or pattern that appears across many works of literature and cultures.

In Medias Res

A narrative technique in which a story begins in the middle of the action rather than at the chronological beginning.

Dramatic Irony

A situation in which the audience knows something important that one or more characters do not know.

Situational Irony

A situation in which what actually happens is significantly different from what is expected.

Objective Point of View

A narrative perspective that reports observable actions and dialogue without revealing characters' private thoughts or feelings.

Motif

A recurring image, object, idea, word, situation, or pattern that contributes to a text's larger meaning.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry into the next without terminal punctuation.

Caesura

A deliberate pause within a line of poetry, often created by punctuation.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed poetry written in a regular meter, most commonly iambic pentameter.

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem that traditionally follows a specific structure, meter, and/or rhyme scheme.

Volta

A significant shift or "turn" in a poem's thought, argument, emotion, or perspective.

Refrain

A word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is deliberately repeated throughout a poem.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, typically alone on stage, expresses private thoughts and feelings aloud.

Catharsis

The emotional release or purging experienced by an audience through witnessing the suffering and downfall of characters in tragedy.

Petrarchan / Italian Sonnet

ABBAABBA

Shakespearean / English Sonnet

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG