AP Lit Terms to Know - Summer

Alliteration

A literary device that repeats the same starting sound in a series of nearby words

Antagonist

A character or group that stands against the main character (the protagonist)

Antithetical/Antithesis

A literary theme where you put two entirely opposing ideas near each other

Apostrophe

When a speaker talks directly to a person who is not present or an abstract idea

Assonance

A literary device that repeats the same vowel sounds within nearby words

Caesura

A deliberate pause, break, or stop in the middle of a line of poetry or a musical phrase

Internal Conflict

Emotional struggle within a character

External Conflict

Struggle between character and outside force

Person v. Person Conflict

External struggle between multiple characters

Person v. Society Conflict

External struggle in between a character and a law, injustice, societal norms

Person v. Self Conflict

Internal emotional struggle within a character’s own mind

Consonance

Deliberate repetition of consonant sounds within a group of words, enhancing the rhythm of text

Enjambment

A technique where a sentence or idea keeps going past the end of a line

Meter

The systematic, regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that create the rhythm and flow

Mood

Emotional atmosphere that is evoked in reader

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that puts two opposite or disagreeing words right next to each other

Paradox

A statement that seems to contradict or go against common sense, but actually reveals truth

Perspective

Mental lens the which a narrator or character views and processes events, characters, and the world

1st Person Point of View

Storytelling using “I’, “me”, “my”

2nd Person Point of View

The writer addresses audience directly, using “you”

3rd Person Point of View

When an outside character tells the story

3rd Person Limited POV

Perspective is limited to the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of only one person in the story

3rd Person Omniscient POV

The narrator is all knowing, meaning that they know the thoughts and feelings of everyone in the story

3rd Person Obervant POV

An outside narrator only tells what they can see and observe - they know no feelings

Protagonist

Main character in a story, book, or play

Rhyme Scheme

A poet’s deliberate pattern of lines that rhyme with either lines in a poem or stanza

Symbol

A person, place, object, or idea that has a literal meaning in a story but also stands for a larger meaning

Tone

The attitude or feeling an author, narrator, or character has towards a specific subject, person, or audience