AP Literature Literary Devices Review

Vocabulary flashcards covering literary terms and definitions from the AP Literature review notes.

Antagonist

A character, group, or force that directly opposes the protagonist, creating the core conflict and tension within a narrative.

Protagonist

The main character in a book, movie, or play.

Archetype

A symbol, pattern, plot, or character template that appears in multiple stories, across cultures and time.

Dynamic Character

A character who changes throughout the course of the story, such as altering their disposition, reactions, or moral compass.

Static Character

A character that does not drastically change their personality traits or ideas over the course of the story.

Foil Character

A character who highlights the traits of another character, normally the protagonist, through comparison and contrast.

Epiphany

The sudden realization of an idea.

Direct Characterization

A writing method in which an author explicitly tells the reader what a character is like.

Indirect Characterization

When a character's personality is revealed through their actions, appearance, and speech without the author blatantly stating it.

Character Perspective

The way a character thinks or feels about certain situations.

Setting

The time, place, and social environment in which a story happens.

Atmosphere

The overall feeling, emotional quality, or mood that a work creates in the reader.

Mood

The emotional atmosphere or feeling that a work evokes in the reader, shaped by setting, descriptions, imagery, and word choice.

Character Motivation

The underlying "why" that drives the character's actions/choices.

Historical Context

The social, political, cultural, and economic setting of a past event.

Cultural Context

The political, historical, or social conditions that ultimately shape how the author tells the story.

Conflict

The active struggle between two opposing forces.

Internal Conflict

A psychological or emotional struggle inside a character's mind.

External Conflict

A problem or struggle that takes place between a character and an outside force (person, society, nature, or themself).

In Medias Res

A term referring to starting "in the middle" of a story.

Foreshadowing

A literary device where an author drops subtle hints, clues, or warnings about events that will happen later in the narrative.

Irony

When reality is the opposite of what you think will happen.

Dramatic Irony

A storytelling tool where the audience or reader knows a piece of information that the characters do not know.

Situational Irony

The outcome of an event or situation that is the exact opposite of what the audience expects.

Verbal Irony

When a speaker's words are the opposite of what they actually intend to mean, often sarcastic.

Juxtaposition

The placement of two or more contrasting things—like characters, ideas, settings, or images—side by side to highlight their differences or create new meaning.

Plot

The sequence of events that make up a story.

Exposition

The background information a writer gives the reader about the characters, setting, and plot history.

Rising Action

The series of events leading up to the climax, building suspense before the turning point.

Climax

The highest point of suspense in a story's plot, where the main character confronts or resolves the central conflict.

Falling Action

The series of events occurring after the climax where the story begins to relax, leading into the final resolution.

Resolution

The conclusion of a story when the conflicts are resolved and the plot ends.

Flashback

A narrative device that interrupts the chronological order of the story to show an event from the past.

Pacing

How fast or slow the rate of the main story or plot is advanced in a piece of media.

Parallelism

A writing and speaking technique that uses matching grammatical structures to balance words, phrases, or clauses of equal importance.

Contrast

The deliberate placement of opposing or dissimilar elements—such as tones, characters, settings, or imagery—to highlight their differences and deepen meaning.

Repetition

The deliberate reuse of a word, phrase, line, or grammatical structure to build emphasis, shape rhythm, and reveal a speaker's obsessions or perspective.

Narrator

A fictional voice or persona created by the author to tell a story and shape the reader's perspective.

Speaker

The voice that is behind the poem, story, or fictional text.

Point of View

The perspective from which a story is told.

First-Person Point of View

Narrative perspective where the narrator is a character in the story and tells it from their perspective using personal pronouns like "our".

Second-Person Point of View

Narrative perspective where the author uses second-person pronouns such as "you," "your," or "yourself."

Third-Person Limited Point of View

Narrative perspective using pronouns "he," "she," and "they," where the narrator only knows the thoughts of the protagonist.

Third-Person Omniscient Point of View

Narrative perspective using pronouns "he," "she," and "they," where the narrator knows the thoughts of all characters.

Objective Point of View

A viewpoint based on verifiable facts, observable evidence, and logic that is impartial and cannot favor one person's feelings or preferences.

Unreliable Narrator

A character telling a story whose credibility, accuracy, or trustworthiness is compromised.

Stream of Consciousness

A style of writing that shows a person's thoughts and emotions as they happen, showing neat as well as sloppy and unfiltered thoughts.

Tone

The attitude or emotional perspective that an author, narrator, or character holds toward a specific subject or audience.

Diction

Specific choice and use of words and phrases in writing or speech.

Denotation

The literal, objective definition of a word without any emotional associations.

Connotation

The emotional or cultural feeling a word brings up beyond its literal definition.

Imagery

The use of descriptive language that appeals to five senses to create a clear mental picture in the reader's mind.

Symbol

An object, person, action, or color used to represent abstract ideas, deep meanings, or themes beyond what is explicitly shown.

Motif

A recurring element, idea, image, or design that appears throughout a work to help develop a central theme.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that compares two unrelated things by stating one thing is directly another.

Extended Metaphor

A detailed comparison between two unlike things that continues for multiple sentences, paragraphs, or an entire literary work.

Simile

A literary tool that compares two different things using the words "like" or "as".

Personification

The application of human traits, emotions, or actions to non-human objects, animals, or ideas.

Hyperbole

Deliberate, extreme exaggeration to make a point, add humor, or show strong emotion.

Allusion

An indirect or passing reference to a well-known person, place, event, work of art, or story.

Onomatopoeia

A word that acts as a sound effect or suggests the actual sound it describes.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same initial sound in a series of words.

Analogy

An extended comparison between two unlike things to explain a complex idea.

Paradox

A statement, situation, or idea that appears self-contradictory or impossible but after reflection reveals a valid truth.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that puts two contradictory words together to make a single phrase.

Stanza

A group of set lines in a poem that acts like a paragraph in poetry.

Enjambment

A poetic technique where a phrase flows from one line to the next without terminal punctuation.

End-Stops

An end-stopped line is a line of poetry that finishes with a natural pause and a complete thought, usually marked by a punctuation mark.

Caesura

A natural pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry.

Meter

The systematic, rhythmic structure of a line of poetry based on which syllables are stressed and unstressed.

Rhyme

A literary device involving the repetition of identical or similar sounds in the final syllables of two or more words.

Free Verse

A type of poetry that doesn't have any constraints to how it's written.

Blank Verse

Poetry written in meter that doesn't rhyme.

Shakespearean Sonnet

A 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet

A 14-line poem divided into 8 and 6 lines, where the first 8 lines rhyme ABBAABBA and the latter 6 rhyme CDDCDD or CDE CDE.

Octave

An eight-line stanza or the first eight lines of a Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet.

Sestet

A six-line stanza of poetry, or the final six lines of an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet.

Volta

A rhetorical shift or turning point where the mood of a literary work changes, often causing the reader to see previous lines in a new light.

Refrain

A phrase, line, or group of lines that repeats, usually at regular intervals, throughout a piece of poetry or writing.

Couplet

A pair of lines, typically rhyming and in the same meter.

Quatrain

A group or stanza of four lines, sometimes within a larger poem.

Soliloquy

A speech to communicate a character's inner thoughts, delivered to the audience instead of to another character.

Monologue

A long, uninterrupted speech by a single character expressing thoughts, feelings, or plans to other characters or the audience.

Aside

A short remark or comment made by a character directly to the audience, or to themselves, when other characters don't hear.

Dialogue

A spoken or written exchange between two or more characters.

Tragedy

A genre that usually includes suffering and ends in calamity for the characters due to the main character's decisions.

Tragic Hero

Usually a noble, well-intentioned person who has a fatal flaw that ends up causing the story's tragedy.

Tragic Flaw

A personality trait or viewpoint that leads the character to make decisions, ultimately causing the tragedy.

Catharsis

The process of releasing pent-up or repressed emotions, resulting in a deep sense of relief.