Essential 30 AP LIT

Allegory

a story where characters/events symbolize broader ideas (e.g., Dante’s Inferno)

Epistolary

a novel told through letters or documents (e.g., Their Eyes Were Watching God or parts of Frankenstein)

Foil

a character who contrasts with another to highlight particular qualities (e.g., Darnay vs Carton)

In Medias Res

Starting “in the middle of things” (common in epics and modern novels like The Road)

Hubris

excessive pride lading to a protagonist’s downfaller

Reliable vs. Unreliable Narrator

whether the reader can trust the POV character’s account

Alliteration

repetition of initial sounds

Assonance

repetition of vowel sounds

Consonance

repetition of consonant sounds

Enjambment

a line of poetry that continues into the next line without a pause or punctuation

Caesura

a structural break or pause within a line of poetry

Conceit

an elaborate, extended metaphor (common in Metaphysical poetry)

Slant Rhyme

near-rhyme where sounds aer similar but not exact (e.g., bridge and grudge)

Blank Verse vs. Free Verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter vs. poetry with no set meter or rhyme

Polysyndeton

the repetition of conjunctions in close succession (e.g., “People….sat on the ground and ate and drank and talked and slept.”)

Contrapasso

symbolic retribution; the punishment fits the crime (e.g. The winds blowing the Lustful around in Circle 2 because they were “blown” by passion in life)

Apostrophe

addressing an absent person or personified object (e.g., Hamlet: [to a skull he’s holding] “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.”

Juxtaposition

placing two contrasting things side-by-side to highlight differences (e.g. The quiet, holy Boy walking through a charred, hellish landscape of cannibals)

Foreshadowing

a hint or clue about what will happen later in the plot (e.g. “The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground…it had stained many hands, too.”)

Paradox

a statement that seems contra dictionary but reveals a deeper truth (e.g. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”)