ap lit vocab quiz

Allegory

story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or abstract ideas or qualities. Example: Animal Farm, Dante’s Inferno.

Alliteration

repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

Allusion

an indirect reference to something in history or previous literature

Apostrophe

a poetic phrase or speech made that is addressed to a subject that is not literally present in the literary work or poem

Ambiguity

the intentional expression of an idea in such a way that more than one meaning is suggested.

Connotation

the associations and emotional overtones attached to a word or phrase in addition to its strict dictionary denition. Example: The word “home” suggests comfort and security, though it doesn’t denote either of those

Couplet

—two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

Denotation

the dictionary denition of a word.

Diction

word choice. Concrete diction refers to words that are specic and “show” the reader a mental picture. Abstract diction refers to words that are general and “tell” something without a picture. Note the dierence. Abstract “telling” diction: The young child, unaccustomed to strangers, was frightened by new people or new situations. Concrete “showing” diction: When the doorbell unexpectedly rang, the tiny boy abandoned his hot fudge sundae, bolted into the pantry, and hoped that the stranger would not hear the pounding of his heart.”

Epic—

—A long narrative poem, written in heightened language, recounting the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

Epiphany

a moment of enlightenment or heightened awareness when an ordinary object or scene is suddenly transformed into something that possesses signicance.

Foil

—a character who acts as a contrast to another character.

Hyperbole

exaggeration for eect. “You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

Imagery

—the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience

Irony:

: A discrepancy between appearances and reality.

Verbal Irony or Sarcasm

Saying one thing and meaning another.

Situational Irony

—discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what actually happens.

Dramatic Irony—

failure of a character to see or understand what is obvious to the audience.

Metaphor

—a comparison between a tangible thing and an intangible reality

Motif

—a recurring image, verbal pattern, or character that supports the main theme of a literary work.

Oxymoron

—a form of paradox that places opposing words side by side. “Sweet sorrow.” “Living death.” “Open secret.” “Denite maybe.”

Paradox

contradictory statement that contains some element of truth. “Less is more.”

Parallelism (Parallel Structure)

—repetition of grammatical form and function.

Parody

a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style.

Personication

giving human qualities to an abstraction or non-human object.

Symbol

—a physical person, place, or thing that represents something else.

Syntax—

the order of words in a sentence, sentence structure. An author’s distinctive form of sentence structure.

Theme

the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.

Tone

—the attitude the writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience; revealed through diction, gurative language, and organization.

Understatement

a statement that says less than what it means. Opposite of hyperbole. Hyperbole exaggerates; understatement minimizes. Often used to make an ironic point. For example: In the midst of a howling gale in the “Deadliest Catch,” the boat captain says, “It’s a bit breezy.”