114 AP Lit Terms

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114 Terms
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Allegory

A prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance.

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Alliteration

The sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables.

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Allusion

A reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place.

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Anapestic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed.

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Anaphora

The regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses.

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Anecdote

A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature.

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Antagonist

Any force that is in opposition to the main character, or protagonist.

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Antithesis

The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas.

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Apostrophe

An address or invocation to something that is inanimate.

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Archetype

Recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature.

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Assonance

A repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds usually found in stressed syllables of close proximity.

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Asyndeton

A style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose.

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Attitude

The sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds toward his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting, or even the theme.

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Ballad

A narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung.

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Ballad stanza

A common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-beat and three-beat lines: one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter, and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter.

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Blank verse

The verse form that most resembles common speech.

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Caesura

A pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns.

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Caricature

A depiction in which a character's characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd.

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Chiasmus

A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second.

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Colloquial

Ordinary language, the vernacular.

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Conceit

A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem.

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Connotation

What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of a word.

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Consonance

The repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter-patter, pish-posh, clinging and clanging.

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Couplet

two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection.

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Dactylic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed syllable.

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Denotation

A direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word.

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Denouement

The final resolution of the main conflict in a play or story. It generally follows the climax.

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Dialect

The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people.

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Diction

The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect.

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Dramatic monologue

A monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience.

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Elegy

A poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation.

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Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next.

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Epic

a poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing of a culture: it uses elevated language and grand, high style.

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Exposition

That part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play.

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Extended metaphor

A detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of a work, also known as a conceit.

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Fable

A legend or a short moral story often using animals as characters.

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Falling action

That part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled. This is also known as the denouement.

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Farce

A play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor.

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Flashback

Retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative.

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Foreshadowing

To hint at or present an indication of the future beforehand.

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Formal diction

Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal.

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Free verse

Poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.

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Genre

A type or class of literature such as epic or narrative or poetry or belles lettres.

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Hyperbole

Overstatement characterized by exaggerated language.

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Iambic

A metrical foot in poetry that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

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Idyll

A short poem describing a country or pastoral scene, praising the simplicity and peace of rustic life.

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Imagery

Broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object.

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Informal Diction

Language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech.

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In medias res

"in the midst of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback.

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Irony

A situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant.

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Jargon

Specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group.

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Juxtaposition

The location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another.

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Limited point of view

A perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or a third person; the reader cannot know for sure what is going on in the minds of other characters.

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Litote

A figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement.

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Loose sentence

A sentence grammatically complete and usually stating its main idea before the end.

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Lyric

Originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation.

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Message

A misleading term for theme; the central idea or statement of a story, or area of inquiry or explanation.

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Metaphor

One thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them.

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Meter

The more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.

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Metonymy

A figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something.

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Mood

A feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view.

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Motif

A recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event.

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Narrative structure

A textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework.

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Narrator

The "character" who "tells" the story, or in poetry, the persona.

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Occasional poem

A poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private.

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Ode

A lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, is elevated in style, and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure, which is often patterned in sets of three.

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Omniscient point of view

Also called unlimited focus: a perspective that can be seen from one character's view, then another's, then another's, or can be moved in or out of the mind of any character at any time.

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Onomatopoeia

A word capturing or approximating the sound of what described.

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Overstatement

Exaggerated language; also called hyperbole.

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Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, sometimes resulting in a humorous image or statement.

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Parable

A short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy.

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Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true.

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Parallel structure

The use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts.

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Parody

A work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original.

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Pastoral

A work that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love.

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Periodic sentence

A sentence that is not grammatically complete until the end.

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Persona

The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story who may or may not share the values of the actual author.

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Personification

Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by endowing it with human qualities.

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Petrarchan sonnet

Also called Italian Sonnet: a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines and a second section of six lines.

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Plot

The arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of the events

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Protagonist

The main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic.

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Quatrain

A poetic stanza of four lines.

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Realism

The practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail.

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Refrain

A repeated stanza or line in a poem or song.

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