ap lit terms

2021-22 LITERARY TERMS TO KNOW & their definitions

Definitions from The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 2nd ed., Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense, 12th ed, the brains of your current AP teachers and past AP teacher royalty


—SYNTAX & STRUCTURE—

Anachronism: Something that isn’t placed in its proper historical time period

Anaphora: Repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines

Anecdote: A brief narrative that focuses on a particular incident or event; frequently reveals a character trait

Antecedent: The word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers

Antithesis: Rhetorical figure in which two ideas are directly opposed; must be presented in grammatically parallel way 

Asyndeton: A rhetorical figure involving the deliberate omission of conjunctions to create a concise, terse, and often memorable statement

Caesura: A speech pause occurring within a line

Chiasmus: A rhetorical figure consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed. (“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”)

Climax: The point of greatest tension or emotional intensity in a plot; “turning point” 

Conflict: A confrontation or struggle between opposing characters or forces from which the action emanates and around which it evolves

  • Physical (man vs. man; man vs. nature)

  • Social (man vs. society)

  • Internal (man vs. self)

Denouement: Refers to events following the climax of a plot and implies some ingenious resolution of the dramatic conflict and explanation of the mysteries/misunderstandings of the plot 

Deus Ex Machina: “God from the machine”, refers to the intervention of a nonhuman force to resolve a seemingly unresolvable conflict in a literary work; an improbable or artificial resolutions of conflict

Enjambment: A poetic expression that spans more than one line; do not end with grammatical breaks and a sense of incompleteness 

Epigraph: A saying or statement on the title page of a work, or used as a heading for a chapter or other section of work

Flashback: The insertion of an earlier event into the normal chronological order of a narrative

Foreshadowing: The technique of introducing into a narrative material that prepares the reader or audience for future events, actions, or revelations

In Medias Res: technique of beginning a narrative in the middle of the action

Juxtaposition: placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast

Parallelism: A rhetorical figure to accentuate or emphasize ideas/images by using grammatically similar constructions

Polysyndeton: the use, for rhetorical effect, of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural

Style: An author’s choices and use of figurative language, diction, sound effects, syntax etc.; the combination of distinctive features of a literary work

Syntax: The arrangement--the ordering, grouping, and placement--of words within a sentence


—HOW IT’S SAID—

Adage: A familiar proverb or saying

Ambiguity: Result of something being stated in such a way that it meaning cannot be definitely determined

Colloquialism: Informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing.

Comedic Relief: A humorous scene or passage inserted into an otherwise serious work intended to provide an emotional outlet and change of pace; creates a contrast that further emphasizes the seriousness of the work 

Euphemism: An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant

Hyperbole: A figure of speech that uses deliberate exaggeration to achieve an effect; sometimes called overstatement

Idiom: An expression in a given language that cannot be understood from the literal meaning of the words in the expression; or, a regional speech or dialect

Interior Monologue: A mode of narrative intended to reveal to the reader the subjective thoughts, emotions, and fleeting sensations experienced by a character

Irony: A contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality

  • Verbal: a figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant

  • Situational: a discrepancy between expectation and reality

  • Dramatic: an incongruity between what a character says/thinks and what the reader knows to be true

  • Romantic: works whose authors/speakers at some point reveal their narration to be the fabrication of an idiosyncratic and highly self-conscious creator; wreaks havoc with reader/audience as usual suspension of disbelief, debunking as illusion the normal operating assumption that the narration is a believable representation of reality

Jargon: The specialized language or vocabulary of a particular group or profession

Point of View: The vantage point from which a narrative is told

  • First person: a narrator who is a character in the story 

  • Third Person Limited: a narrator who presents the story as it is seen and understood by a single character and restricts information to what is seen, heard, thought, or felt by that one character

  • Third Person Omniscient: a narrator who is able to know, see, and tell all, including the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters

Pun: A play on words that capitalizes on a similarity of spelling and/or pronunciation between words that have different meanings; may also employ one word that has multiple meanings

Rhetorical Question: A question asked merely for rhetorical effect and not requiring an answer

Sarcasm: Bitter or cutting speech; intended to insult the person addressed

Stream of consciousness: A particular type of interior monologue, is an attempt to represent the inner workings of a character’s mind, to recreate the continuous, chaotic flow of half-formed and discontinuous thoughts, memories, sense impressions, random associations, images, feelings, and reflections 

Tone: The writer or speaker’s attitude towards the subject; the emotional coloring or meaning of a work

Understatement: A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than what the occasion warrants; often used for humorous, ironic, or even satiric effect

Vernacular: The everyday speech of a particular country or region, often involving nonstandard usage


—GENRE—

Allegory: A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one

Comedy: Literary genre in which the situation begins badly, progresses well and the hero triumphs (usually ends in a marriage)

Existentialism: philosophy that focuses on the individual human being’s experience of, recognition of, and triumph over the meaningless of existence; people are responsible for shaping their own existence 

Fantasy: A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of known reality

Farce: A type of drama related to comedy but emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action and course wit over characterization or articulated plot

Gothic: Refers to a genre characterized by the general mood of decay, action that is dramatic and generally violent or otherwise disturbing, loves that are destructively passionate, and settings that are grandiose, if gloomy or bleak

Melodrama: A type of drama related to tragedy but featuring sensational incidents emphasizing plot, at the expense of characterization, relying on cruder conflicts and having a happy ending in which good triumphs or evil 

Novella: A shorter novel, usually with a single major incident rather than a series

Parody: Exaggerated imitation, usually humorous, other work or style of art; type of satire, which makes fun of any and all human characteristics; can be thought of as a form of criticism that approaches the subject from within

Prose: all forms of writing similar to everyday speech; the language of essays, novels, and short stories; lacks the rhythmic pattern of poetry 

Satire: A literary genre that uses irony, wit, and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanity’s vices and foibles, giving impetus to change or reform through ridicule; has a moral purpose (unlike comedy that seeks to entertain/amuse) 

Short Story: A brief fictional prose narrative

Tragedy: A serious and often somber drama, written in prose or verse, that typically ends in disaster and focus on a character who undergoes unexpected personal reversals (the opposite of comedy)

Romanticism: Literary movement beginning in the late 18th century that stressed emotion, imagination, and individualism

Transcendentalism: Literary movement in mid 19th century in the US that stresses truth in nature, guided by one’s own conscience, anti-conformity, opposed to pure Rationalism, self-reliance

Realism: Literary movement that developed in the latter half of the 19th century in reaction to the excesses of Romanticism; emphasis on objective presentation of details/events, characterization as the critical element of a literary work

Naturalism: Literary movement from 1900-1914 that tended to represent characters as victims both of their instinctual drives and of society

Modernism: Literary movement from WW1-WW2 that sought to break away from traditions and conventions through experimentation with new literary forms, devices, and styles; texts feature social alienation, disillusionment, and detachment

PostModernism: Radically experimental literary movement after WW2 that reveals and highlights the meaninglessness of human existence; PostModernists frequently stress that humans desperately and ultimately uncessucessuilly cling to illusions of security to conceal and forget the void over which their lives are perched; uses humor and irony, pop culture references, non-linear storytelling, unreliable narrator, etc.


—POETIC FORMS—

Aubade: a poem about dawn; a morning love song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn

Ballad: A poem that recounts a story - generally some dramatic episode - and that has been composed to be sung; traditional ballads often have simple stanzas, abrupt transitions between stanzas, refrains, stock descriptive phrases, incremental repetition, dialogue and impersonal language 

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Couplet: Two successive lines usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme

Elegy: Reflective, formal poem that laments death, sometimes loss

Foot: Basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse; one accented syllables and one-two unaccented syllables

Free Verse: Poetry that lacks a regular meter, does not rhyme, and use as a regular and sometimes very short line lengths

Lyric Poetry: A brief melodic and imaginative poem characterized by the fervent but structured expression of private thoughts and emotions by a single speaker in first person

Meter: The patterned repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables

Narrative Poetry: Verse that tells a story (Ex.: ballad or epic)

Ode: a lyric poem with a dignified tone in praise of someone, something, or an important occasion

Refrain: Line(s) that recur(s) throughout or a poem or lyrics of a song; may vary slightly but is generally exactly the same (like a chorus)

Rhyme: The repetition of sounds

  • End rhyme: repetition of the same sound at the end of the lines

  • Initial rhyme: repetition of the same sound at the beginning of the lines

  • Internal rhyme: rhyme that occurs within lines

  • Slant/off rhyme: inexact but close rhyme

  • Sight rhyme: words that look like they should rhyme but don’t

  • Rhyme Scheme: The pattern of rhyme in a poem; a lower case letter is typically assigned to each new rhyming sound 

Rhythm: A measured flow of words and signifying the  basic beat or pattern in a language that is established by stressed syllables, unstressed syllables, and pauses

Scansion: the analysis of verse to show its meter.

Sonnet: A lyric poem that almost always consists of 14 lines and that follows one of several conventional rhyme schemes; may address a range of issues/themes, but love is most common

  • Italian/Petrarchan sonnet: 14 lines, 2 parts: the octave (8 lines, abbaabba) and sestet (cdecde or cdcdcd)

  • Shakespearean/English sonnet: 3 quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg

Stanzas: A group of set lines in a poem, usually physically set off from the other such clusters by a blank line

Sestina: A type of fixed form poetry consisting of thirty-six lines of any length divided into six sestets and a three-line concluding stanza called an envoy. The six words at the end of the first sestet's lines must also appear at the ends of the other five sestets, in varying order. These six words must also appear in the envoy, where they often resonate important themes.

Villanelle: a 19-line fixed form consisting of 5 tercets (3-line stanzas) rhymed aba and concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 12 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19

Terza Rima: An interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc.


—FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE—

Abstract: Ideas or general qualities of things; lacking vivid detail

Allusion: A reference to something literary, mythological, Biblical, the arts, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize

Analogy: A comparison of two different things which are similar in some way

Apostrophe: A device used wherein a character addresses a dead, absent, or imaginary person, thing or personified abstraction

Cliché: Expression used so often that it has become hackneyed and lost its original impact

Concrete: specific details to particular persons/things; creates a clear image for the reader

Conceit: An elaborate and often surprising comparison between two apparently highly dissimilar things ; Most notable for its ingenuity

Figurative Language: A type of language employing figures of speech; cannot be taken literally or ONLY literally

Imagery: The representation through language of sense experience 

Metaphor: A figure of speech that associates two unlike things; the representation of one thing by another 

Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one thing is represented by another that is commonly and often physically associated with it  (“The pen [writing] is mightier than the sword [war/fighting]”)

Mood: The general feeling created in the reader at a given point

Motif: A unifying element in an artistic work, especially any recurrent image, symbol, character type, subject or narrative detail 

Onomatopoeia: The creation or use of words that sound like what they mean or seem to signify meaning through sound effects

Oxymoron: Figure of speech that juxtaposes two opposite or apparently contradictory words to present an emphatic and dramatic paradox for rhetorical purpose or effect 

Paradox: A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements; upon closer inspection may be seen to contain an underlying truth

Personification: A figure of speech or trope that bestows human characteristics upon anything nonhuman, from an abstract idea to a physical force to an inanimate object to a living organism

Simile: A figure of speech that compares two distinct things by using words such as like or as

Symbol: Something that means more than what it is; stands for or suggests something larger and more complex--often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices

Synecdoche: A figure of speech (or a trope) in which a part of something is used to represent the whole, or occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part (referring to a car simply as “wheels”)



—CHARACTER—

Antagonist: person or force working against the protagonist

Anthropomorphism: an animal that takes on human characteristics (walking, talking, etc.)

Antihero: A protagonist in a modern work who does not exhibit the qualities of the traditional hero

Archetype: a detail, image, or character type that occurs frequently in literature and myth and is thought to be considered universal

Aside: in drama, a convention by which actors speak briefly to the audience, supposedly without being heard by the other actors on stage

Bildungsroman: A novel that recounts the development (psychological and sometimes spiritual) of an individual from childhood to maturity, to the point at which the protagonist recognizes his or her place and role in the world 

Caricature: the exaggeration of specific features of appearance or personality

Catharsis: The emotional effect a tragic drama has on its audience; a “cleansing”; Aristotle said tragedy provided the audience with the opportunity to purge the emotions of pity and fear

Character: Figure in a literary work

  • Flat characters: defined by a single idea or quality

  • Round characters: have the three-dimensional complexity of real people

  • Static characters: don’t change significantly over the course of a work

  • Dynamic characters: change in response to circumstance and experience

Characterization: Various means by which an author describes and develops the characters in a literary work

  • Direct: narrator’s description of a character

  • Indirect: characters’ actions, dialogue, other characters’ comments about them (STEAL)

Dialogue: Conversation between two or more characters in a literary work

Epiphany: A moment of sudden revelation or insight

Foil: A character who, by his contrast with the main character, serves to accentuate that character’s distinctive qualities or characteristics 

Hubris: Excessive pride that constitutes the protagonist’s tragic flaw and leads to his/her downfall 

Narrator: A speaker through whom an author presents a narrative, often but not always a character in the work

Protagonist: Character around which the action is centered

Soliloquy: A speech in which a character, alone on a stage, addresses him/herself; it is a “thinking out loud”, a dramatic means of letting an audience know a character’s thoughts/feelings or some other important information

Tragic Hero: The central character in a tragedy who experiences a tragic downfall. The tragic hero has a tragic flaw which is the error, misstep, frailty, or flaw that causes the downfall of the tragic hero (also referred to as hamartia).


—LANGUAGE & SOUNDS—

Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds in successive or neighboring words

Assonance: The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually in stressed syllables

Cacophony: Sound effect that uses harsh and displeasing sounds; opposite of euphony

Connotation: The association developed by a word beyond its denotation or literal meaning

Consonance: Repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words (“made/wood”)

Denotation: The literal meaning of a word

Diction: A speaker or author's word choice

Euphony: Soft, pleasing sounds; opposite of cacophony

Synesthesia: Presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another sensation (“a loud color,” “a sweet sound”) 

Rhyme: The repetition of sounds [see above in POETIC FORMS for full list]