AP Literature Essential Vocabulary

Allusion: A reference to a well known person, play, event, or work

Ambiguity: When a word or idea has more than one meaning

Contrast: Clear difference between two elements

Diction: Word choice; specifically chosen to create an intended effect

Figurative Language: Words/Phrases that aren’t meant to be taken literally

Imagery: Descriptive language that appeals to the senses

Irony: A contrast between expectation and reality

Irony (Verbal): Saying one thing but meaning another (Not the same as sarcasm, Sarcasm: Irony = square: rectangle)

Irony (Situational): What happens is the opposite of what’s expected

Irony (Dramatic): The audience knows something that the characters don’t

Juxtaposition: Placing two things side by side to highlight differences

Mood: The emotional atmosphere of a text; how you, the audience feel while reading

Motif: A recurring element that has symbolic significance

Oxymoron: 2 opposite words that are paired together

Paradox: A statement that seems contradictory but reveals a truth

Symbolism: When one thing represents something else

Syntax: Sentence structure and word order

Theme: The central idea or message in a text

Tone: The author’s attitude toward the subject or audience

Antagonist: The force or character that opposes the protagonist

Archetype: A universal symbol or character type

Characterization: How the author develops characters

Characterization (Direct): The narrator tells you what a character is like

Characterization (Indirect): You learn through actions, dialouge, and reactions

Climax: The turning point of the story

Conflict: The central struggle in a story

Conflict (Internal): When the struggle is inside a character, or with themself

Conflict (External): When the strugle is between two outside forces: man vs man, man vs society, man vs nature, man vs fate, man vs supernatural, man vs technology

Flashback: A scene set earlier than the main story, but it happens during the main story

Foil: A character who contrasts another, highlight specific traits

Foreshadowing: Purposeful “easter eggs” that hint at what’s going to happen later in the story

Frame Narrative: A story within a story

In media res: starting a story in the middle of the action

Point of View (POV): The perspective from which a story is told

Protagonist: Main character

Resolution/Denouement: The final outcome/wrap up; the conclusion of the story

Unreliable Narrator: A narrator whose credibility is questionable

Allegory: A story where characters and events represent deeper moral or political meanings

Aside: A brief remark to the audience not heard by others, usualy in a play/script

Bildungsroman: A coming of age story

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Comedy: A lighter story with a happy ending

Couplet: Two lines of verse, usually rhymed

Dramatic Monologue: A poem where a character speaks to a silent listener

Free Verse: Poetry without regular meter of rhyme

Iambic Pentameter: A line with ten syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern

Prose: Regular written or spoken language; anything that is NOT poetry

Satire: Using humor or irony to criticize

Soliloquy: A speech where a character speaks thoughts aloud while alone

Sonet: A 14 line poem with a specific rhyme scheme

Tragedy: A serious story where the main character faces downfall, often due to a personal flaw

Verse: Writing with meter or rhythm, most often poetry

Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds

Anaphora: Repetition at the beginning of clauses

Antithesis: Contrasting ideas in a balanced sentence

Apostrophe: Addressing an absent or imaginary person/thing

Assonance: Repetiiton of vowel sounds

Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds within words

Epiphora: Repetition at the end of clauses

Hyperbole: Extreme exaggeration

Metaphor: A comparision saying one thing IS another

Metonymy: Substituting something closely related for the actual

Motif: A recurring element (Object, Image, or Idea) that reinforces a theme of a text

Onomatopoeia: Words that imitate sounds

Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things

Simile: A comparision using “like” or “as”

Symbolism: When an object or element stands for a deeper meaning

Synecdoche: A part that represents the whole

Understatement (Litotes): Saying less than what you actually mean