Copy of AP Lit terms, student list

Lit Terms

  1. Allegory: A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself

        Ex. lion and the mouse; the weak help the strong

  1. Anastrophe: Inversion of the natural or usual word order

        Ex. patience i lack

  1. Anthropomorphism: the attribution of human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects

                Ex. cat in the hat

  1. Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds

                Ex. go slow over the road

  1. Asyndeton: the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.

                Ex. “I came, I saw, I conquered”

  1. Authorial intrusion: Discussions directed to the reader and constituting a substantial break in the narrative illusion of reality

        Ex. breaking the fourth wall

  1. Bildungstrom: a coming of age story

                Ex. harry potter

  1. Cacophony: a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds

                Ex. the sounds you’d hear at the local market

  1. Caesura: A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line.

                Ex. ||

  1. Chiasmus: a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases

        Ex. “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."

  1. Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds

                Ex. mike likes his new bike

  1. Deus ex machina: an unexpected event saving a seemingly hopeless situation

Ex. character falls of cliff, robot appears and catches him

  1. Ekphrastic: a poem in response to visual works of art

                Ex. the iliad

  1. Euphony: pleasing to the ear

        Ex. “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see”

  1. Faulty parallelism: Lack of balance in grammatical forms

        Ex. rap, nap, and snack

  1. Hubris: excessive pride or arrogance that results in the downfall of the protagonist of a tragedy

        Ex. politician who skips campaigning cause he believes he's going to win

  1. Hyperbaton: reversal of normal word order

        Ex. cheese I love

  1. Idiom: A common, often used expression that doesn't make sense if you take it literally

        Ex. cold feet

  1. Internal rhyme: a rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of the line or in the middle of the next.

        Ex. there is glue in my shoe

  1. Inversion: inverted order of words in a sentence

        Ex. On the windowsill were her two cats, Penny and Percival

  1. Kenning: metaphorical phrases or compound words used to name a person, place, things or event indirectly

        Ex. battle-sweat

  1. Litote: understatement by denying a negative

        Ex. "It's not the best weather today" during a hurricane

  1. Malapropism: a word humorously misused by replacing with similar sounding words

        Ex. “He is the very pineapple of politeness!”

  1. Metonymy: A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it

        Ex. “the pen is mightier than the sword”

  1. Motif: a principal idea, feature, theme, or element

        Ex. A repeated reference or visual of shattered glass (something in life is about to break)

  1. Negative capability: accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. (Suspend your belief)

        Ex. containing no real solution on how to deal with the anxieties of impending death

  1. Pathetic fallacy: The attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature

        Ex. angry clouds

  1. Periodic structure: A sentence in which the main clause or predicate is withheld until the end

        Ex. “Because she's kind, caring, beautiful, and one of a kind—that's why I want to marry her.”

  1. Periphrasis: substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name or of a proper name for a quality associated with the name (wordy)

        Ex.  describing someone as "more intelligent" instead of "smarter."

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

        Ex. “'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers.”

  1. Rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhyme in a poem

        Ex. AABB

  1. Rhythm and Rhyme: A pattern that is created by using words that produce the same, or similar, sounds.

        Ex. light and night

  1. Satire: A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.

        Ex. political cartoons

  1. Spoonerism: An accidental but humorous distortion of words in a phrase formed by interchanging the initial sounds

        Ex. "Jelly beans" becomes "belly jeans."

  1. Stanza: a group of lines in a poem

        Ex. “In the winter it's every kid's dream, / As snowflakes begin to appeal, / That suddenly there'll be a blizzard, / And they'll cancel school for the year"

  1. Stream of Consciousness: writing where you can can see the inner workings of the character’s mind

        Ex. James Joyce, Ulysses

  1. Synecdoche: Figure of speech where a part represents a whole or vice versa

        Ex. “Wheels” in reference to a car

  1. Synesthesia: Writing that uses human senses to describe objects

        Ex. Her voice was as smooth as pudding.

  1. Syntax: the structure of a sentence

        Ex. “The boy ran hurriedly," vs "Hurriedly, the boy ran."

  1. Tragedy: a story where things are tragic for the main character

        Ex. The Iliad- Homer

  1. Verisimilitude: the appearance of being true or real

        Ex. when a story is relatable/ accurate to real life

  1. Verse: a single line of poetry

        Ex. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?