Ap Literature

AP Literature Vocabulary List

1. Allegory – A form of extended metaphor in which the objects, persons, places and

actions in a narrative are equated with meanings outside the narrative itself.

2. 3. Alliteration – the repetition of initial sounds in successive or neighboring words.

Allusion -- a figure of speech that makes brief reference to a historical or literary figure,

event, or object.

4. 5. Anachronism – assignment of something to a time when it was not in existence.

Analogy- A comparison of two things that are alike in certain aspects. Often used to use

something familiar to explain the unfamiliar.

6. Anaphora- …

7. Antithesis – A figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses,

sentences, or ideas. It is the balancing of one term against another.

8. Archetype – an image, a descriptive detail, a plot pattern, or a character type that occurs

frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore.

9. Asyndeton – omission of connecting words in a list

10. Characterization – The creation of imaginary persons by an author so that they seem

lifelike.

a. b. Direct Characterization – the writer tells the reader what a character is like.

Indirect Characterization – the writer shows the reader what a character is like

through his/her dialogue and/or actions or through other characters.

11. Colloquialism – An expression used in informal conversation but not accepted

universally in formal speech or writing.

12. Dialect – a variety of speech characterized by its own particular grammar or

pronunciations, often associated with a particular geographical region

13. Dramatic Irony – the audience knows more about a character’s situation than the

character does.

14. Euphemism – A device in which indirectness replaces the directness of a statement,

usually in an effort to avoid offensiveness.

15. Extended Metaphor – a metaphor that continues over several lines or throughout an

entire work

16. Foil – a character who, through contrast, underscores the characteristics of another.

17. Genre – a category of literary composition.

a. Verse: metrical language

b. Prose: the ordinary form of spoke or written language without metrical structure

18. Idiom – Use of words peculiar to a given language; an expression that cannot be

translated literally.

19. Imagery- The technique by which the author creates images within a literary work.

20. Metaphor- A type of analogy in which identifies one object with another and ascribes to

the first object one or more of the qualities of the second.

21. Motif –. Recurrent images, words objects, phrases, actions, etc. that tend to unify a

work of literature.

22. Onomatopoeia- Words that by their sounds suggest their meaning.

23. Oxymoron– A self-contradictory combination of words.

24. Paradox – a statement that although seemingly contradictory or absurd may be actually

well-founded or true.

25. Personification- The representing of non-human things or ideas as having human

personalities, intelligence, emotions, or physical features.

26. Polysyndeton (pol-ee-sin-di-ton) – the repeated use of conjunctions to link together a

succession of words, clauses, or sentences.

27. Satire – mode of writing that exposes the failings of individuals, institutions, or societies

to ridicule and scorn.

28. Simile- A figure of speech in which a similarity between two objects is directly

expressed, most often introduced by words such as like, as, compare, liken, resemble,

etc.

29. Understatement – to represent with restraint; to say less than is meant.

Words specific to poetry

1. Anaphora – the same expression (word or words) is repeated at the beginning of two or

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. more lines.

Apostrophe – the speaker addresses a dead (or absent) person or an abstraction or

inanimate object – it provides the speaker an opportunity to think aloud.

Couplet- Two successive lines (of poetry), usually of the same meter, linked by Rhyme.

End-stopped line- A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by

punctuation.

Enjambment – see “Run-on line”

Form- The external pattern or shape of the poem, describable without reference to its

content.

a. Blank Verse- unrhymed, but otherwise regular verse (IE it has a meter, usually

iambic pentameter)

b. Fixed Form- a form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by

previous usage traditions (such as a sonnet or Villanelle)

c. Free verse- nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in

which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the

requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms.

Lyric Poetry- A brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and

emotion and creating a single unified effect. Has numerous subclassifications.

a. Ode- A single, unified strain of exalted lyrical verse, directed to a single purpose

and dealing with one theme.

b. Sonnet- A fixed form of fourteen lines, normally in iambic pentameter, with a

rhyme scheme conforming to one of two main types—the Italian or English

i. English (Shakespearian) Sonnet- A sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. It’s

content usually parallels the rhyme scheme, with three quatrains and a

concluding couplet a shift just before the couplet, but if structured like an

itialian sonnet with an octave and a sestet, the shift occurs after the 8th

8. line.

ii. Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet- A sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming

abbaabba and a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional

rhymes. A shift occurs after the 8th line.

Meter- the measurable repetition of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry.

a. Foot- The basic unit used in the measurement of metical verse. A foot usually

contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables

i. Iamb- A metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by

one accented syllable. (da-DUM)

1. Iambic meter- A meter in which the that majority of feet at Iambs;

the most common English meter

ii. Trochee- A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by

one unaccented syllable. (DUM-da)

1. Trochaic meter – A meter in which the majority of the feet are

Tochees

iii. Anapest- A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllabled followed

by one unaccented syllable. (da-da-DUM)

1. Anapestic Meter- A meter in which the majority of the feet are

anapests.

iv. Dactyl- A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by

two unaccented syllables (DUM-da-da)

1. Dactylic meter- A meter in which the majority of the feet are

dactyls

b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. Monometer: A meter consisting of one metrical foot per line

Dimeter: A meter consisting of two metrical feet per line

Trimeter: A meter consisting of three metrical feet per line

Tetrameter: A meter consisting of four metrical feet per line

Pentameter: A meter consisting of five metrical feet per line

Hexameter: A meter consisting of six metrical feet per line

Heptameter: A meter consisting of seven metrical feet per line

Octameter: A meter consisting of four metrical feet per line

j. Heroic Meter- Iambic Pentameter is called heroic because it is often used in epic

or heroic poetry.

9. Refrain- A repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines normally at some fixed position

in a poem written in stanzaic form

10. Rhyme- The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all succeeding sounds in important

or importantly positioned words

a. Approximate (Near) Rhyme- when words have sound correspondence but are

not a perfect/identical rhyme. Usually occur occasionally within poems with

mostly identical rhymes.

b. End Rhyme- Rhymes that occur at the ends of the lines

c. Internal Rhyme- A rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme words occur(s)

within the line

d. Rhyme scheme- a fixed pattern of rhymes characterizing a whole poem or its

stanzas

11. Run-on line (Enjambment)- a line that has no natural speech pause at its end, allow the

sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line.

12. Scansion- The process of measuring metrical verse (that is the actual process of marking

the different parts of the meter).

13. Sonnet- See Lyric Poetry

14. Stanza- A group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually rhyme scheme) is repeated

throughout the poem

a. Couplet- a two-line stanza (also see “Couplet” above)

15. Structure- The internal organization of a poems content