AP Lit. Terms Review: 1st 25 words
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| 6148798474 | accent | The degree of stress given to a syllable--an important component of meter. | 0 | |
| 6148805568 | Act | A major division in a play. Often, individual acts are divided into smaller units ("scenes") that all take place in a specific location. | 1 | |
| 6148834954 | allegory | The word derives from the Greek (literally, "speaking otherwise"). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. This term involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning. The act of interpreting a story as if each object in it had an allegorical meaning is called "allegoresis". | 2 | |
| 6148853217 | alliteration | Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound. For instance, the phrase "buckets of big blue berries". | 3 | |
| 6149078595 | allusion | A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. This term can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works. Authors often use this term to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself. Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context. | 4 | |
| 6149086246 | ambiguity | In literature, this term serves as a powerful device, leaving something undetermined in order to open up multiple possible meanings. When we refer to this literary term, we refer to any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways. As William Empson put it, this term is "any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language" | 5 | |
| 6149096320 | anagram | When the letters or syllables in a name, word or phrase are shuffled together or jumbled to form a new word. For instance, in Tanith Lee's short story, "Bite-Me-Not, or Fleur De Fleu," the predatory vampire's name is Feroluce--an example of this lit. term of his demonic predecessor, Lucifer. Similarly in the film Angelheart, the devil travels using the anagram Louis Cipher, i.e., Lucifer as a moniker, and in film-makers' spin-offs of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula uses the name Alucard as a disguise. Authors who love wordplay love using this lit. device. For instance, Samuel Butler's utopian satire Erewhon is an anagram of "Nowhere." Critics have suggested Hawthorne's short story "The Minister's Black Veil" involves this lit. term on veil and evil. | 6 | |
| 6149102914 | antagonist | The main character of a work of a fiction is typically called the protagonist; the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends (if there is one), is this literary device. | 7 | |
| 7557524100 | antihero | A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero. While the traditional hero may be dashing, strong, brave, resourceful, or handsome, the this lit. term describes how he or she may be incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish. | 8 | |
| 7557524101 | apostrophe | Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, this lit. term is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present: For instance, John Donne commands, "Oh, Death, be not proud." King Lear proclaims, "Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster." Death, of course, is a phenomenon rather than a proud person, and ingratitude is an abstraction that hardly cares about Lear's opinion, but the act of addressing the abstract has its own rhetorical power. This lit. term is an example of a rhetorical trope. | 9 | |
| 7557531623 | aside | In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker's words. It is a theatrical convention that is not audible to other characters on stage. Contrast with soliloquy. | 10 | |
| 7557531624 | assonance | Repeating identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllables) in nearby words. | 11 | |
| 7557535000 | authorial narrative situation | This lit. term is an aspect of discourse, which means that it is part of the analysis that examines HOW a narrative is told. It is characteristic of narrative prose (and narrative poetry) that it is always told by someone, i.e. it is always mediated in some way through a 'voice'. This is not the case in drama or film, where the characters generally speak directly. | 12 | |
| 7557536813 | ballad | In common parlance, song hits, folk music, and folktales or any song that tells a story. In more exact literary terminology, this term is a narrative poem consisting of quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. Common traits of this lit. term are that (a) the beginning is often abrupt, (b) the story is told through dialogue and action (c) the language is simple or "folksy," (d) the theme is often tragic--though comic ballads do exist, and (e) it contains a refrain repeated several times | 13 | |
| 7557536814 | ballad stanza | a four-line stanza in iambic meter in which the first and third unrhymed lines have four metrical feet and the second and fourth rhyming lines have three metrical feet. | 14 | |
| 7557539864 | biographical criticism | This literary term is a form of Literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their works of literature. | 15 | |
| 7557541208 | blank verse | Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents. This lit. term has been called the most "natural" verse form for dramatic works, since it supposedly is the verse form most close to natural rhythms of English speech, and it has been the primary verse form of English drama and narrative poetry since the mid-Sixteenth Century. | 16 | |
| 7557541209 | cacophony | (Greek, "bad sound"): The term in poetry refers to the use of words that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds. It is the opposite of euphony. | 17 | |
| 7557544270 | caesura | A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an important part of poetic rhythm. This lit. term comes from the Latin "a cutting" or "a slicing." Some editors will indicate this term by inserting a slash (/) in the middle of a poetic line. Others insert extra space in this location. Others do not indicate it typographically at all. | 18 | |
| 7557544271 | canon | literature students typically use this lit. term to refer to those works in anthologies that have come to be considered standard or traditionally included in the classroom and published textbooks. In this sense, this term denotes the entire body of literature traditionally thought to be suitable for admiration and study. | 19 | |
| 7557546924 | carpe diem | Literally, the phrase is Latin for "seize the day,". The term refers to a common moral or theme in classical literature that the reader should make the most out of life and should enjoy it before it ends. Poetry or literature that illustrates this moral is often called poetry or literature of the this term's tradition. | 20 | |
| 7557546925 | catharsis | An emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, this term is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work. He writes in his Poetics (c. 350 BCE): "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; . . . through pity [eleos] and fear [phobos] effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions" (Book 6.2). | 21 | |
| 7557551183 | character, characterization | Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative work through extended dramatic or verbal representation. The reader can interpret characters as endowed with moral and dispositional qualities expressed in what they say (dialogue) and what they do (action). An author or poet's use of description, dialogue, dialect, and action to create in the reader an emotional or intellectual reaction to a character or to make the character more vivid and realistic. Careful readers note each character's attitude and thoughts, actions and reaction, as well as any language that reveals geographic, social, or cultural background. | 22 | |
| 7557551184 | chorus | A group of singers who stand alongside or off stage from the principal performers in a dramatic or musical performance. The song or refrain that this group of singers sings. In ancient Greece, the this term originally indicated a group of male singers and dancers who participated in religious festivals and dramatic performances by singing commenting on the deeds of the characters and interpreting the significance of the events within the play. | 23 | |
| 7557553576 | cliche | A hackneyed or trite phrase that has become overused. This lit. term is associated with bad writing and bad literature. This term can also denote bad rhymes considered trite or predictable. | 24 |
