4788504337 | poetry | rhythmic expression of feelings and ideas (song), may or may not rhyme | 0 | |
4788504338 | prose | generally broken into fiction and nonfiction (narrative) | 1 | |
4788504339 | drama | a play; intended to be acted out; written in verse or conversational style | 2 | |
4788504340 | allegory | story using underlying symbols that really represent something else; may be a a character | 3 | |
4788504341 | allteration | repeated use of a consonant sound, usually at the beginning of a series of words | 4 | |
4788504342 | allusion | indirect reference to something or someone, usually literary | 5 | |
4788504343 | anacrhonism | placing a person or an object in an appropriate historical situation, either deliberately or unintentionally | 6 | |
4788504344 | analogy | comparison used to explain something | 7 | |
4788504345 | anecdote | short narrative, story, or tale | 8 | |
4788504346 | antagonist | major character opposing protagonist; usually the villain | 9 | |
4788504347 | anthropomorphism | assigning human attributes to non human things; usually applied to animals | 10 | |
4788504348 | diction | author's choice of words and sentence structure (correctness, clearness, effectiveness) | 11 | |
4788504349 | levels of diction | 1. formal 2. informal 3. colloquial 4. slang | 12 | |
4788504350 | elegy | mournful and melancholy poem or song, usually paying tribute to a deceased person | 13 | |
4788504351 | emphasis | special forcefulness of expression that gives importance to something singled out | 14 | |
4788504352 | fable | story that has a moral, usually involving animals as the main characters | 15 | |
4788504353 | figurative language | characterized by figures of speech (metaphors, similes); elaborate expression through imagery | 16 | |
4788504354 | hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration | 17 | |
4788504355 | imagery | author's use of descriptive and figurative language used to create a picture in the reader's imagination | 18 | |
4788504356 | indirect dialogue | language that communicates what was expressed in the dialogue, without using direct quotation | 19 | |
4788504357 | irony | expression of meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning | 20 | |
4788504358 | meaning | something that one wishes to convey | 21 | |
4788504359 | metaphor | comparison, like a simile (doesn't use like or as); sometimes confusing because an author will include like | 22 | |
4788504360 | meter | rhythm of a poem; most common is iambic (sounds like a galloping sound) | 23 | |
4788504361 | narrative | literary representation of an event or story; the actual text used | 24 | |
4788504362 | onomatopoeia | word intended to stimulate the actual sound of the thing or the action the thing takes | 25 | |
4788504363 | oxymoron | phrase in which the words are contradictory | 26 | |
4788504364 | paean | expression of joyful praise | 27 | |
4788504365 | parable | story with a moral; Good Samaritan | 28 | |
4788504366 | paradox | phrase that appears to be contradictory but that actually contains some basic truth that resolves the apparent contradiction | 29 | |
4788504367 | parallelism | repetition of sounds, meanings, or structures to create a certain style | 30 | |
4788504368 | parody | literary work in which the style of an author is imitated for comic effect or ridicule | 31 | |
4788504369 | pastoral | work that deals with the lives of people, especially shepherds, in the country or in nature (as opposed to the city) | 32 | |
4788504370 | pathos | something that evokes a feeling of pity or sympathy; a pathetic person adds feelings to the story | 33 | |
4788504371 | personification | assigning human attributes to something nonhuman | 34 | |
4788504372 | perspective | viewpoint from which the narrator or character sees things | 35 | |
4788504373 | point of view | vantage point from which a story is presented to a reader; most common: first and third person | 36 | |
4788504374 | protagonist | main character of a story; usually the hero | 37 | |
4788504375 | rhyme scheme | way a poem's rhymes are arranged; think of a sonnet, for example | 38 | |
4788504376 | satire | ridicule of a subject; often humorous and intended to point out something about a serious subject | 39 | |
4788504377 | simile | comparison of two things using "like" and "as"; used in poetry to evoke an idea through an image | 40 | |
4788504378 | stanza | divisions in a poem (like a paragraph in prose) | 41 | |
4788504379 | structure | framework of a work of literature; organization or overall design; provides clues to character and action | 42 | |
4788504380 | style | author's unique manner of expression; the author's voice | 43 | |
4788504381 | syntax | ordering of words into meaningful patterns (phrases, clauses, and sentences); poets manipulate syntax changing traditional word order in an attempt to draw attention to particular words or phrases | 44 | |
4788504382 | theme | central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work; provides a unifying point around which the plot, characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements are organized | 45 | |
4788504383 | tone | style or manner of expression | 46 |
AP Literature definitions Flashcards
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