Key terms in AP English Literature and Composition from the Kaplan study guide.
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| 5104750527 | allegory - 1 | a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, or setting demonstrate multiple levels of meaning or significance | 0 | |
| 5104750528 | alliteration - 1 | the sequential repetition of a similar initial sound | 1 | |
| 5104750529 | allusion - 1 | a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place | 2 | |
| 5104750537 | assonance - 1 | a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds | 3 | |
| 5104750540 | ballad - 1 | a narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung | 4 | |
| 5104750547 | conceit - 1 | a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, particularly a piece of extended metaphor within a poem | 5 | |
| 5104750548 | connotation - 1 | what is suggested by a word, apart from what it implicitly describes | 6 | |
| 5104750553 | dialect - 1 | the language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people | 7 | |
| 5104750554 | diction - 1 | the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone | 8 | |
| 5104750558 | epic - 1 | a poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing of a culture | 9 | |
| 5104750559 | exposition - 1 | that part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces or identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play | 10 | |
| 5104750564 | flashback - 1 | retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative | 11 | |
| 5104750566 | formal diction - 1 | language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal | 12 | |
| 5104750568 | genre - 1 | a type or class of literature such as epic or narrative poetry or belles lettres | 13 | |
| 5104750569 | hyperbole - 1 | overstatement characterized by exaggerated language | 14 | |
| 5104750572 | imagery - 1 | any sensory detail or invocation in a work; also, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, call to mind an idea, or describe and object | 15 | |
| 5104750574 | in medias res - 1 | "in the midst of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback | 16 | |
| 5104750575 | irony - 1 | a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant | 17 | |
| 5104750576 | jargon - 1 | specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group | 18 | |
| 5104750578 | limited point of view - 1 | a perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or a third person | 19 | |
| 5104750579 | litote - 1 | a figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement: "Last week I saw a woman flayed and you would hardly believe how it altered her appearance for the worse." | 20 | |
| 5104750585 | metonymy - 1 | a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something: "The White House announced today," "The pen is mightier than the sword." | 21 | |
| 5104750602 | personification - 1 | treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by endowing it with human qualities | 22 | |
| 5104750608 | realism - 1 | the practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealism and with attention to detail | 23 | |
| 5104750614 | sarcasm - 1 | a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical | 24 | |
| 5104750635 | style - 1 | a distinctive manner of expression | 25 | |
| 5104750636 | symbol - 1 | a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or "stands for" something else | 26 | |
| 5104750638 | syntax - 1 | the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences | 27 | |
| 5104750641 | tone - 1 | the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme | 28 | |
| 5104750642 | tragedy - 1 | a drama in which a character (usually good and noble and of high rank) is brought to a disastrous end in his or her confrontation with a superior force due to a fatal flaw in his or her character | 29 | |
| 5104750531 | anaphora - 2 | the regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses | 30 | |
| 5104750532 | anecdote - 2 | a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature | 31 | |
| 5104750534 | antithesis - 2 | the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words | 32 | |
| 5104750535 | apostrophe - 2 | an address or invocation to something that is inanimate | 33 | |
| 5104750538 | asyndeton - 2 | a style in which conjunctions are omitted | 34 | |
| 5104750539 | attitude - 2 | the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or mood of a piece of writing | 35 | |
| 5104750545 | chiasmus - 2 | a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second: "Pleasure is a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure." | 36 | |
| 5104750549 | consonance - 2 | the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels: "pitter-patter, pish-posh" | 37 | |
| 5104750546 | colloquial - 2 | ordinary language, the vernacular | 38 | |
| 5104750552 | denotation - 2 | a direct or specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word | 39 | |
| 5104750556 | elegy - 2 | a poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation | 40 | |
| 5104750561 | fable - 2 | a legend or short story often using animals as characters | 41 | |
| 5104750577 | juxtaposition - 2 | the location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another, to create a certain effect | 42 | |
| 5104750581 | lyric - 2 | originally designated poems meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation | 43 | |
| 5104750583 | metaphor - 2 | one thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them | 44 | |
| 5104750586 | mood - 2 | a feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of the piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view | 45 | |
| 5104750593 | onomatopoeia - 2 | a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes: "buzz," "clank" | 46 | |
| 5104750595 | oxymoron - 2 | a figure of speech that combines to apparently contradictory elements: "jumbo shrimp," "deafening silence" | 47 | |
| 5104750598 | parallel structure - 2 | the use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts: "Jane likes reading, writing, and skiing," NOT "Martha takes notes quickly, thoroughly, and in a detailed manner." | 48 | |
| 5104750599 | parody - 2 | a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original | 49 | |
| 5104750601 | periodic sentence - 2 | a sentence that is not grammatically complete until the end: "The child, who looked as if she were being chased by demons, ran." | 50 | |
| 5104750605 | plot - 2 | the arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of the events | 51 | |
| 5104750610 | rhetorical question - 2 | a question that is simply asked for stylistic effect and is not expected to be answered | 52 | |
| 5104750615 | satire - 2 | a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure | 53 | |
| 5104750617 | setting - 2 | the time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play | 54 | |
| 5104750620 | simile - 2 | a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, using the words 'like' or 'as' | 55 | |
| 5104750622 | speaker - 2 | the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem | 56 | |
| 5104750631 | stereotype - 2 | a characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some aspect, such as gender, age, ethnic or national identity, religion, occupation, marital status, and so on, are predictable accompanied by certain character traits, action, and even values | 57 | |
| 5104750637 | synecdoche - 2 | when a part is used to signify a whole: "All hands on deck," "He stole five hundred head of longhorns." | 58 | |
| 5104750530 | anapestic - 3 | a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one: "Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas" | 59 | |
| 5104750533 | antagonist - 3 | any character or force that is in opposition to the main character, or protagonist | 60 | |
| 5104750536 | archetypes - 3 | recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature | 61 | |
| 5104750544 | caricature - 3 | a depiction in which a character's characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd | 62 | |
| 5104750555 | dramatic monologue - 3 | a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience; soliloquy | 63 | |
| 5104750562 | falling action - 3 | that part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled; also known as the denouement | 64 | |
| 5104750563 | farce - 3 | a play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick or physical jokes | 65 | |
| 5104750565 | foreshadowing - 3 | to hint at or to present an indication of the future beforehand | 66 | |
| 5104750567 | free verse - 3 | poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and non-rhyming lines | 67 | |
| 5104750571 | idyll - 3 | a short poem describing a country or pastoral scene, praising the simplicity of rustic life | 68 | |
| 5104750573 | informal diction - 3 | language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech | 69 | |
| 5104750587 | motif - 3 | a recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event | 70 | |
| 5104750588 | narrative structure - 3 | a textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework | 71 | |
| 5104750589 | narrator - 3 | the character who "tells" the story, or in poetry, the persona | 72 | |
| 5104750590 | occasional poem - 3 | a poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private | 73 | |
| 5104750591 | ode - 3 | a lyric poem that is somewhat serious in subject and treatment, is elevated in style, and sometimes uses elaborate stanza structure, which is often patterned in sets of three; often written to praise or exalt a person, quality, characteristic, or object | 74 | |
| 5104750592 | omniscient point of view - 3 | also called unlimited focus; a perspective that can be seen from one character's view, then another's, then another's and can be moved at any time | 75 | |
| 5104750596 | parable - 3 | a short fictional story that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy | 76 | |
| 5104750597 | paradox - 3 | a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true: "fight for peace" | 77 | |
| 5104750600 | pastoral - 3 | a work that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love; also called an eclogue, a bucolic, or and idyll | 78 | |
| 5104750603 | persona - 3 | the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author (e.g. adult Scout in 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Watson in 'Sherlock Holmes') | 79 | |
| 5104750606 | protagonist - 3 | the main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic | 80 | |
| 5104750609 | refrain - 3 | a repeated stanza or line(s) in a poem or song | 81 | |
| 5104750613 | rising action - 3 | the development of action in a work, usually at the beginning | 82 | |
| 5104750619 | shaped verse - 3 | another name for concrete poetry, poetry that is shaped to look like an object | 83 | |
| 5104750621 | soliloquy - 3 | a monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to himself or herself | 84 | |
| 5104750633 | stock character - 3 | character who appears in a number of stories or plays such as the cruel stepmother, the femme fatale, etc. | 85 | |
| 5104750634 | structure - 3 | the organization or arrangement of the various elements in a work | 86 | |
| 5104750640 | theme - 3 | a generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central or dominant idea or concern of a work | 87 | |
| 5104750644 | turning point - 3 | the third part of plot structure, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing; also called the climax | 88 |
