The Glossary of Literary Terms for the AP English Literature and Composition Test
Terms : Hide Images
| 13635121061 | Accent | In poetry, the stressed portion of a word. | 0 | |
| 13635121064 | Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds. | 1 | |
| 13635121078 | Assonance | The repeated use of vowel sounds: "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 2 | |
| 13635121080 | Ballad | A long, narrative poem, usually in meter and rhyme. Typically has a naive folksy quality. | 3 | |
| 13635121086 | Cacophony | In poetry, using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds. | 4 | |
| 13635121087 | Cadence | The beat or rhythm or poetry in a general sense. | 5 | |
| 13635121088 | Canto | The name for a section division in a long work of poetry. | 6 | |
| 13635121100 | Couplet | A pair of lines that end in rhyme | 7 | |
| 13635121102 | Diction | The words an author chooses to use. | 8 | |
| 13635121103 | Syntax | The ordering and structuring of words. | 9 | |
| 13635121104 | Dirge | A song for the dead. Its tone is typically slow, heavy, depressed, and melancholy | 10 | |
| 13635121106 | Doggerel | Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme, like limericks. | 11 | |
| 13635121109 | Elegy | A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. | 12 | |
| 13635121111 | Enjambment | The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause. | 13 | |
| 13635121112 | Epic | A very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter. | 14 | |
| 13635121118 | Feminine rhyme | Lines rhymed by their final two syllables. Properly, the penultimate syllables are stressed and the final syllables are unstressed. | 15 | |
| 13635121120 | Foot | The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed. | 16 | |
| 13635121122 | Free verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern | 17 | |
| 13635121132 | Lament | A poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss. | 18 | |
| 13635121136 | Lyric | A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world. | 19 | |
| 13635121137 | Masculine rhyme | A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable (regular old rhyme) | 20 | |
| 13635121155 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds. | 21 | |
| 13635121158 | Plaint | A poem or speech expressing sorrow. | 22 | |
| 13635121165 | Prelude | An introductory poem to a longer work of verse | 23 | |
| 13635121168 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. | 24 | |
| 13635121169 | Requiem | A song of prayer for the dead. | 25 | |
| 13635121170 | Rhapsody | An intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise. | 26 | |
| 13635121174 | Stanza | A group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraphs function in prose. | 27 | |
| 13635121189 | Zeugma | The use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings. He closed the door and his heart on his lost love. | 28 | |
| 13635121190 | Ode | A poem in praise of something divine or noble | 29 | |
| 13635121191 | Iamb | A poetic foot -- light, heavy | 30 | |
| 13635121192 | Trochee | A poetic foot -- heavy, light | 31 | |
| 13635121193 | Spondee | A poetic foot -- heavy, heavy | 32 | |
| 13635121194 | Pyrrhie | A poetic foot -- light, light | 33 | |
| 13635121195 | Anapest | A poetic foot -- light, light, heavy | 34 | |
| 13635121196 | Ambibranch | A poetic foot -- light, heavy, light | 35 | |
| 13635121197 | Dactyl | A poetic foot -- heavy, light, light | 36 | |
| 13635121198 | Imperfect | A poetic foot -- single light or single heavy | 37 | |
| 13635121199 | Pentameter | A poetic line with five feet. | 38 | |
| 13635121200 | Tetrameter | A poetic line with four feet | 39 | |
| 13635121201 | Trimeter | A poetic line with three feet | 40 | |
| 13635121202 | Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter. | 41 |
