Definitions from Joel Littauer's list for AP educators
Terms : Hide Images
| 17506270 | Allegory | A story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on symbolic meanings. | 0 | |
| 17506271 | Allusion | A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work. | 1 | |
| 17506272 | Ambiguity | A statement which can contain two or more meanings. | 2 | |
| 17506273 | Analogue | A comparison between two similar things. | 3 | |
| 17506274 | Anecdote | A very short tale told by a character in a literary work. | 4 | |
| 17506275 | Aphorism | A brief statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation. | 5 | |
| 17506276 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something or someone not present. | 6 | |
| 17506277 | Antecedent | The noun that a pronoun replaces. | 7 | |
| 17506278 | Antithesis | Contrasting ideas or images through the use of parallel structure. | 8 | |
| 17506279 | Archetype | A theme, character, plot, or symbol that recurs over time and in different cultures. | 9 | |
| 17506280 | Aside | A device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play. | 10 | |
| 17506281 | Assonance | The repetition of vowel soounds in a literary work, esp. in a poem. | 11 | |
| 17506282 | Ballad | A story in poetic form, often about tragic love and usu. sung. | 12 | |
| 17506283 | Blank Verse | A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. | 13 | |
| 17506284 | Cacophony | An unpleasant combination of sounds. | 14 | |
| 17506285 | Euphony | A pleasant combination of sounds. | 15 | |
| 17506286 | Caesura | A pause within a line of poetry which may or may not affect the matrical count. | 16 | |
| 17506287 | Canto | A subdivision of an epic poem. | 17 | |
| 17506288 | Carpe Diem | "Catch the day" | 18 | |
| 17506289 | Characterization | The method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character in a literary work. | 19 | |
| 17506290 | Chiasmus | Two phrases in which the syntax is the same but the placement of the words is reversed. | 20 | |
| 17506291 | Colloquialism | Informal or slang expression. | 21 | |
| 17506292 | Conceit | A far-fetched simile or metaphor, that is sustained. | 22 | |
| 17506293 | Concrete Poetry | A poem that visually resembles something found in the physical world. | 23 | |
| 17506294 | Denotation | A word's dictionary definition. | 24 | |
| 17506295 | Connotation | A word's emotional content. | 25 | |
| 17506296 | Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds with differing vowel sounds in words near each other in a line or lines of poetry. | 26 | |
| 17506297 | Dramatic Monologue | The occurrence of a single speaker saying something to a silent audience. | 27 | |
| 17506298 | Elegy | A poem lamenting death. | 28 | |
| 17506299 | Epigraph | A brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work. | 29 | |
| 17506300 | Epithet | A word or phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character. | 30 | |
| 17506301 | Eulogy | A formal statement of praise. | 31 | |
| 17506302 | Euphemism | A mild word of phrase which substitutes for another which would be undesirable because it is too direct, unpleasant, or offensive. | 32 | |
| 17506303 | Free Verse | Unrhymed poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical pattern. | 33 | |
| 17506304 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs. | 34 | |
| 17506305 | Imagery | A word or group of words in a literary work which appeals to one or more of the senses. | 35 | |
| 17506306 | Inference | A judgement based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement. | 36 | |
| 17506307 | In Medias Res | Technique of starting a narrative in the middle of the action. | 37 | |
| 17506308 | Litotes | A form of understatement made by negating the opposition. | 38 | |
| 17506309 | Meiosis | A form of understatement. | 39 | |
| 17506310 | Lyric Poem | A short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illuminates some life principle. | 40 | |
| 17506311 | Iambic Pentameter | Unstressed, stressed | 41 | |
| 17506312 | Trochee | Stressed, unstressed | 42 | |
| 17506313 | Anapest | unstressed, unstressed, stressed | 43 | |
| 17506314 | Dactyl | Stressed, unstressed, unstressed | 44 | |
| 17506315 | Spondee | Stressed, stressed | 45 | |
| 17506316 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests. | 46 | |
| 17506317 | Mixed Metaphor | A combination of metaphors that produces a confused or contradictory image. | 47 | |
| 17506318 | Motif | Something repeated in a work. | 48 | |
| 17506319 | Narrative Poem | A poem which tells a story. | 49 | |
| 17506320 | Ode | A poem in praise of something diving or expressing some noble idea. | 50 | |
| 17506321 | Parable | A brief story, told or written in order to teach a moral lesson. | 51 | |
| 17506322 | Paradox | A situation or a statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not. | 52 | |
| 17506323 | Parallel Structure | A repetition of sentences using the same structure. | 53 | |
| 17506324 | Pastoral | Having to do with shephards and rustic settings. | 54 | |
| 17506325 | Pathetic Fallacy | A fallacy of reason in suggesting that nonhuman phenomena act from human feelings. | 55 | |
| 17506326 | Point of View | A piece of literature that contains a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspecitve of an onlooker. | 56 | |
| 17506327 | Satire | A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. | 57 | |
| 17506328 | Sonnet | A lyric poem of fourteen lines whose rhyme scheme is fixed. | 58 | |
| 17506329 | Symbolism | A device in literture where an object represents an idea. | 59 | |
| 17506330 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech wherein a part of something represent the whole thing. | 60 | |
| 17506331 | Synaesthesia | One sensory experience described in terms of another sensory experience. | 61 | |
| 17506332 | Theatre of the Absurd | A drama based on an absurd situation. | 62 | |
| 17506333 | Trope | A figure of speech that is not literal. | 63 | |
| 17506334 | Zeugma | A technique where the same verb is used in two different ways in the same sentence. | 64 | |
| 17506335 | Tone | Tone expresses the author's attitude toward his or her subject. | 65 | |
| 17506336 | Volta | The part of a sonnet that shifts meaning. | 66 |
