The Glossary of Literary Terms for the AP English Literature and Composition Test
Terms : Hide Images
| 5261812762 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to. | 0 | |
| 5261812765 | Antihero | A protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities. | 1 | |
| 5261812766 | Aphorism | A short and usually witty saying. | 2 | |
| 5261812767 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman. | 3 | |
| 5261812768 | Archaism (Archaic) | The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. | 4 | |
| 5261812771 | Assonance | The repeated use of vowel sounds: "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 5 | |
| 5261812780 | Cadence | The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense. | 6 | |
| 5261812782 | Caricature | A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality. | 7 | |
| 5261812789 | Conceit (Controlling Image) | A startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon several lines. | 8 | |
| 5261812792 | Consonance | The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at their beginnings) | 9 | |
| 5261812802 | Elegy | A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. | 10 | |
| 5261812809 | Explicit | To say or write something directly and clearly. | 11 | |
| 5261812812 | Foil | A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast. | 12 | |
| 5261812818 | Hubris | The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall | 13 | |
| 5261812820 | Implicit | To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly. | 14 | |
| 5261812823 | Inversion | Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase. | 15 | |
| 5261812832 | Melodrama | A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure. | 16 | |
| 5261812835 | Metonym | A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with. | 17 | |
| 5261812836 | Nemesis | The protagonist's arch enemy or supreme and persistent difficulty. | 18 | |
| 5261812844 | Parallelism | Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect. | 19 | |
| 5261812845 | Paraphrase | To restate phrases and sentences in your own words. | 20 | |
| 5261812846 | Parenthetical phrase | A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail. | 21 | |
| 5261812848 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds. | 22 | |
| 5261812860 | Pun | The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 23 | |
| 5261812861 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. | 24 | |
| 5261812869 | Subjunctive Mood | A grammatical situation involving the words "if" and "were," setting up a hypothetical situation. | 25 | |
| 5261812872 | Suspension of disbelief | The demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with their imagination. | 26 |
