AP Lit, Literary Terms
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| 206298325 | Allegory | an expressive style that uses fictional characters and events to describe some subject by suggestive resemblances | |
| 206298326 | Allusion | passing reference or indirect mention | |
| 206306324 | Ambiguity | an expression whose meaning cannot be determined from its context | |
| 206306325 | Analogy | drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect | |
| 206306326 | Anagnorisis | when the tragic hero recognizes his or her tragic fall | |
| 206306327 | Anaphora | the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences | |
| 206306328 | Antagonist | The Bad Guy. | |
| 206306329 | Anti-Hero | a protagonist who lacks the characteristics that would make him a hero (or her a heroine) | |
| 206306330 | Aphorism | A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. | |
| 206306331 | Apostrophe | a figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or some abstraction | |
| 206306332 | Archetype | an original model on which something is patterned | |
| 206306333 | Aside | a line spoken by an actor to the audience but not intended for others on the stage | |
| 206306334 | Canon | an established set of principles or code of laws, often religious in nature | |
| 207067169 | Carpe diem | "Seize the day"; a Latin phrase implying that one must live for the present moment, for tomorrow may be too late. | |
| 207067170 | Catharsis | a release of emotional tension | |
| 207067171 | Climax | the moment in a play, novel, short story, or narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter resolved | |
| 207067172 | colloquialism | a word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing (y'all, ain't) | |
| 207067173 | conceit | A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects | |
| 207067174 | connotation | implied meaning of a word | |
| 207067175 | Denotation | The dictionary definition of a word | |
| 207067176 | deus ex machina | In literature, the use of an artificial device or gimmick to solve a problem. | |
| 207067177 | diction | word choice | |
| 207067178 | didactic | intended to teach or instruct | |
| 207067179 | dysopia | the opposite of a utopia. | |
| 207067180 | epigraph | a saying or statement on the title page of a work, or used as a heading for a chapter or other section of a work | |
| 207067181 | epiphany | revelation | |
| 207067182 | epithet | a defamatory or abusive word or phrase Ex. "sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me" | |
| 207067183 | foil | anything that serves by contrast to call attention to another thing's good qualities | |
| 207067184 | frame story | a story within a story | |
| 207067185 | genre | a kind of literary or artistic work | |
| 207067186 | hamartia | tragic flaw | |
| 207067187 | Gothic | characterized by gloom and mystery and the grotesque | |
| 207067188 | hubris | overbearing pride or presumption | |
| 207067189 | hyperbole | Exaggeration | |
| 207067190 | imagery | language that appeals to the senses | |
| 207067191 | in medias res | in the middle of things | |
| 207067192 | irony | incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs | |
| 207067193 | juxtaposition | the act of positioning close together (or side by side) | |
| 207067194 | litotes | understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary) | |
| 207067195 | magical realism | " a literary technique where the disbelief of the reader and writer produces a momentary shift in the real world wherein an element of the surreal enters and leaves with ease.""" | |
| 207067196 | malpropism | Ludicrous misuse of a word | |
| 207067197 | metaphor | comparison not using like or as | |
| 207067198 | metonymy | A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it | |
| 207067199 | monologue | a (usually long) dramatic speech by a single actor | |
| 207067200 | motif | a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work | |
| 207067201 | oxymoron | conjoining contradictory terms (as in 'deafening silence') | |
| 207067202 | paradox | (logic) a self-contradiction | |
| 207067203 | parallelism | phrases or sentences of a similar construction/meaning placed side by side, balancing each other | |
| 207067204 | parody | humorous or satirical mimicry | |
| 207067205 | pastoral | a literary work idealizing the rural life (especially the life of shepherds) | |
| 207067206 | persona | an actor's portrayal of someone in a play | |
| 207067207 | personification | representing an abstract quality or idea as a person or creature | |
| 207067208 | picaresque | involving clever rogues or adventurers | |
| 207067209 | point of view | the spatial property of the position from which something is observed | |
| 207067210 | protagonist | the main character | |
| 207067211 | pun | make a play on words | |
| 207067212 | realism | the attribute of accepting the facts of life and favoring practicality and literal truth | |
| 207067213 | roman a clef | a novel in which actual persons and events are disguised as fictional characters | |
| 207067214 | Romanticism | a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilization | |
| 207067215 | satire | witty language used to convey insults or scorn | |
| 207067216 | scansion | The process of marking lines of poetry to show the type of feet and the number of feet they contain | |
| 207067217 | simile | a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with 'like' or 'as') | |
| 207067218 | stock character | the stereotyped character in which he is immediately known from typical characters in history | |
| 207067219 | stream of consciousness | a literary genre that reveals a character's thoughts and feeling as they develop by means of a long soliloquy | |
| 207067220 | subtext | the hidden or underlying meaning of something | |
| 207067221 | synecdoche | using a part of something to represent the whole thing ex: visa versa | |
| 207067222 | symbol | something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible | |
| 207067223 | synesthesia | describing one kind of sensation in terms of another ("a loud color", "a sweet sound") | |
| 207067224 | syntax | sentence structure | |
| 207067225 | soliloquy | speech to oneself | |
| 207067226 | style | a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period | |
| 207067227 | tone | of one's speech, varying the pitch | |
| 207067228 | theme | a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work | |
| 207067229 | tragedy | drama in which the protagonist is overcome by some superior force or circumstance | |
| 207067230 | unreliable narrator | a narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted | |
| 207067231 | verisimilitude | similarity to truth | |
| 207067232 | voice | a sound suggestive of a vocal utterance | |
| 207067233 | zeugma | use of a word to govern two or more words though appropriate to only one ex: he took his hat and his leave |
