The Glossary of Literary Terms for the AP English Literature and Composition Test
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| 8750925175 | Accent | In poetry, the stressed portion of a word. "CAN-yon." "mc-COY." "JEN-i-fer" | 0 | |
| 8750925176 | Aesthetic | Appealing to the senses; a coherent sense of taste. | 1 | |
| 8750925177 | Allegory | A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. Think of an alligator capable working on the surface of the water and below. | 2 | |
| 8750925178 | Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds. "Peter Piper Picked a Peck..." | 3 | |
| 8750925179 | Allusion | A reference to another work or famous figure. | 4 | |
| 8750925180 | Anachronism | "Misplaced in time." An aspect of a story that doesn't belong in its supposed time setting. Think of airplanes and automobiles in Hurston's 1900 depiction of Florida. | 5 | |
| 8750925181 | Analogy | A comparison, usually involving two or more symbolic parts, employed to clarify an action or a relationship. Think "An analogy is like a simile." | 6 | |
| 8750925182 | Anecdote | A Short Narrative, told for some effect. Think of the Annie Tyler & Who Flung relationship, explained as a foreshadowing or foil for Janie's and Tea Cake's relationship. | 7 | |
| 8750925183 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to. "Isaac brought his own computer." (Isaac is the antecedent to the pronoun "his"). | 8 | |
| 8750925184 | Anticlimax | Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect. Think of Edgar Derby's execution. | 9 | |
| 8750925185 | Antihero | A protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities. Billy Pilgrim. | 10 | |
| 8750925186 | Aphorism | A short and usually witty saying. Think of Wilde's "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." | 11 | |
| 8750925187 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman. Think of poems like Keats' "Ode On a Grecian Urn" or Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"...in which neither is a living being, but the speaker is talking directly to the thing. | 12 | |
| 8750925188 | Archaism | The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. Thee, thou, thy, yon, etc. | 13 | |
| 8750925189 | Aside | A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage. Think of Iago's asides to Roderigo. | 14 | |
| 8750925190 | Assonance | The repeated use of vowel sounds: "Old king Cole was a merry old soul." | 15 | |
| 8750925191 | Ballad Stanza | A 4-lined stanza, usually rhymed ABCB, first made famous by the English Romantic Poets. | 16 | |
| 8750925192 | Black humor | The use of disturbing themes in comedy. Think Slaughterhouse Five. | 17 | |
| 8750925193 | Burlesque | Broad parody, one that takes a style or form and exaggerates it into ridiculousness. Think The Importance of Being Earnest. | 18 | |
| 8750925194 | Caricature | A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality. Think of Lady Bracknell as being an overblown characterization of the archetypal aristocratic snob. | 19 | |
| 8750925195 | Catharsis | Drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy. Refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences during a play. This requires emotional attachment and empathy for the tragic character's flaw. Think of feeling sorry for Willy Loman and what he teaches you to correct in your own life. | 20 | |
| 8750925196 | Conceit (Controlling Image) | A startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon several lines. Think of Donne's "The Flea." | 21 | |
| 8750925197 | Couplet | A pair of lines that end in rhyme: "Shakespeare loved like a red, red rose, Emblazoned on his pantyhose." | 22 | |
| 8750925198 | Diction | The words an author chooses to use. | 23 | |
| 8750925199 | Syntax | The ordering and structuring of words. S-V-O is the typical order in English. | 24 | |
| 8750925200 | Inverted Syntax | A switching of S-V-O to some other order. Think of Yoda. "Pizza like I." = O-V-S | 25 | |
| 8750925201 | Dramatic Irony | When the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not. Think of how Othello freaks out when Cassio is, unbeknownst to O, speaking of Bianca and not Desdemona. | 26 | |
| 8750925202 | Dramatic Monologue | Same as a soliloquy. When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience. Iago. Iago. Iago. | 27 | |
| 8750925203 | Elegy | A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. | 28 | |
| 8750925204 | Enjambment | The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause or punctuation. Student: "Ms. Brown, can I stop reading now?" Ms. Brown: "No punc, READ ON!" | 29 | |
| 8750925205 | Epic | A very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter. Think The Odyssey or The Iliad. | 30 | |
| 8750925206 | Epitaph | Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place. "Here lies Lester Moore. Took 4 slugs from a .44. No Les. No Moore." | 31 | |
| 8750925207 | Euphemism | A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality. Think of "making love." | 32 | |
| 8750925208 | Explicit | To say or write something directly and clearly. | 33 | |
| 8750925209 | Feminine rhyme | Lines rhymed by at least their final two syllables. Think of ...............................mad pants ...............................sad ants. | 34 | |
| 8750925210 | Foil | A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast. | 35 | |
| 8750925211 | Foot | The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed. Most common is iambic = u /. | 36 | |
| 8750925212 | Foreshadowing | An event of statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later. | 37 | |
| 8750925213 | Free verse | Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. Hippies loved Free bird/Free Verse. (No rules). | 38 | |
| 8750925214 | Genre | A sub-category of literature. | 39 | |
| 8750925215 | Hubris | The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall. Macbeth, Oedipus, Othello, etc... | 40 | |
| 8750925216 | Hyperbole | Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement. | 41 | |
| 8750925217 | Implicit | To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly. | 42 | |
| 8750925218 | In media res | Latin for "in the midst of things," i.e. beginning an epic poem in the middle of the action. Think of Janie walking back into Eatonville, then rehashing the story of how she got there. | 43 | |
| 8750925219 | Irony | A statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean. Know the difference between verbal (AKA sarcasm), situational, and dramatic. | 44 | |
| 8750925220 | Loose sentence | A sentence that is complete before its end: Jack loved Barbara despite her irritating snorting laugh. | 45 | |
| 8750925221 | Periodic Sentence | A sentence that is not grammatically complete until it has reached it s final phrase: Despite Barbara's irritation at Jack, she loved him. | 46 | |
| 8750925222 | Masculine rhyme | A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable (regular old rhyme). ............................sad ants ............................with pants. | 47 | |
| 8750925223 | Metaphor | A comparison or analogy that states one thing IS another. | 48 | |
| 8750925224 | Simile | A comparison or analogy that typically uses like or as. | 49 | |
| 8750925225 | Nemesis | The protagonist's arch enemy or supreme and persistent difficulty. | 50 | |
| 8750925226 | Objectivity | Treatment of subject matter in an impersonal manner or from an outside view. | 51 | |
| 8750925227 | Subjectivity | A treatment of subject matter that uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses. | 52 | |
| 8750925228 | Onomatopoeia | Words that sound like what they mean. "Boom, Clap." | 53 | |
| 8750925229 | Oxymoron | A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction. | 54 | |
| 8750925230 | Parable | A story that instructs. Think of Didactic Literature (all Classical Tragedy) which ultimately aims to improve people. | 55 | |
| 8750925231 | Paradox | A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not. Catch-22. | 56 | |
| 8750925232 | Parallelism | Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect. "I like to fish, to eat, and to run." | 57 | |
| 8750925233 | Paraphrase | To restate phrases and sentences in your own words. | 58 | |
| 8750925234 | Parody | The work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness. | 59 | |
| 8750925235 | Pastoral | A poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds. Think of pastor over his "flock"= shepherd = countryside. | 60 | |
| 8750925236 | Personification | When an inanimate object takes on human shape. | 61 | |
| 8750925237 | Point of View | The perspective from which the action of a novel is presented. | 62 | |
| 8750925238 | Omniscient | A third person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action going on. | 63 | |
| 8750925239 | Limited Omniscient | A Third person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privileged character. | 64 | |
| 8750925240 | Objective | A thrid person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera. Does not know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks it. | 65 | |
| 8750925241 | First person | A narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view. | 66 | |
| 8750925242 | Stream of Consciousness | Author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness. | 67 | |
| 8750925243 | Protagonist | The main character of a novel or play | 68 | |
| 8750925244 | Pun | The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | 69 | |
| 8750925245 | Refrain | A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. | 70 | |
| 8750925246 | Rhetorical question | A question that suggests an answer. | 71 | |
| 8750925247 | Satire | Attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common. | 72 | |
| 8750925248 | Soliloquy | A speech spoken by a character alone on stage, meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts. | 73 | |
| 8750925249 | Stanza | A group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraphs function in prose. In Italian, stanza = a room. (So a poem is a house). | 74 | |
| 8750925250 | Stock characters | Standard or cliched character types. Archetypes/Stereotypes are the same thing. | 75 | |
| 8750925251 | Subjunctive Mood | A grammatical situation involving the words "if" and "were," setting up a hypothetical situation. | 76 | |
| 8750925252 | Willing Suspension of Disbelief | The demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with their imagination. | 77 | |
| 8750925253 | Symbolism | A device in literature where an object represents an idea. | 78 | |
| 8750925254 | Theme | The main idea of the overall work; the central idea. | 79 | |
| 8750925255 | Thesis | The main position of an argument. The central contention that will be supported. | 80 | |
| 8750925256 | Tragic flaw | = Hamartia. In a tragedy, this is the weakness of a character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise. | 81 | |
| 8750925257 | Unreliable narrator | When the first person narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible | 82 | |
| 8750925258 | Utopia | An idealized place. Imaginary communities in which people are able to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace. Opposite = Dystopia. | 83 | |
| 8750925259 | Ode | A poem in praise of something divine or noble | 84 | |
| 8750925260 | Iamb | A poetic foot -- light, heavy | 85 | |
| 8750925261 | Trochee | A poetic foot -- heavy, light | 86 | |
| 8750925262 | Pentameter | A poetic line with five feet. | 87 | |
| 8750925263 | Tetrameter | A poetic line with four feet | 88 | |
| 8750925264 | Trimeter | A poetic line with three feet | 89 | |
| 8750925265 | Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter. | 90 | |
| 8750925266 | Ambiguity | A vagueness of meaning; a conscious lack of clarity meant to evoke multiple meanings and interpretation | 91 | |
| 8750925267 | Bildungsroman | A novel structured as a series of events that take place as the hero travels in quest of a goal or comes of age. | 92 | |
| 8750925268 | Canon | The works considered most important in a national literature or period; works widely read and studied. | 93 | |
| 8750925269 | Carpe Diem | Literally, "seize the day"; enjoy life while you can, a common theme in literature. | 94 | |
| 8750925270 | Denoument | The resolution that occurs at the end of a play or work of fiction. Think of Edna Pontellier's suicide. | 95 | |
| 8750925271 | Deus Ex Machina | Greek "God as a Machine" = In literature, the use of an artificial device or gimmick to solve a problem | 96 | |
| 8750925272 | Figurative Language | Also called figure of speech. In contrast to literal language, it implies meanings. Includes metaphors, similes, and personification, among others. | 97 | |
| 8750925273 | Motif | A phrase, idea, symbol or event that through repetition serves to unify or convey a theme in a work of literature. | 98 | |
| 8750925274 | Non Sequitur | A statement or idea that fails to follow logically from the one before | 99 | |
| 8750925275 | Sonnet | A popular form of verse consisting of fourteen lines and a prescribed rhyme scheme. Know the Shakespearean / English rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. | 100 | |
| 8750925276 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which a part signifies the whole ("fifty masts" for fifty ships) or the whole signifies the part ("days" for life, as in "He lived his days in Canada"). Also when the name of the material stands for the thing itself ("pigskin" for football) | 101 | |
| 8750925277 | Verisimitude | Similar to the truth; the quality of realism in a work that persuades readers that they are getting a vision of life as it is. | 102 | |
| 8750925278 | Prose | All writing that's not poetry. | 103 | |
| 8750925279 | Vernacular | Think dialect... Language that's unique to a particular place or culture. Think of the amount of Creole French in The Awakening, or think of the southern black speech in Their Eyes Were Watching God. | 104 | |
| 8750925280 | Confidant/e | Archetypal character to whom the protagonist confides. Think of Phoeby Watson, Iago, Linda Loman, Ben Loman. | 105 | |
| 8750925281 | Epithet | Nickname or extended name for someone, usually adding an adjective or phrase to their name, if not altogether replacing it. (Alexander the Great, Vlad the Impaler). Also, think of all the racial epithets Iago and Roderigo use to refer to Othello. | 106 |
