AP Literature Terms Flashcards
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| 4356181453 | allegory | a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events. | 0 | |
| 4356200151 | motif | an object or idea that repeats itself throughout a literary work. | 1 | |
| 4356209494 | rhetorical device | a technique of using language effectively and persuasively in spoken or written form. It is an art of discourse, which studies and employs various methods to convince, influence or please an audience. | 2 | |
| 4356215222 | archetype | an archetype is a typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. | 3 | |
| 4356221682 | denotation | literal or dictionary meanings of a word in contrast to its connotative or associated meanings. | 4 | |
| 4356227360 | situational irony | a literary device that you can easily identify in literary works. Simply, it occurs when incongruity appears between expectations of something to happen, and what actually happens instead. | 5 | |
| 4356231006 | epigram | a rhetorical device that is a memorable, brief, interesting and surprising satirical statement. | 6 | |
| 4356237290 | synecdoche | a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. | 7 | |
| 4356237291 | litotes | a figure of speech which employs an understatement by using double negatives or, in other words, positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite expressions. | 8 | |
| 4356243994 | synaesthesia | a technique adopted by writers to present ideas, characters or places in such a manner that they appeal to more than one senses like hearing, seeing, smell etc. at a given time. | 9 | |
| 4356249904 | metonymy | a figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated. | 10 | |
| 4356259355 | grotesque | is primarily concerned about the distortion and transgression of boundaries, be they physical boundaries between two objects, or psychological boundaries, or anything in-between. | 11 | |
| 4356267873 | stream of consciousness | the individual thought process of a character associated to his or her actions are portrayed in form of a monologue the addresses the character itself. | 12 | |
| 4356271933 | didactic | a term that refers to a particular philosophy in art and literature that emphasizes the idea that different forms of art and literature ought to convey information and instructions along with pleasure and entertainment. | 13 | |
| 4356277263 | pastoral poetry | has to do with shepherds and the simplicity of life in the country, where life is free from the corruption of the city. | 14 | |
| 4356283063 | tetrameter | a verse of four feet. | 15 | |
| 4356286485 | foot | a basic repeated sequence of meter composed of two or more accented or unaccented syllables. | 16 | |
| 4356291266 | heroic couplet | consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. | 17 | |
| 4356294199 | sonnet | has 14 fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables. It has a specific rhyme scheme and a "volta" or a specific turn. | 18 | |
| 4356298221 | quatrain | a verse with four lines, or even a full poem containing four lines, having an independent and separate theme. Often one line consists of alternating rhyme. | 19 | |
| 4356301818 | villanelle | a poetic device which requires a poem to have 19 lines and a fixed form. It has five tercets (first 15 lines), a quatrain (last four lines), and a couplet at the end of the quatrain. | 20 | |
| 4356305398 | lyric poetry | a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. | 21 | |
| 4356311690 | meter | a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse or within the lines of a poem. Stressed syllables tend to be longer and unstressed shorter. | 22 | |
| 4356314813 | spenserian sonnet | a sonnet in which the lines are grouped into three interlocked quatrains and a couplet and the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. | 23 | |
| 4356326812 | couplet | a literary device which can be defined as having two successive rhyming lines in a verse and has the same meter to form a complete thought. | 24 | |
| 4356329800 | free verse | a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms. | 25 | |
| 4356334484 | rhyme royal | a form of verse introduced into English by Chaucer, consisting of seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter in which there are three rhymes, the first line rhyming with the third, the second with the fourth and fifth, and the sixth with the seventh. | 26 | |
| 4356337417 | Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet | a sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abba abba and a sestet rhyming in any of various patterns | 27 | |
| 4356342611 | ballad | mostly rely on simple and easy-to-understand language or dialect from its origin. Stories about hardships, tragedies, love and romance are standard ingredients | 28 | |
| 4356342612 | refrain | a verse, a line, a set, or a group of some lines that appears at the end of stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections. | 29 | |
| 4356348145 | blank verse | a literary device defined as un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter. In poetry and prose, it has a consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line (pentameter); where, unstressed syllables are followed by stressed ones and five of which are stressed but do not rhyme. | 30 | |
| 4356349447 | conceit | a figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of similes or metaphors. | 31 | |
| 4356352228 | anapestic | a poetic device defined as a metrical foot in a line of a poem that contains three syllables wherein the first two syllables are short and unstressed followed by a third syllable that is long and stressed as given in this line "I must finish my journey alone." | 32 | |
| 4356357192 | dactylic | a metrical foot, or a beat in a line, containing three syllables in which first one is accented followed by second and third unaccented syllables | 33 | |
| 4356360218 | sestet | the second part of the sonnet, while the first part is called octave that comprises of eight lines. It has six lines, and also refers to a poem of six lines, or a six lined-stanza in a poem that we could distinguish from other units with line breaks | 34 | |
| 4356363623 | iambic | a literary device that can be defined as a foot containing unaccented and short syllables followed by a long and accented syllable in a single line of a poem (unstressed/stressed syllables). | 35 | |
| 4356368642 | trochaic | a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one | 36 | |
| 4356371271 | terza rima | uses tercets, three lines stanzas. | 37 | |
| 4356375442 | end-stopped rhyme | poetic device in which a pause comes at the end of a syntactic unit (sentence, clause or phrase); this pause can be expressed in writing as a punctuation mark such as a colon, semi-colon, period or full stop. | 38 | |
| 4356377728 | sight rhyme | a rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently. | 39 | |
| 4356383875 | pathetic fallacy | a literary device that attributes human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature. | 40 | |
| 4356387205 | stock characters | archetypal characters distinguished by their flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for parody and to be criticized as clichés. | 41 | |
| 4356392730 | denouement | a literary device which can be defined as the resolution of the issue of a complicated plot in fiction. | 42 | |
| 4356396550 | bathos | when a writer or a poet falls into inconsequential and absurd metaphors, descriptions or ideas in an effort to be increasingly emotional or passionate. | 43 | |
| 4356398189 | intentional fallacy | an erroneous argument dependent upon an unsound or illogical contention | 44 | |
| 4356409849 | chorus | the peanut gallery that sang, danced, and made comments about the action on stage. They also gave you key information about stuff happening off stage—like battles and sea voyages. | 45 | |
| 4356413941 | anachronism | an error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece. In other words, anything that is out of time and out of place. | 46 | |
| 4356416580 | fable | a literary device which can be defined as a concise and brief story intended to provide a moral lesson at the end. | 47 | |
| 4356419682 | comedy of manners | satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class or of multiple classes, often represented by stereotypical stock characters. | 48 | |
| 4356426477 | aphorism | a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. The term is often applied to philosophical, moral and literary principles. | 49 | |
| 4356429482 | inciting moment | an event or a point arrives at the beginning of a play, story book or a film that disturbs the actions and life of a protagonist and sets him to pursue the mission vigorously. | 50 | |
| 4356434798 | subplot | a secondary plot, or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it. | 51 | |
| 4356438370 | interior monologue | a character externalizes his thoughts, so that audience could witness the experiences, which might otherwise be remained internal. | 52 | |
| 4356442250 | catharsis | an emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety and stress. | 53 | |
| 4356446821 | flat character | a type of character in fiction that does not change too much from the start of the narrative to its end. | 54 | |
| 4356451672 | round character | the character with whom the audience can sympathize, associate or relate to, as he seems a character they might have seen in their real lives. | 55 | |
| 4356460720 | verismilitude | likeness to the truth i.e. resemblance of a fictitious work to a real event even if it is a far-fetched one. | 56 | |
| 4356465332 | kenning | a stylistic device and can be defined as a two-word phrase that describes an object through metaphors. | 57 | |
| 4356471875 | caesura | a rhythmical pause in a poetic line or a sentence. It often occurs in the middle of a line, or sometimes at the beginning and the end. | 58 |
