AP Literature Poetry Terms Flashcards
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| 8612951593 | Archetype | an idealized model of a person, object, or concept from which similar instances are derived, copied, patterned, or emulated | 0 | |
| 8612955093 | Free Verse | poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme | 1 | |
| 8612958789 | Interior Monolouge | writing that records the thinking that goes on inside a character's head; it is coherent as if character were talking | 2 | |
| 8612966258 | Blank Verse | poetry written without rhymes, but which retains a set metrical patter, usually iambic pentameter | 3 | |
| 8612970780 | Symbol | a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself | 4 | |
| 8612975342 | Satire | work that uses mockery, humor, and wit to criticize and cause change in human nature and institutions | 5 | |
| 8612981099 | In Medias Res | "in the midst of things" - standard of epic poetry where the action begins in the middle instead of at the beginning | 6 | |
| 8612989105 | Mood | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene | 7 | |
| 8612992330 | Apostrophe | calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea | 8 | |
| 8612997687 | Deus ex Machina | any artificial device or coincidence used to bring about a convenient and simple solution to a plot | 9 | |
| 8613001006 | Allusion | reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture | 10 | |
| 8613005668 | Antagonist | opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story | 11 | |
| 8613008305 | Epigraph | a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme | 12 | |
| 8613011774 | Local Color | a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape | 13 | |
| 8613023290 | Enjambment | the continuation of the sense and, therefore, the grammatical construction of a sentence beyond the end of a line of poetry | 14 | |
| 8613028235 | Antihero | central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes; may lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples | 15 | |
| 8613037942 | Consonance | in poetry, when words appearing at the ends of two or more verses have similar final consonant sounds but have final vowel sounds that differ, as with "stuff" and "off" | 16 | |
| 8613046925 | Farce | a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, for-fetched situations | 17 | |
| 8613053362 | Dramatic Irony | an occasion in a play, film, or other work in which a character's words or actions convey a meaning unperceived by the character by understood by the audience | 18 | |
| 8613059548 | Litotes | a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasizes through the negation of a negative form; ex: "Are you aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?" | 19 | |
| 8613068732 | Dialect | a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of certain geographical area | 20 | |
| 8613078351 | Alliteration | repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close together; Example: "The soul selects her own society" | 21 | |
| 8613083405 | Onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds echo their sense | 22 | |
| 8613085329 | Polysyndeton | sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series; ex "X and Y and Z" | 23 | |
| 8613091654 | Internal Rhyme | rhyme within a line of poetry instead of at the end | 24 | |
| 8613096563 | Anticlimax | the intentional use of fancy language to describe the trivial or commonplace, or a sudden transition from a significant thought to a trivial one in order to achieve a humorous or satiric effect | 25 | |
| 8613103574 | Euphemism | the substitution of a comfortable or inoffensive expression to replace one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant | 26 | |
| 8613108906 | Verbal Irony | when the intended meaning of a statement differs from the apparent meaning | 27 | |
| 8613111602 | Metaphor | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between tow unlike things WITHOUT the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles | 28 | |
| 8613116994 | Chiasmus | in poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balances against the first, but with the parts reversed; example: "flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike" | 29 | |
| 8613123918 | Personification | a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes | 30 | |
| 8613128304 | Motif | a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by trying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme | 31 | |
| 8613134576 | Soliloquy | a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage | 32 | |
| 8613137373 | Euphony | harmony or beauty of sound which provided a pleasing effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect | 33 | |
| 8613141132 | Ambiguity | deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work | 34 | |
| 8613145656 | Tone | the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization | 35 | |
| 8613151831 | Hyperbole | a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect; "If I told you once, I've told you a million times..." | 36 | |
| 8613160206 | Simile | a figure of speech that makes an explicitly comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles | 37 | |
| 8613163378 | Kenning | a compound poetic phrase substituted for the usual name of a person or thing; ex. "Whale Road" for ocean | 38 | |
| 8613168265 | Juxtaposition | poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ides, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit | 39 | |
| 8613176727 | Cacophony | unpleasant sounds in the jarring juxtaposition of harsh letter or syllables which are grating to the ear, usually inadvertent, but sometimes deliberately used in poetry for effect | 40 | |
| 8613181045 | Foreshadowing | the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot | 41 | |
| 8613186467 | Catharsis | a sudden emotional breakdown or climax that consists of overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, or laughter, or any extreme change in emotion | 42 | |
| 8613189987 | Synechdoche | a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole; ex. "If you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels" | 43 | |
| 8613195657 | Diction | the choice of words, phrases, sentence structure, and figurative language in literary work; the manner or mode of verbal expression, particularly with regard to clarity and accuracy | 44 | |
| 8613207076 | Asyndeton | commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus exphasizing the parts equally: instead of X, Y, and Z ... the writer uses X, Y, Z | 45 | |
| 8613213955 | Cliche | a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse | 46 | |
| 8613221460 | Anaphora | repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row | 47 | |
| 8613223798 | Allegory | story or poem in which character, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities | 48 | |
| 8613228837 | Imagery | the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience | 49 | |
| 8613232436 | Hubris | excessive pride or ambition that leads to a character's downfall | 50 | |
| 8613235781 | Tragic Flaw | in a tragedy, the quality within the hero or heroine which leads to his or her downfall | 51 | |
| 8613242288 | Epistrophe | device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences | 52 | |
| 8613247293 | Metonyme | a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it; "We requested from the crown support for our petition" | 53 | |
| 8613255454 | Stream of Conciousness | a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind | 54 | |
| 8613259753 | Foil | a character who acts as contrast to another character | 55 | |
| 8613261914 | Assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together; example: "Do not go gentle into that good night" | 56 | |
| 8613269457 | Paradox | a statement which contains seemingly contradictory element or appears contrary to common sense, yet can be seen as true when viewed from another angle; ex. "Damn with faint praise" | 57 | |
| 8613276564 | Oxymoron | a figure of speech the combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase; ex. "Jumbo shrimp" | 58 | |
| 8613281188 | Aside | a comment made by a stage performer that is intended to be heard by the audience by supposedly not by other characters | 59 | |
| 8613285849 | Couplet | two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry | 60 | |
| 8613288140 | Genre | a category of literary work which may refer to both the content of a given work - tragedy, comedy, pastoral - and to its form, such as poetry, novel, or drama; this term also refers to types of popular literature, as in science fiction or detective story | 61 | |
| 8613300629 | Frame Narrative | a story within a story within sometimes yet another story, as in, for example, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Heart of Darkness | 62 | |
| 8613307420 | Suspension of Disbelief | a willingness of a reader or viewer to ignore minor inconsistencies or unbelievable behavior so as to enjoy a work of fiction | 63 | |
| 8613311342 | Persona | the narrator in a non first-person novel; the author's creation - the voice "through which the author speaks" | 64 | |
| 8613317623 | Parody | a work that makes fun of another work by imitation some aspect of the writer's style | 65 | |
| 8613321660 | Exposition | in drama, the presentation of essential information regarding what has occurred prior to the beginning of the play | 66 | |
| 8613326866 | Protagonist | the central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action | 67 | |
| 8613330311 | Meter | the repetition of sound patterns that creates a rhythm in poetry | 68 | |
| 8613333592 | Pun | a "play on words" based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things | 69 | |
| 8613337525 | Quatrain | a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit | 70 |
