AP Literature Terms Flashcards
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| 3792252887 | Allegory | A prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrate multi-levels of meaning and significance; often a universal symbol or personified abstraction (i.e. - Death as a black-cloaked "grim reaper" with a scythe and hourglass); symbolic narrative that represents an idea or a concept | 0 | |
| 3792254523 | Alliteration | Sequentil initial repetition of a similar sound | 1 | |
| 3792294043 | Allusion | A reference to a literary or historical person, event, or place | 2 | |
| 3792295998 | Anaphora | The regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses | 3 | |
| 3792297479 | Anecdote | A brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature; illustrates a certain point | 4 | |
| 3945083031 | Antagonist | Any force that is in opposition to the main character or protagonist | 5 | |
| 3792302200 | Antithesis | The juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas ("To err is human, to forgive divine." -Alexander Pope); a figure of speech in which an opposition or contrast of ideas is expressed by parallelism of words that are the opposites of, or strongly contrasted with, each other | 6 | |
| 3792305130 | Apostrophe | An address or invocation to something that is inanimate ("With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!" -Sir Philip Sidney, "Sonnet 31") | 7 | |
| 3792309049 | Archetype | Recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature | 8 | |
| 3792311246 | Assonance | A repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds | 9 | |
| 3792316766 | Asyndeton | A style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose ("I came, I saw, I conquered" -Caesar) | 10 | |
| 3945102086 | Attitude | Speaks to the author's approach; the feelings the author holds to his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting or even the theme.; determines the tone of the work | 11 | |
| 3792323940 | Blank verse | The verse form that most resembles common speech; consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter | 12 | |
| 3792326834 | Caesura | A pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns | 13 | |
| 3792330803 | Chiasmus | A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second ("Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure"-George Gordon, Lord Byron); flipping a phrase around | 14 | |
| 3792332163 | Colloquial | Ordinary language; the vernacular | 15 | |
| 3792335216 | Conceit | A comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem | 16 | |
| 3792338608 | Consonance | The repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels (i.e. - pitter-patter; pish-posh; clinging and clanging) | 17 | |
| 3945104434 | Connotation | What is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of the word; implied meaning of the word | 18 | |
| 3945119090 | Climax | turning point of a plot | 19 | |
| 3945104435 | Denotation | A direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word; dictionary definition | 20 | |
| 3945106502 | Dialect | The language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people; speech patterns | 21 | |
| 3945106503 | Diction | The specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect | 22 | |
| 3945121166 | Denouement | Resolution; untangling of the rising action | 23 | |
| 3792347297 | Enjambment | The continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next | 24 | |
| 3945121167 | Exposition | That part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play; beginning of the "plot triangle" | 25 | |
| 3792351736 | Farce | A play or scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor; a type of comedy that is meant to be silly or over the top | 26 | |
| 3945085381 | Foreshadowing | To hint at or present an indication of the future beforehand; to fortell | 27 | |
| 3945109314 | Formal Diction | Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Often used in narrative epic poetry; using language that is sophisticated/elevated | 28 | |
| 3945122979 | Falling Action | That part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled. This is also known as the denouement | 29 | |
| 3945122980 | Flashback | Something that happened before the present tense of the story that is brought into the plot | 30 | |
| 3945124588 | In medias res | refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback; opens in the midst of it all | 31 | |
| 3945110776 | Informal Diction | Language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech; more personal use of language | 32 | |
| 3945086930 | Hyperbole | Overstatement characterized by exaggerated language | 33 | |
| 3945086931 | Imagery | Broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. It involves any or all of the five senses; sensory language | 34 | |
| 3792355218 | Free verse | Poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines | 35 | |
| 3945088938 | Irony | A situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant; verbal, situational, or dramatic irony | 36 | |
| 3792370363 | Jargon | Specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group; the words themselves | 37 | |
| 3792372442 | Juxtaposition | The location of one thing as being adjacent with another. This placing of two items or ideas side by side creates a certain effect, reveals an attitude or accomplishes some purpose of the writer; when an author holds up two ideas side by side in contrast or comparison; figurative comparison of ideas | 38 | |
| 3945112282 | Limited Point-of-view | A perspective confined to a single character, whether a first person or a third person; the reader cannot know for sure what is going on in the minds of other characters | 39 | |
| 3948573752 | Litote | A figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement; a use of understatement | 40 | |
| 3945112283 | mood | A feeling or ambience resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view. The effect is fabricated through descriptions of feelings or objects that establish a sense of fear, patriotism, sanctity, hope, etc,; the feeling that the reader perceives | 41 | |
| 3945088939 | Motif | A recurrent device, formula, or situation that often serves as a signal for the appearance of a character or event (i.e. The recurring presence of the color green in The Great Gatsby) | 42 | |
| 3945114102 | narrator | The "character" who "tells" the story, or in poetry, the persona | 43 | |
| 3945126288 | Narrative Structure | A textual organization based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework; a sequence of events; what shapes the plot/story | 44 | |
| 3792396315 | Parable | A short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy. Many parables can be found in the Bible such as the stories of "The Prodigal Son" or "The Loaves and Fishes;" an anecdote that expresses a lesson | 45 | |
| 3945114103 | Omniscient point-of-view | Also called unlimited focus; a perspective that can be seen from one character's view, then another's, then another's, or can be moved in or out of the mind of any character at any time. The reader has access to the perceptions and thoughts of all the characters in the story; all knowing; has access to all of the character's thoughts | 46 | |
| 3945090454 | Parallel structure | The use of similar forms in writing for nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts; maintaining a consistent structure | 47 | |
| 3945090455 | Parody | A work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original | 48 | |
| 3945093540 | Plot | The arrangement of the narration based on the cause-effect relationship of the events | 49 | |
| 3945093541 | Protagonist | The main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic; may not be a "good guy" | 50 | |
| 3945126303 | Rising Action | The development of action in a work, usually at the beginning. The first part of plot structure. | 51 | |
| 3945098347 | Sarcasm | A form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical | 52 | |
| 3945098348 | Satire | A literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure; to highlight the flaws in something | 53 | |
| 3945098349 | Stereotype | A characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some one aspect, such as gender, age, ethnic or national identity, religion, occupation, marital status, etc., are predictably accompanied by certain character traits, actions, or even values | 54 | |
| 3948606760 | Setting | The time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play | 55 | |
| 3945098350 | Style | A distinctive manner of expression; includes word choice, tone, degree of formality, figurative language, rhythm, grammar, structure, sentence length, organization, etc; pulls everything together | 56 | |
| 3945098351 | Symbol | A person, place, thing, event or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or "stands for" something else. | 57 | |
| 3945098352 | Realism | The practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail | 58 | |
| 3945119091 | Tone | The attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme; the tenor of a piece of writing based on particular stylistic devices employed by the writer. reflects the narrator's attitude; the work's attitude to its subject or theme | 59 | |
| 3945098353 | Theme | A generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central or dominant idea or concern of a work; the statement a poem makes about its subject | 60 | |
| 3945102087 | Tragedy | A drama in which a character (usually good and noble and of high rank) is brought to a disastrous end in his or her confrontation with a superior force; often the protagonist's downfall is a direct result of a fatal flaw in his or her character | 61 | |
| 3792409580 | Soliloquy | A monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to himself or herself | 62 | |
| 3792422234 | Syntax | The way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences; sentence structure and how it influences the way a reader receives a particular piece of writing; arrangement of words | 63 |
