AP Literature Terms Flashcards

6702779008	Alliteration	Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words to create emphasis	0
6702779009	Alliteration Example	Big, Bad, Barking Dog	1
6702779010	Allusion	Reference in literature or in art to another literary, historical, or cultural work	2
6702779011	Allusion Example	"It may well be we shall touch the Happy Isles/And see the great Achilles, whom we know"	3
6702779012	Ambiguity	Intentionally unclear	4
6702779013	Ambiguity Example	"Thou still unravished bride of quietness"	5
6702779014	Anachronism	An element of a story is out of its time frame	6
6702797074	Anachronism Example	Romeo riding to Mantua in a Porsche	7
6702797075	Analogy	Explains an unfamiliar idea by comparing it to something that is familiar	8
6702797076	Analogy Example	Knowledge is like fire	9
6702809778	Anapest	Poetic measure- unaccented, unaccented, accented (rollicking, moving rhythm)	10
6703646826	Anapest Example	"I am MONarch of All I surVEY"	11
6703646827	Anecdote	A short, personal story used to emphasize a point	12
6703646828	Antagonist	Character who is a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist	13
6703646829	Antecedent	Word or phrase to which a pronoun refers ("O that this too solids FLESH would melt,/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew")	14
6703646830	Anticlimax	An often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation	15
6703646831	Antihero	Protagonist that does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility	16
6703646832	Antihero Example	Holden Caulfield	17
6703646833	Antithesis	A concept that is directly opposed to a previously presented idea	18
6703646834	Aphorism	A statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle; a folk proverb	19
6703646835	Aphorism Examplr	"Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise"	20
6703646836	Apostrophe	A rhetorical address to an abstract entity	21
6703646837	Apostrophe Example	"Death, be not proud!"	22
6703646838	Apotheosis	Elevating someone to the level of a god	23
6703646839	Archetype	A reoccurring character, situation, or symbol that occurs frequently throughout all cultures	24
6703646840	Archetype Example	The Underdog	25
6703646841	Aside	A remark or speech by a character to the audience that is not heard by other characters on stage	26
6703646842	Assonance	Repeated use of a vowel sound within a phrase	27
6703646843	Assonance Example	How now brown cow	28
6703646844	Attitude	Author's feelings toward a subject; tone	29
6703646845	Aubade	Poem or song about lovers who must leave each other in the early morning	30
6703646846	Ballad	A song or poem passed down that tells a story; usually composed in four-line stanzas (quatrains) with abcb rhyme	31
6703646847	Cacophony	Harsh, discordant sounds, unpleasant to the ear (sq, st, ck, ft, t, k, sc, ch)	32
6703646848	Cacophony Example	"And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,/And with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each)	33
6703646849	Carpe Diem	Latin for "seize the day"; frequent in 16th and 17th century metaphysical poetry	34
6703646850	Catharsis	Emotional cleansing or relief	35
6703646851	Chiasmus	Opposite of parallel construction; inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form	36
6703646852	Chiasmus Example	"Ask not what you can do for our country, but what our country can do for you"	37
6703646853	Colloquial	Slang or regional dialect	38
6703646854	Comic Relief	Humor that provides a release of tension	39
6703646855	Conceit	A far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things; an unusual extended metaphor	40
6703646856	Conceit Examlle	"This flea is you and I, and this/Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is."	41
6703646857	Connotation	Association a word brings to mind	42
6703646858	Consonance	Same consonant sound in a word or phrase with different vowel sounds	43
6703646859	Conventional Character	A character with traits that are expected or traditional	44
6703646860	Couplet	Two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables	45
6703646861	Couplet Examples	"Hope springs eternal in the human breast:/Man never is, but always to be blest"	46
6703646862	Dactylic	Foot of poetry with three syllables; stessed, unstressed, unstressed	47
6703646863	Dactylic Example	"JUST for a HANDful of SILver he LEFT us"	48
6703646864	Denotation	Dictionary definition of a word	49
6703646865	Dénouement	Outcome or clarification at the end of a story	50
6703646866	Deus Ex Machina	When the gods intervene in a story, especially to resolve an impossible conflict	51
6703646867	Diction	Word choice for a desired effect or tone	52
6703646868	Didactiv	A story, speech, or essay where the main purpose is to instruct, teach, or moralize	53
6703646869	Distortion	An exaggeration or stretching of the truth to achieve a desired effect	54
6703646870	Enjambment	In poetry, the running over of a sentence from one line to the next, or one stanza to the next.	55
6703646871	Epigram	A short, clever poem with a witty turn of though	56
6703646872	Epigraph	A brief quotation found at the beginning of a literary work	57
6703646873	Epigraph Example	"The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes" found at the beginning of Slaughterhouse-Five	58
6703646874	Epiphany	A sudden flash of insight	59
6703646875	Epistolary Novel	A novel in letter form written by one of the charactets	60
6703646876	Euphemism	Substitution of an inoffensive word for an offensive one	61
6703646877	Euphemism Example	He passed away	62
6703646878	Euphony	Pleasant or harmonious sounds for an intended effect; l, m, n, and long vowel sounds	63
6703646879	Euphony Example	"The gray sea and the long black land"	64
6703646880	Farce	Comedy that relies on exaggerated or improbably situations, disasters, or sexual innuendo	65
6703646881	Figurative Language	Uses figures of speech to convey meaning; metaphor, simile, metonymy, personification, hyperbole, etc.	66
6703646882	First Person Narrator	A character in the story tells the story using the pronoun "I"	67
6703646883	First Person Example	"I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without."	68
6703646884	Flashback	Interrupting a narrative by going back to an earlier event or image of a past experience	69
6703646885	Flat character	A simple, one-dimensional character	70
6703646886	Foil	A character whose contrasting or opposing characteristics emphasize aspects of another character	71
6703646887	Foil Example	Fortinbras to Hamlet	72
6703646888	Foreshadowing	Hints at what is to come; even if only noticed in hindsight	73
6703646889	Free Verse	Poetry without regular rhythm or rhyme	74
6703646890	Genre	Category of a piece of writing	75
6703646891	Heroic Couplet	A rhymed couple written in iambic pentameter; used almost exclusively by Alexander Pope	76
6703646892	Heroic Couplet	"The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,/With loads of learned lumber in his head."	77
6703646893	Hubris	Insolence, arrogance, or pride	78
6703646894	Hyperbole	An extreme exaggeration	79
6703646895	Hyperbole Example	Gatsby sends Daisy "a greenhouse" of flowers.	80
6703646896	Iambic Pentameter	A five-foot line made up of unaccented followed by accented syllables; most common metric foot in English poetry	81
6703646897	Imagery	Anything that affects or appeals to the reader's senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell	82
6703646898	In Media Res	A work that begins in the middle of the action	83
6703646899	Internal Rhyme	A rhyme within the line, rather than at the end	84
6703646900	Internal Rhyme Example	"A narrow fellow in the grass"	85
6703646901	Inversion	A switch of the normal word order for emphasis or rhyme	86
6703646902	Inversion Exampmr	"Strong he was"	87
6703646903	Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet	Fourteen line poem divided into two parts: first (8 lines abbaabba) second (6 lines cdcdcd)	88
6703646904	Litotes	Affirmation of an idea by using negative understatement	89
6703646905	Litotes Example	She is no saint	90
6703646906	Lyric Poem	A fairly short emotionally expressive poem	91
6703646907	Metamorphosis	A radical change in a character, either physical or emotional	92
6703646908	Metaphor	Figure of speech comparing two dissimilar things, asserting that one thing IS another thing	93
6703646909	Metaphor Exame	"Life's but a walking shadow"	94
6703646910	Meter	Rhythmical pattern of a poem; syllables- iamb, anapest, trochee, davtyl	95
6703646911	Metonymy	Figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or phrase closely associated to it	96
6703646912	Metonymy Example	"The White House decided to declare war."	97
6703646913	Narrative Poem	A poem that tells a story	98
6703646914	Near, Off, or Slant Rhyme	A rhyme based on an imperfect or incomplete end of syllable sound	99
6703646915	Onomatopoeia	Words that imitate sounds	100
6703646916	Onomatopoeia Example	Trickle, drop, whiz, rumble	101
6703646917	Oxymoron	Figure of speech that combines two contradictory words	102
6703646918	Oxymoron Example	Bright smoke	103
6703646919	Parable	A short story illustrating a moral or religious lesson	104
6703646920	Parable Example	The Prodigal Son	105
6703646921	Paradox	A statement or situation that at first seems impossible or oxymoronic; but which ultimately resolves its meaning	106
6703646922	Paradox	My only love sprung from my only hate!	107
6703646923	Parallelism	Repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or a series of sentences	108
6703646924	Parallelism Example	"I came, I saw, I conquered"	109
6703647084	Parody	A comical imitation of a serious piece with the intent to ridicule	110
6703647085	Pastoral	A poem, play, or story that celebrates and idealizes rural life	111
6703647086	Pathos	Evoking a reader's emotions- especially pity, compassion, and sympathy	112
6703647087	Periodic Sentence	A sentence that delivers its point at the end	113
6703647088	Periodic Sentence Example	Tirelessly, at the piano, without relief, she practiced scales.	114
6703647089	Personification	Attributing human characteristics to an animal, inanimate object, or abstract entity.	115
6703647090	Personification Example	"Daffodils tossed their heads in a sprightly dance"	116
6703647091	Point of View	Perspective of the speaker	117
6703647092	Protagonist	The main character in a work; often considered to be the hero or heroine	118
6703647093	Pun	A humorous play on words that have several meanings or words that sound the same but have different meanings	119
6703647094	Pun Example	As Mercutio is dying: "You will find me a grave man."	120
6703647095	Quatrain	Four-line stanza	121
6703647096	Refrain	Repetition of a line, stanza, or phrase	122
6703647097	Refrain/Repetition Example	"Quoth the Raven, Nevermore"	123
6703647098	Repetition	A word or phrase used more than once to emphasize an idea	124
6703647099	Rhetorical Question	A question with an obvious answer, so no response is expected	125
6703647100	Rhetorical Question Examplr	"Were it not madness to deny/To live because we're sure to die?"	126
6703647101	Satire	Use of humor to ridicule and expose society in order to evoke change	127
6703647102	Sestet	A six line stanza of poetry; also, the last six lines of a sonnet	128
6703647103	Shift	A movement from one thought or idea to another; a change	129
6703647104	Simile	Figure of speech that compares unlike things using like or as	130
6703647105	Soliloquy	A characters speech to the audience when they are alone on stage	131
6703647106	English (Shakespearean) Sonnet	Fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter; abab, cdcd, efef, gg	132
6703647107	Stanza	A grouping of poetic lines	133
6703647108	Stock Character	A stereotypical character that the audience expects to have certain characteristics; similar to conventional and flat character	134
6703647109	Stream of Consciousness	A style of writing that replicates the way the human mind works; ideas are presented in random order and some thoughts are left unfinished	135
6703647110	Structure	The way in which parts of a written work are combined	136
6703647111	Style	The way a writer uses language; the writer's voice; diction, figures of speech, syntax	137
6703647112	Symbol	A concrete object, scene, or even character that has deeper significance because it is associated with an important idea or theme	138
6703647113	Symbol Example	The rose bush in The Scarlet Letter	139
6703647114	Synechdoche	Figure of speech where one part represents the entire object, or vice versa	140
6703647115	Synecdoche Example	"Ladies and gentlemen, lend me your ears"	141
6703646925	Syntax	The way words, phrases, and sentences are ordered and connected	142
6703647116	Theme	The central idea of a literary work; the message the author wants the reader to understand	143
6703647117	Tone	The author's attitude toward a subject	144
6703647118	Tongue in Cheek	Expressing a thought in a way that appears to be sincere, but is actually joking	145
6703647119	Tongue in Cheek Example	"How do you like this neon cowgirl uniform? I think I'll wear it to my job interview tomorrow."	146
6703647120	Hamartia	A defect in a hero or heroine that leads to his or her downfall; tragic flaw	147
6703647121	Transition/Segue	To get from one portion of a poem or story to another by smoothly connecting different parts of a work	148