AP English Literature Terms Review Flashcards

6531017350	accent	the stressed portion of a word	0
6531024759	aesthetic/aesthetics	appealing to the senses/the study of beauty	1
6531028618	allegory	a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself (LOTF)	2
6531035815	alliteration	the repetition of initial consonant sounds	3
6531056295	allusion	a reference to another work or famous figure	4
6531780824	anachronism	misplaced in time	5
6531783685	analogy	a comparison (usually two or more symbolic parts used to clarify an action or relationship.	6
6531792244	anecdote	a short narrative	7
6531794679	antecedent	the word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun refers to or replaces	8
6531800172	anthropomorphism	inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics	9
6531810630	anticlimax	when an action produces far smaller results then one had been led to expect	10
6531818249	antihero	a protagonist who is clearly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, etc.	11
6531830518	aphorism	a short and usually witty saying	12
6531833273	apostrophe	an address to someone not present or to a personified object or idea	13
6531836748	archaism	the use of deliberately old-fashioned language	14
6531840410	aside	a speech made an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage	15
6531854815	assonance	the repeated use of vowel sounds	16
6531859265	atmosphere	the emotional tone of background that surrounds a scene	17
6531863115	attitude	a speaker's, author's, or character's nature toward or opinion of a subject	18
6531875293	ballad	a long, narrative poem usually in a very regular meter and rhyme	19
6531888121	cacophony	using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds	20
6531890971	cadence	the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense	21
6531897282	canto	a section division in a long work of poetry; similar to chapters in a novel	22
6531905288	caricature	a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality	23
6531909649	catharsis	the "cleansing" of emotion experience by the audience after having lived through the experiences presented on stage	24
6531918973	chorus	(drama) the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it	25
6531925663	classic	an accepted (literary) masterpiece	26
6531931354	classical	the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts	27
6531934881	colloquialism	a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English	28
6531941311	conceit	a startling or unusual metaphor or one developed and expanded upon over several lines	29
6532004361	denotation	the literal meaning of a word	30
6532007314	connotation	the emotional suggestions of a word	31
6532010458	consonance	the repetition of consonant sounds within words (as opposed to the beginning of words which is alliteration)	32
6532018791	couplet	a pair of lines that end in rhyme	33
6532027259	diction	author's choice of words	34
6532027421	syntax	the ordering and structuring of words	35
6532032452	dirge	a song for the dead	36
6532034328	dissonance	the grating of incompatible sounds	37
6532037267	doggerel	crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme	38
6532041868	dramatic irony	when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not	39
6532046890	dramatic monologue	when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience	40
6532053901	elegy	a poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner	41
6532062387	elements	the basic techniques of each genre of literature	42
6532066113	short story elements	characters, irony, theme, symbol, plot, setting	43
6532070648	poetry elements	figurative language, symbol, imagery, rhythm, rhyme	44
6532074769	drama elements	conflict, characters, climax, conclusion, exposition, rising action, falling action, sets, props	45
6532283102	enjambment	the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause	46
6532295261	epic	a long narrative poem on a serious theme and written in dignified style	47
6532299222	epitaph	lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place	48
6532303013	euphemism	a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality	49
6532312567	euphony	when sounds blend harmoniously	50
6532316428	explicit	to say or write something directly and clearly	51
6532319742	farce	a funny play; broad humor	52
6532327021	feminine rhyme	lines rhymed by their final two syllables	53
6532332961	figurative language	writing that uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning	54
6532339824	foil	a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast	55
6532347171	foot	the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry	56
6532351325	foreshadowing	an event or statement the suggests a larger event that comes later	57
6532355853	free verse	poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern	58
6532365269	gothic, gothic novel	mysterious, gloomy literature	59
6532370643	hubris	excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall	60
6532374457	hyperbole	exaggeration or deliberate overstatement	61
6532376780	imagery	an author's use of figurative language, images, or sensory details that appeal to the reader's sentences	62
6532383893	implicit	to say or write something that implies or suggests but never says so directly	63
6532388772	in medias res	in the middle of things	64
6532393725	interior monologue	writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head	65
6532400196	juxtaposition	placing two or more concepts, places, characters, or their actions together for the purpose of comparison or contrast	66
6532412141	lament	a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved on or over some other intense loss	67
6532416667	lampoon	a satire	68
6532420584	loose sentence	a sentence complete before its end	69
6532424562	periodic sentence	a sentence that is not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase	70
6532440132	lyric	poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world	71
6532444316	masculine rhyme	a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable (what you think of when you think of a rhyme)	72
6532449512	melodrama	a form of "cheesy" theater in which the hero is excessively good, the villain very mean and rotten, and the heroine incredibly pure	73
6532460098	metaphor	a comparison or analogy that states one thing IS another	74
6532467100	simile	a comparison often using like or as	75
6532476067	metonym	a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with (crown for queen)	76
6532483624	motif	a recurring symbol	77
6532487940	narrative techniques	the methods employed in the telling of a story	78
6532493100	narrative techniques - examples	point of view, manipulation of time, dialogue, internal monologue	79
6532497670	nemesis	the protagonist's archenemy	80
6532512646	onomatopoeia	words that sound like what they mean	81
6532514295	oxymoron	a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction	82
6532518705	parable	a story that instructs (similar to fables or allegories)	83
6532522692	paradox	a statement that seems to contradict itself but on closer inspection does not	84
6532531934	parallelism	repeated syntactical similarities used for effect	85
6532538229	parody	a work that makes fun of another work by exaggerating many of its qualities to ridiculousness	86
6532543215	pastoral	a poem set in tranquil nature; often a poem about shepherds	87
6532626741	persona	the narrator in a non-first-person novel	88
6532631293	personification	giving an inanimate object human qualities or form	89
6532634320	plaint	a poem or speech expressing sorrow	90
6532639715	point of view	omniscient narrator, limited omniscient narrator, first-person narrator, stream of consciousness, objective narrator	91
6532649885	objective narrator	third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera; the objective narrator does NOT know what a character is thinking unless the character speaks of it	92
6532659499	prelude	any introductory poem to a longer work of verse	93
6532662195	protagonist	the main character of a play or novel	94
6532664356	pun	the usually humorous use of a word to suggest two or more meanings	95
6532667938	refrain	a line of set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem	96
6532670815	requiem	a song of prayer for the dead	97
6532672514	resources of language	linguistic devices, such as: diction, syntax, figurative language, and imagery	98
6532678705	rhapsody	an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise	99
6532682586	rhetorical question	a question that suggests an answer	100
6532690983	style	the manner in which an author writes that distinguishes him/her from other writers	101
6532696573	style: examples of techniques	diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, tone, and voice	102
6539479671	subjunctive mood	an "if . . . were" grammatical form	103
6539486279	suspension of disbelief	the acceptance of an audience's or reader's incidents of plot	104
6539495553	symbol	something that refers to itself while simultaneously representing something else	105
6539504512	syncope	contracting, or shortening, a word by removing internal sounds, syllables, or letters and inserting an apostrophe "heav'n" "ev'ry"	106
6539515274	synecdoche	figure of speech in which a part represents the whole (sail to refer to a ship)	107
6539522898	technique	the tools of the author (not elements); for example, in poetry, onomatopoeia is a technique within the element of rhythm	108
6539536986	theme	the main idea of the overall; the central idea	109
6539540234	thesis	the main position of an argument	110
6539542474	tone	the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude about a subject	111
6539545770	tragic flaw	the weakness of a character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise	112
6539553745	verisimilitude	the appearance of being real or true	113
6539555983	zeugma	the use of a word to modify two or more words but used for different meanings. Ex: He closed the door and his heart on his lost love.	114