AP English Language Flashcards Flashcards
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| 2794331751 | allegory | A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. | 0 | |
| 2794332173 | alliteration | Repetition of consonant sounds. EX: Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers. | 1 | |
| 2794332985 | allusion | A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. EX: Mentioning Thomas Edison in an essay about lights and electricity. | 2 | |
| 2794333166 | antagonist | A person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. EX: Creature (A) v. Frankenstein (P) | 3 | |
| 2794333439 | assonance | Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity. EX: The light of the fire is a sight. | 4 | |
| 2794334483 | ballad | A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. EX: The Song of Hiawatha | 5 | |
| 2794334887 | characterization | Actions, dialogue, and narrative description that reveal a sense of a character's personality to the reader. EX: Description of Piggy in The Lord of the Flies as as asthmatic young child. | 6 | |
| 2794335100 | climax | Moment of great emotional intensity or suspense in a plot. EX: Death of Piggy in Lord of the Flies. | 7 | |
| 2794335586 | comic relief | A humorous scene or speech intended to lighten the mood. | 8 | |
| 2794335850 | conflict | A struggle between opposing forces. EX: The creature against Frankenstein | 9 | |
| 2794336090 | consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds anywhere in the word, not just at the beginning. EX: The ship has sailed to far off seas. | 10 | |
| 2794337303 | denouement | an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot. EX: The hanging of Tom in To Kill a Mockingbird | 11 | |
| 2794337766 | deus ex machina | In literature, the use of an artificial device or gimmick to solve a problem. EX: When Gandalf summons the great eagles to rescue everyone. | 12 | |
| 2794338241 | dramatic foil | a character who highlights the traits of another character through contrast. EX: Jack and Ralph in The Lord of the Flies. | 13 | |
| 2794339405 | dramatic irony | Irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play. EX: In a scary movie a character walks into a house that the audience knows the killer is in. | 14 | |
| 2794339715 | dynamic character | A character who grows, learns, or changes as a result of the story's action. EX: Dorian's change from pure and innocent to corrupt and evil. | 15 | |
| 2794340740 | end rhyme | A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line. EX: I like my boat I like to float. | 16 | |
| 2794340742 | epic poem | A long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds. EX: The Oddesey. | 17 | |
| 2794343003 | exposition | A narrative device, often used at the beginning of a work that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances. The description of young Victor Frankenstein's life at the beginning if the book to show his childhood. | 18 | |
| 2794343274 | falling action | the part of a literary plot that occurs after the climax has been reached and the conflict has been resolved. EX: the boys setting the island on fire looking for Ralph in The Lord of the Flies. | 19 | |
| 2794343441 | flashback | A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events. EX: There are several moments where Willy Loman has flashbacks to his younger days in Death of a Salesman. | 20 | |
| 2794343616 | flat character | A character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of a story. EX: Mr. Filch in Harry Potter does not grow of change in any way during the series. | 21 | |
| 2794345520 | foreshadowing | A warning or indication of a future event. EX: Romeo tells Juliet that he would rather have loved her and died than not and lived. This foreshadows their upcoming death. | 22 | |
| 2794345871 | free verse | Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme. EX: After the Sea-ship by Walt Whitman | 23 | |
| 2794346178 | iambic pentameter | a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable. EX: Several parts of Shakespeare's works. | 24 | |
| 2794346374 | imagery | Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste). EX: Glittering white, the blanket of snow covered everything in sight. | 25 | |
| 2794346653 | irony | A contrast between expectation and reality. EX: as pleasant as a root canal. | 26 | |
| 2794347385 | juxtaposition | Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts. EX: Light and darkness in Romeo and Juliet: "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night" | 27 | |
| 2794348000 | lyric poem | A short poem of songlike quality. EX: On Being Human, C.S. Lewis | 28 | |
| 2794348338 | magical realism | A genre of fiction in which elements of fantasy, myth, or the supernatural are included in a narrative that is otherwise objective and realistic. EX: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury | 29 | |
| 2794348636 | metaphor | A comparison that establishes a figurative identity between objects being compared. EX: The Pond was like glass. | 30 | |
| 2794349049 | metaphysical poetry | highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression. IE: Henry Watton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. | 31 | |
| 2794350176 | meter | A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. | 32 | |
| 2794350482 | mood | Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader. EX: The dark hollow was filled with a deep and impenetrable fog. (dark and mysterious mood) | 33 | |
| 2794350483 | motif | A recurring theme, subject or idea. EX: The theme of Good vs. Evil in The Lord of the Flies | 34 | |
| 2794350943 | narrative poem | a poem that tells a story. EX: The Divine Comedy by Dante | 35 | |
| 2794351420 | onomatopoeia | A word that imitates the sound it represents. EX: Boing! | 36 | |
| 2794351646 | oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. EX: Deafining silence | 37 | |
| 2794351649 | parable | A simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. EX: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Aesop | 38 | |
| 2794352136 | paradox | A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. EX: I like persons better than principles and persons with no principles better than anything at all. (Picture of Dorian Gray) | 39 | |
| 2794352401 | parallel plot | a secondary story line. EX: The three plots running simultaneously in A Midsummer nights dream by Shakespeare | 40 | |
| 2794352925 | Petrarchan sonnet | a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six lines (sestet) usually following the abba abba cde cde rhyme scheme. EX: any poem by Francesco Petrarchan | 41 | |
| 2794353376 | point of view | The perspective from which a story is told. EX: The book Frankenstein is written in the first person. | 42 | |
| 2794353547 | protagonist | main character in fiction or drama. EX: Dorian Gray is the protagonist in The Picture of Dorian Gary | 43 | |
| 2794353775 | realism | A 19th century artistic movement in which writers and painters sought to show life as it is rather than life as it should be. EX: Mark Twain | 44 | |
| 2794354204 | rhyme | Repetition of sounds at the end of words. I'm having a good time playing with this dime. | 45 | |
| 2794355057 | rhythm | A regularly recurring sequence of events or actions. | 46 | |
| 2794356573 | rising action | Events leading up to the climax. EX: The main body of a book/story. | 47 | |
| 2794356811 | romanticism | 19th century artistic movement that appealed to emotion rather than reason. EX: Mary Shelley was a romanticist. | 48 | |
| 2794358215 | round character | A character who demonstrates some complexity and who develops or changes in the course of a work EX: Dorian Gray is a round character | 49 | |
| 2794358508 | sarcasm | the use of irony to mock or convey contempt. EX: "That's wonderful" when its not actually wonderful. | 50 | |
| 2794358509 | satire | A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. EX: The Daily Show | 51 | |
| 2794358855 | setting | The context in time and place in which the action of a story occurs. EX: The setting of Dorian Gray is in London England in the 19th century. | 52 | |
| 2794359509 | Shakespearean sonnet | a sonnet consisting three quatrains and a concluding couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg | 53 | |
| 2794359968 | situational irony | Irony involving a situation in which actions have an effect that is opposite from what was intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected. EX: a life guard drowning. | 54 | |
| 2794361371 | soliloquy | A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage. EX: The long rambles of Puck in A Midsummer Nights Dream. | 55 | |
| 2794361682 | static character | A character that does not change from the beginning of the story to the end. Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray. | 56 | |
| 2794361683 | theme | Central idea of a work of literature. EX: The Theme of vanity in The Picture of Dorian Gray. | 57 | |
| 2794362043 | tone | Attitude a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character | 58 | |
| 2794362193 | tragedy | A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character. EX: The Odyssey. | 59 | |
| 2794362616 | tragic hero | A literary character who makes an error of judgment or has a fatal flaw that, combined with fate and external forces, brings on a tragedy EX: Odyesseus | 60 | |
| 2794362811 | understatement | the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is. EX: Saying "its just a scrape" when you have lost a limb. | 61 |