AP Literature and Composition Vocabulary Flashcards

2800822977	abstract	a style in writing that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points	0
2800822979	accent	in poetry, the stressed portion of a word; sometimes set, often a matter of opinion	1
2800822981	aesthetics	the study of beauty; "What is beauty?" "Is the beautiful always good?"	2
2800822982	allegory	a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself; many fables have this quality; true ones are even more hard and fast; example: Orwell's Animal Farm	3
2800822983	alliteration	the repetition of INITIAL consonant sounds; consonant clusters coming closely cramped and compressed	4
2800822984	allusion	a reference to another work or famous figures; can be classical (refers to Greek and Roman mythology or literature), topical (refers to current event), or popular (refers to something from pop culture--TV show or hit movie)	5
2800822986	analogy	a comparison usually involving two or more symbolic parts; employed to clarify an action or relationship	6
2800822987	anecdote	a short narrative	7
2800822990	anticlimax	occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; frequently comic	8
2800822991	antihero	a protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities	9
2800822992	aphorism	a short and usually witty saying; astute observation--"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton)	10
2800822993	apostrophe	a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman, absent, or dead	11
2800822994	archaism	the use of deliberately old-fashioned language, used to create a feeling of antiquity	12
2800822995	aside	a speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage	13
2800822996	aspect	a trait or characteristic	14
2800822997	assonance	the repeated use of vowel sounds--"Old king Cole was a merry old soul."	15
2800822999	ballad	a long, narrative poem, usually in regular meter and rhyme; typically has a naive folksy quality that sets it apart from epic poetry	16
2800823002	black humor	the use of disturbing themes in comedy; morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world, ordinary characters or situations exaggerated beyond normal limits of satire or irony	17
2800823003	bombast	pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words	18
2800823008	caricature	a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality	19
2800823009	catharsis	drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage; purging of emotions through a form of art, in this case, literature	20
2800823012	classical	refers to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts	21
2800823014	colloquialism	a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English; slang words, informal English	22
2800823016	conceit	refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines	23
2800823018	connotation	what a word suggests or implies, not its literal meaning--i.e., dark meaning dangerous instead lacking of light	24
2800823019	denotation	the literal meaning of a word	25
2800823020	consonance	the repetition of consonant sounds WITHIN words--"A flock of sick, black-checkered ducks."	26
2800823021	couplet	a pair of lines that end in rhyme	27
2800823023	diction	author's choice of words, choice of specific words	28
2800823024	syntax	author's choice of words; refers to the ordering and structuring of the words	29
2800823025	dirge	a song for the dead, tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy	30
2800823026	dissonance	the grating of incompatible sounds	31
2800823028	dramatic irony	when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not	32
2800823029	dramatic monologue	when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience	33
2800823032	enjambment	the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause--i.e.,	34
2800823033	epic	a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter--i.e., great war, heroic journey, battle with supernatural, etc.	35
2800823034	mock-epic	parody form that deals with mundane events and ironically treats them as worthy of epic poetry	36
2800823036	euphemism	a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality--i.e., passed away for died, let go for fired	37
2800823041	foil	a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast	38
2800823042	foot	the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed	39
2800823043	foreshadowing	an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later	40
2800823044	free verse	poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern	41
2800823045	genre	a subcategory of literature--i.e., scientific fiction, detective stories->types of fiction	42
2800823048	hyperbole	exaggeration or deliberate overstatement: He has a watermelon head.	43
2800823053	*irony	comes in a variety of forms; a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean, deeper than sarcasm though; an undertow of meaning	44
2800823058	lyric	a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world; when used to describe a tone, refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness	45
2800823062	metaphor	a comparison, or analogy that states one thing IS another--His eyes were burning coals.	46
2800823063	metonym	a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with---"the crown" referring to the king, "The pen is mightier than the sword." (pen reps writers and ideas, sword reps war)	47
2800823067	onomatopoeia	words that sound how they're spelled--boom, splat	48
2800823069	oxymoron	a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction	49
2800823070	parable	a story that instructs like a fable or an allegory	50
2800823071	paradox	a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, it does not---"It's raining, but I don't believe that it is."	51
2800823072	parallelism	repeated syntactical similarities used for effect--He likes playing the piano, eating cookies, and reading lengthy novels.	52
2800823073	paraphrase	to restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase; not an analysis or interpretation	53
2800823075	parody	when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness	54
2800823076	pastoral	a poem set in a tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds	55
2800823078	personification	giving an inanimate object human qualities or form--The darkness of the forest became the figure of a beautiful, pake-skinned woman in night-black clothes.	56
2800823080	point of view	the perspective from which the action of a novel (or narrative poem) is presented	57
2800823081	omniscient narrator	third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action that's going on	58
2800823082	limited omniscient narrator	third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually main character) sees, reports only thoughts of that one character	59
2800823084	first-person narrator	narrator who is a character in the story and tells the story from his or her point of view; when crazy, a liar, or very young, narrator is unreliable	60
2800823087	protagonist	the main character of a novel or play	61
2800823088	pun	usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings	62
2800823089	refrain	a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem	63
2800823092	rhetorical question	a question that suggests an answer	64
2800823093	satire	exposes common character flaws to humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behaviours will become less common--hypocrisy, vanity, greed	65
2800823094	simile	like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as	66
2800823095	soliloquy	a speech spoken by a character alone on stage; meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts; not meant to imply that the actor acknowledges the audience is listening	67
2800823096	stanza	a group of lines roughly analogues in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose	68
2800823097	stock characters	standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc.	69
2800823102	symbolism	a device in literature where an object reps an idea	70
2800823104	theme	the main idea of the overall work; the central idea; topic of discourse or discussion	71
2800823106	tragic flaw	in tragedy, weakness of character in an other wise good/great individual that leads to his demise	72