AP English Literature - Terms to Know Flashcards

4380713361	allegory	an extended narrative in prose or verse in which characters, events, and settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story; the underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, social, or satiric.	0
4380729909	alliteration	the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close to one another	1
4380757974	anachronism	an event, object, custom, person, or thing that is out of order in time; some are unintentional, such as when an actor is performing Shakespeare forgets to take off his watch; others are deliberate to achieve a humorous or satiric effect	2
4380779492	analogy	a comparison of two similar but different things, usually to clarify an action or a relationship, such as comparing the work of a heart to that of a pump	3
4380786755	anecdote	a short, simple narrative or a principal or a truth	4
4380865734	aphorism	a short, often witty statement of a principle or a truth about life	5
4380872588	apostrophe	usually in poetry (not grammar, but sometimes in prose) the device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction either to begin a poem or to make a dramatic break in thought somewhere within the poem	6
4380896396	aside	a brief speech or comment that an actor makes to the audience, supposedly without being heard by the other actors on stage; often used for melodramatic or comedic effect	7
4380902171	assonance	the repetition of vowel sounds between different consonants, such a in neigh/fade	8
4380906147	ballad	a long narrative poem that presents a single dramatic episode which is often tragic or violent	9
4380914198	blank verse	poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter; a favorite form used by SHAKESPEARE	10
4380936122	cacophony	harsh, awkward, or dissonant sounds used deliberately in poetry and prose; the opposite of euphony	11
4380943310	catharsis	the emotional release that an audience member experiences as a result of watching a tragedy	12
4380946747	chorus	in Greek drama [Oedipus Rex], a group of characters who comments on the action taking place on the stage	13
4380958236	colloquialism	A word or phrase used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing	14
4380958237	conceit	an elaborate figure of speech in which two seemingly dissimilar things or situations are compared	15
4380961997	consonance	the repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowel sounds, as in boost/best; can also be seen within several compound words, such as fulfill and ping-pong	16
4380975260	conundrum	a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun; may also be a paradox or difficult problem	17
4380978627	diction	word choice; also called syntax	18
4380983123	dissonance	the grating of sounds that are harsh or do not go together	19
4380985059	elegy	a formal poem focusing on death and mortality, usually beginning with the recent death of a particular person	20
4380989747	end rhyme	a rhyme that comes at the end of lines of poetry	21
4380992739	epic	a long narrative poem about a serious or profound subject in a dignified style; usually featuring heroic characters and deeds important to legends; examples are the Odyssey and the Iliad	22
4381005822	euphony	a succession of harmonious sounds used in poetry or prose; the opposite of cacophony	23
4381015740	farce	a light, dramatic composition characterized by broad satirical comedy and a highly improbable plot	24
4381019789	figurative language	language that contains figures of speech such as similes and metaphors in order to create associations that are imaginative rather than literal	25
4381030036	figures of speech	expressions such as similes, metaphors, and personifications that make imaginative, rather than literal, comparisons or associations	26
4381222572	foil	a character who, by contrast, highlights the characteristics of another character	27
4381228088	folklore	traditional stories, songs, dances, and customs that are preserved among a people	28
4381262121	hubris	the excessive pride or ambition that leads a tragic hero to disregard warnings of impending doom, eventually causing his or her downfall	29
4381347734	hyperbole	deliberate exaggeration in order to create humor or emphasis	30
4381358131	imagery	words or phrases that use a collection of images to appeal to one or more of the five senses in order to create a mental picture	31
4381361730	internal rhyme	a rhyme occurring within a line of poetry	32
4381367659	inversion	reversing the customary order of elements in a sentence, or phrase; use effectively in many cases, such as posing a question	33
4381379942	irony	a situation or statement in which the actual outcome or meaning is opposite to what was expected	34
4381383742	metaphor	a figure of speech in which one thing is referred to as another; for example, "my love is a fragile flower"	35
4381390301	meter	the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry; meters found in poetry include: monometer, diameter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter	36
4381412905	metonymy	a figure of speech that uses the name of an object, person, or idea to represent something with which it is associated, such as using "the crown" to refer to a monarch	37
4381420735	mood	similar to tone, mood is the primary emotional attitude of a work	38
4381424639	narration	the telling of a story in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama; one of the four modes of discourse	39
4381429220	onomatopoeia	the use of words that sound like what they mean, such as hiss and boom	40
4381447832	oxymoron	figure of speech composed of contradictory words or phrases, such as "wise fool"	41
4381450035	parable	a short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory	42
4381453440	paradox	statement that seems to contradict itself but that turns out to have a rational meaning	43
4381456668	parallelism	technique of arranging words, phrases, clauses, or large structures by placing them side to side and making them similar in form	44
4381461943	pastoral	a poem that idealizes rural life, or shepherds, or both; also called an idyll	45
4381664695	personification	the attribution of human qualities to a nonhuman or an inanimate object	46
4381680044	Petrarchan sonnet	one of the most important types of sonnets, composed of an octave with an "abba abba" rhyme scheme, and ending in a sestet with a "cde cde" rhyme scheme; also called an Italian sonnet	47
4381701864	point of view	the perspective from which a story is presented; common points of views include: first person narrator, stream of consciousness narrator, omniscient narrator, limited omniscient narrator, objective narrator	48
4381715597	refrain	a line or group of lines that are periodically repeated throughout a poem	49
4381719656	rhyme	a similarity of accented sounds between two words, such as sad/mad; rhymes can be masculine (the rhyme sound is the last syllable of a line) or feminine (the accented syllable is followed by an unaccented syllable)	50
4381736545	sarcasm	harsh, caustic personal remarks to or about someone; less subtle than irony	51
4381740743	simile	a figure of speech that uses "like", "as", or "as if" to make a direct comparison between two essentially different objects, actions, or qualities	52
4381757985	soliloquy	a speech spoken by a character alone on stage, giving the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts (think Hamlet)	53
4381767367	sonnet	a fourteen-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter (think Shakespeare)	54
4381775131	speaker	the voice of a poem; an author may speak as himself or herself or as a fictitious character	55
4381780894	stanza	a group of lines in the formal pattern of a poem; types of stanzas that include: couplet, tercet, quantrain, cinquain, sestet, octave	56
4381797295	stereotype	a character who represents a trait that is usually attributed to a particular social or racial group and lacks individuality	57
4381806203	subjectivity	a personal presentation of events and characters, influenced by the author's feelings and opinions	58
4381811493	symbolism	the use of symbols, or anything that is meant to be taken both literally and as representative of a higher and more complex significance	59
4381817698	synecdoche	a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent a whole	60
4381825627	theme	the central idea or "message" of a literary work	61
4381832389	tone	the characteristic emotion or attitude of an author toward the characters, subject, and audience	62
4381838479	tragic flaw	the one weakness that causes the downfall of the hero in a tragedy	63
4381843044	voice	the way a written work conveys an author's attitude	64