AP Literature Terms Flashcards

3912003883	Allegory	story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.	0
3912010697	Allusion	reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture. An indirect reference to something (usually from literature, etc.).	1
3912015381	Aphorism	brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth. Also called maxim, epigram.	2
3912029685	Colloquialism	a word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations.	3
3912040914	Didactic	form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.	4
3912049723	Explication	act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.	5
3912053136	Foil	A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero.	6
3912056314	Foreshadowing	the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot.	7
3912061226	Hypotactic	sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them.	8
3912064480	Imagery	the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience.	9
3912069030	Juxtaposition	poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.	10
3912073162	Litotes	is a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form.	11
3912077572	Metonymy	a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. "We requested from the crown support for our petition." The crown is used to represent the monarch.	12
3912085875	Motif	a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. Kurt Vonnegut uses "So it goes" throughout Slaughterhouse-Five to remind the reader of the senselessness of death.	13
3912087576	Oxymoron	a figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.	14
3912090333	Paradox	a statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth.	15
3912094436	Personification	a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.	16
3912100781	Polysyndeton	sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series. Instead of X, Y, and Z... Polysyndeton results in X and Y and Z...	17
3912104622	Satire	a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change.	18
3912107002	Stereotype	a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices.	19
3912109864	Syndoche	a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. "If you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels." The wheels represent the entire car.	20
3912113085	Theme	the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.	21
3912113086	Tone	the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.	22
3912121791	Understatement	a statement that says less than what is meant.	23
3912126618	Periodic	sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements.	24