AP Literature - Princeton Review Glossary Flashcards

2366075976	Abstract	This type of style is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its point	0
2366076265	Academic	As an adjective describing style, this word means dry and theoretical writing; when a piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis	1
2366076743	Accent	The stressed portion of a word. In poetry, it is often a matter of a opinion	2
2366077299	Aesthetic	An adjective meaning "appealing to the senses," as a noun, it is a coherent sense of taste	3
2366077909	Allegory	A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"	4
2366078624	Alliteration	The repetition of initial consonant sounds	5
2366078625	Allusion	A reference to another work or famous figure	6
2366078626	Anachronism	"Misplaced in time;" if the actor playing Brutus in a production of Julius Caesar forgets to take off his wristwatch	7
2366078627	Analogy	A comparison; usually involve two or more symbolic parts and are employed to clarify an action or a relationship	8
2366078632	Anecdote	A short narrative or story	9
2366078840	Antecedent	The word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun refers to or replaces	10
2366078841	Anthropomorphism	In literature, when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation	11
2366079072	Anticlimax	Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect	12
2366079073	Antihero	A protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of unsavory qualities	13
2366082164	Aphorism	A short and usually witty saying, such as" "'Classic'? A book which people praise and don't read" - Mark Twain	14
2366082165	Apostrophe	An address to someone not present or to a personified object or idea	15
2366082166	Archaism	The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. Authors sometimes use it to create a feeling of antiquity - "Ye Olde Candle Shoppe"	16
2366082167	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	17
2366082168	Aspect	A trait or characteristic	18
2366082169	Assonance	The repeated use of vowel sounds, as in "Old king Cole was a merry old soul"	19
2366082358	Atmosphere	The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene	20
2366082359	Ballad	A long, narrative poem usually in very regular meter and rhyme, typically has a naive folksy quality	21
2366082360	Pathos	When the writing of a scene evokes a feeling of dignified pity and sympathy	22
2366085362	Bathos	When writing strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to elicit tears from every little hiccup	23
2366082361	Black Humor	The use of disturbing things in comedy; when Didi and Gogo comically debate over which should commit suicide first	24
2366082525	Bombast	This is pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; when one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words	25
2366082526	Burlesque	A broad parody, one that takes a style or a form such as tragic drama and exaggerates it into redicolousness; a parody	26
2366082527	Cacophony	In poetry, using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds	27
2366082734	Cadence	The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense	28
2366082735	Canto	The name for a section division in a long work of poetry, similar to the way chapters divide a novel	29
2366082736	Caricature	A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality	30
2366082737	Catharsis	A term drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage	31
2366082742	Chorus	In drama, the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it	32
2366082818	Classic	Typical, or an accepted masterpiece	33
2366082819	Coinage (Neologism)	A new word, usually one invented on the spot	34
2366082820	Colloquialism	A word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't part of accepted "schoolbook" English. For example, "I'm toasted. I'm a crispy-critter man, and now I've got this wicked headache"	35
2366082987	Complex (Dense)	Suggests that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words (image, idea opposition); there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit	36
2366090654	Conceit (Controlling Image)	Refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or one developed and expanded upon over several lines; when an image dominates and shapes the entire work, it's called a "controlling image"	37
2366090655	Connotation	Everything that a word suggests or implies	38
2366090656	Denotation	A word's literal meaning	39
2366090657	Consonance	The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at their beginnings): "a flock of sick, black-checkered ducks"	40
2366090945	Couplet	A pair of lines that end in rhyme	41
2366090946	Decorum	In order to observe it, a character's speech must be stylized according to her social situation and in accordance with the occasion	42
2366090947	Diction	The author's choice of words	43
2366106503	Syntax	The ordering and structuring of the words	44
2366091065	Dirge	A song for the dead. Its tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy	45
2366091206	Dissonance	The grating of incompatible sounds	46
2366091462	Doggerel	Crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme; limericks	47
2366091463	Dramatic Irony	When the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not	48
2366091464	Dramatic Monologue	When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience	49
2366091465	Elegy	A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner; often use the recent death of a noted person or loved one as a starting point; the memorialize specific dead people	50
2366092335	Elements	The basic techniques of each genre of literature	51
2366092336	Enjambment	The continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause	52
2366092337	Epic	A very long narrative poem on a serious theme and in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter: a great war, a heroic journey, the Fall from Eden, a battle with supernatural forces, and so on	53
2366092338	Epitaph	Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place; usually a line or handful of lines, often serious or religious but sometimes witty and even irrelevant	54
2366092667	Euphemism	A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality	55
2366092668	Euphony	When sounds blend harmoniously	56
2366092884	Explicit	To say or write something directly and clearly	57
2366092885	Farce	Extremely broad humor; in earlier times, meant simply a funny play, a comedy	58
2366092886	Feminine Rhyme	Lines rhymed by their final two syllables: "running" and "grunning" Properly, the penultimate syllables are stressed and the final syllables are unstressed	59
2366093264	Foil	A secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast	60
2366093265	Foot	The basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed	61
2366093266	Foreshadowing	An event or statement in a narrative that suggests, in miniature, a larger event that comes later	62
2366093267	Free Verse	Poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern	63
2366093268	Genre	A subcategory of literature	64
2366093614	Hubris	The excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall; an example of hamartia	65
2366093615	Hyperbole	Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement	66
2366093704	Implicit	To say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly; "meaning" is definitely present but it's in the imagery, or "between the lines"	67
2366093705	In Medias Res	"In the midst of things"	68
2366093983	Interior Monologue	Writing that record the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; related, but not identical to stream of consciousness; tends to be coherent, as though the character were actually talking	69
2366093984	Inversion	Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase	70
2366093985	Irony	A statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean	71
2366094105	Lament	A poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss	72
2366094106	Lampoon	A satire	73
2366094374	Loose Sentence	Complete before its end: "Jack loved Barbara despite her irritating snorting laugh, her complaining, and her terrible taste in shoes"	74
2366094375	Periodic Sentence	Not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase: "Despite Barbara's irritation at Jack's peculiar habit of picking between his toes while watching MTV and his terrible haircut, she loved him"	75
2366094376	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	76
2366094381	Masculine Rhyme	A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable	77
2366094669	Melodrama	A form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure	78
2366094670	Metaphor	A comparison or analogy that states one thing is another	79
2366094671	Simile	Like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as	80
2366094863	Metonym	A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with: "a herd of 50 cows" could be called "50 head of cattle"	81
2366094864	Motif	A recurring symbol	82
2366094984	Nemesis	The protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty	83
2366095202	Objective	Kind of treatment of subject matter that consists of an impersonal or outside view of an events	84
2366095203	Subjective	Kind of treatment of subject matter that uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional resposnes	85
2366095411	Onomatopoeia	Words that sound like what they mean	86
2366095412	Opposition	A pair of elements that contrast sharply; it is not necessarily "conflict" but rather a pairing of images whereby each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one	87
2366095554	Oxymoron	A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction	88
2366095783	Parable	A story that instructs, like a fable or an allegory	89
2366096374	Paradox	A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself but on closer inspection it does not	90
2366096375	Parallelism	Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect	91
2366096901	Paraphrase	To restate phrases in your own words; to rephrase	92
2366096902	Parenthetical Phrase	A phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail	93
2366097020	Parody	A work that makes fun of another work by exaggerating many of its qualities to ridiculousness	94
2366097021	Pastoral	A poem set in tranquil nature, or even more specifically, one about shepherd	95
2366097022	Persona	The narrator in a non-first-person novel; in a third person novel, the author's personality, the shadow-author	96
2366097278	Personification	Giving an inanimate object human qualities or form	97
2366097279	Plaint	A poem or speech expressing sorrow	98
2366097472	Point of View	The perspective from which the action of a novel is presented, whether the action is presented by one character or from different vantage points over the course of the novel	99
2366097473	Omniscient Narrator	A third-person narrator who sees, like God, into each character's mind and understands all the action going on	100
2366097701	Limited Omniscient Narrator	A third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually the main character) sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privileged character	101
2366097702	Objective (Camera-Eye) Narrator	A third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera; does not know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks of it	102
2366097870	First-Person Narrator	A narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view; when narrator is crazy, a liar, or very young, the narrator is unreliable	103
2366097871	Stream of Consciousness Technique	Like first-person narration but instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character;s head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as the scroll through her consciousness	104
2366097872	Prelude	An introductory poem to a longer work of verse	105
2366098106	Protagonist	The main character of a novel or play	106
2366098207	Pun	The usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings	107
2366098208	Refrain	A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem	108
2366098209	Requiem	A song of prayer for the dead	109
2366098378	Rhapsody	An intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise	110
2366099064	Rhetorical Question	A question that suggests an answer	111
2366099205	Satire	Exposes common character flaws in the cold light of humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common	112
2366099206	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's presense	113
2366099207	Stanza	A group of lines in verse, roughly analogous in function to the paragraph in prose	114
2366099406	Stock Characters	Standard or cliched character types, such as the drunk, the miser, and the foolish girl	115
2366099407	Subjunctive Mood	"If I were you, I'd learn this one!" Setting up a hypothetical situation, a kind of wishful thing, "I wish it were true, would it were so"	116
2366099408	Suggest	To imply, infer, indicate	117
2366099477	Summary	A simple retelling of what you get read	118
2366099478	Suspension of Disbelief	The demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination; the acceptance on an audience's or reader's part of the incidents of plot in a play or story	119
2366099479	Symbolism	A device in literature where an object represents an idea	120
2366099612	Synecdoche	Figure of speech in which a part represents the whole	121
2366099621	Technique	The methods, the tools, the "how-she-does-it" ways of the author	122
2366099730	Theme	The main idea of the overall work; the central idea; the topic of discourse or discussion	123
2366099870	Thesis	The main position of an argument; the central contention that will be supported	124
2366100273	Tragic Flaw	In a tragedy, this is the weakness of character in an otherwise good (or even great) individual that ultimately leads to his demise; hamartia	125
2366100274	Travesty	A grotesque parody	126
2366100404	Truism	A way-too-obvious truth	127
2366100632	Utopia	An idealized place; imaginary communities in which people are able to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace	128
2366100804	Zeugma	The use of a word to modify two or more words but used for different meanings: "He closed the door and his heart on his lost love"	129