AP Literature Terms and Vocab Flashcards
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| 4911717762 | Foil | -A character who provides a contrast to another character, thus emphasizing the other's traits, a character in a play who sets off the main character or others by comparison. -Contrasting character -"Paradise Lost Book I" God and Satan are foils to one another (God's Foil) | 0 | |
| 4911719732 | Harmartia | -a tragic flaw or error -The tragic hero's error of judgement or inherent defect of character- fatal flaw. Combined with another external force --> catastrophe. The error or flaw results from traits: pride, overconfidence, etc. but can arise from failure of action. -Oedipus (hubris) mades him want to defy his prophecy by doing what he fears the most. | 1 | |
| 4911719733 | Hubris | -The pride or overconfidence which often leads a hero to overlook divine warning or to break a moral law -Where a character tries to cross normal human limits and morals -Oedipus' pride in trying to avoid killing his father and marrying Jocasta | 2 | |
| 4911721704 | Catharsis | -Artistotle's word for the pity and fear an audience experiences upon viewing the downfall of a hero -used for cleansing of emotoins of character -Romeo & Juliet: "Here's to my love! O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus witha kiss I die." | 3 | |
| 4911723360 | Deus ex machina | -An unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, devie, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot. -Ill structure plot, qrites resort to random. -Jurassic Park: Humans are surrounded by velociraptors and are going to die, but then the t-rex kills the velociraptors and not the humans. | 4 | |
| 4911723361 | Dramatic Irony | -Irony in which the character uses words that mean one things to them but another to those who understand the situation better -Creates a situation where the audience knows more than the characters -"I've done it several times before and Its no big deal"-There's something about Mary Richman (Movie) | 5 | |
| 4911725444 | Round Character | -A complete complex charecter, someone with normal human emotions that the average person has -Shows a charecters many layers. The audience tends to connect to the charecter since they seem so human like and relatable -Shrek "Orges are like onions" | 6 | |
| 4911725445 | Static Character | -A character who's the same person at the end of the story as s/he was in the beginning. -Not as developed -Scar in the Lion King: a sly and clever character that plans and kills Simba's father, Simba doesn't change throughout the movie. | 7 | |
| 4911733215 | Stock Character | -The stereotyped charecter whom the audience recognizes. -Audience can be fimiliar with the charecter. -The Princess Bride; Princess Buttercup is a charecter "damsel in distress" | 8 | |
| 4911733216 | Flat Character | -A character who is not fully developed by an author; character who has only one understanding trait or feature, or at the most a few distinguishing marks. -Remains the same, minimal knowledge to the audience -Romeo and Juliet: (Benvolio) Temperate, solid, loyal- doesn't change and supports Romeo getting married to Juliet | 9 | |
| 4911733217 | Empathy | -the ability to share and understand the feelings of another -Romeo shoots himself after believing that Juliet is dead. - effect: causes readers to feel sorry for him. | 10 | |
| 4911735180 | Exposition | -Expose the background of a story. Introductory period, sets the tone for the story, gives the setting, introduces the charecters. -To let the audience understand the background in a matter-of-fact way. -Star Wars, opening sequence, gives information about the past. | 11 | |
| 4911735181 | Hyperbole | -Exagerated speach. -To emphasis some point to the audience. -Macbeth, "Will all great oceans wash this blood clean from my hands?" | 12 | |
| 4911735182 | Motif | -A reaccuring concept or story element throughout the entire story. -The reaccurance helps show symbolism or significance to help introduce theme or mood. -Oedipus, fate | 13 | |
| 4911736704 | Paradox | -A contradictory statement against common sense, however can be proven true when veiwed through a new point of veiw. -The reader enjoys reading hidden messages. -"Your enemy's freind is your enemy" | 14 | |
| 4911736705 | Persona | -3rd person literature. A charecter that is identified as the writers or an unknown narrator. -Authors use persona to express their personal ideas and beleifs. - "I...Me" | 15 | |
| 4911736706 | Connotation | -The emotional implications that a word may carry; implied or associated meaning for a particular word. -Used to deviate the actual meaning to create novel ideas -Animal Farm: The actions of the animals on the farm illustrate the greed and corruption that arose after the Communist R evolution of Russia. The pigs in the novel connote wicked and powerful people who can change the ideology of a society. | 16 | |
| 4911738449 | Denotation | -literal or dictionary meanings of a word in contrast to its connotative or associated meanings. -To deviate the meaning of words to create ideas and images that add deeper meaning to regualar words - | 17 | |
| 4911738450 | Epic | -A long narritive poem, usually about a hero. -The audience is moved by the words choosen, words have the ability to represent moods or feelings. -A long poem | 18 | |
| 4911738451 | Resolution | -The conclusion. Unfolding or solution of a complicated issus in a story. -THis is the end of the story, gives the audience the oppurtonity to relax. -Finale dialogue after climax | 19 | |
| 4911740174 | Ambiguity | -Has two or more meanings. -Creative writing helps the reader connect more than one concept to develope theme. -Oedipus being blind metophorically and physically | 20 | |
| 4911740175 | Analogy | -Comparing two things that are very different from one another -more extensive and elaborate than either a simile or a metaphor -Life is like a race. The one who keeps running wins the race and the one who stops to catch a breath loses. | 21 | |
| 4911740176 | Canon | -Works generally considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the msot important to study or read, which collectively constitute the "masterpieces" or "classics" of literature; written works having anonymous authors -denotes the entire body of literature traditionally thought to be suitable for admiration and study -William Shakespeare has written tragedies and comedies for the Elizabethan audience. This approach of looking at and following a writer's work for measuring literary excellence and success is, in fact, called a Shakespearean canon such as having five acts in a play. | 22 | |
| 4911740177 | Colloquial | -informal, not always grammatically correct expressions that find acceptance in certain geographical areas and within certain groups of people. -a sense of realism to a piece of literature -Southerners saying "Ya'll" | 23 | |
| 4911742466 | Conceit | -an extended metaphor: two unlike things are compared n several different ways -allows readers to look at things in a new way -"Love is like an oil change," or "The broken heart is a damaged china pot." | 24 | |
| 4911742467 | Euphemism | -polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant -loses its literal meanings and refers to something else in order to hide its unpleasantness -Our teacher is in the family way (pregnant). | 25 | |
| 4911742468 | Existentialism | -a term applied to a group of attitudes which emphasize existence rather than the essence, and sees the inadequacy of human reason to explain the enigma of the universe - a particular individual is not the way he is because God made him that way, or because he is part of a great human community with common characteristics -You see yourself as a parent so when the children leave the home, you are faced with a crises in how you perceive yourself. | 26 | |
| 4911742491 | Frame | -a narrative constructed so that one or more stories are embedded within another story -leads the readers from the first story to the other one -Titanic an elderly woman Rose begins the movie by telling a story of her voyage in the Atlantic Ocean. When the reader gets into her narrative, he/she finds himself/herself in the year 1912, where the story begins. Only few times we return to elderly Rose to get in touch with her experience; however, the movie ends as it begins. | 27 | |
| 4911744039 | Grotesque | -focuses on phyically and mentally (warped, deluded, retarded) impaired characters -focuses on the human body, and all the ways that it can be distorted or exaggerated: its aim is to simultaneously elicit our empathy and disgust -Mary Shelley's monster in Frankenstein or the off-kilter characters in Flannery O'Conner's stories | 28 | |
| 4911744040 | Local Color | -the descriptions of the setting, people, and dialect, etc., of a particular region -depicting the character of a particular region -Roaring Camp (1868), with its use of miners' dialect, colourful characters, and California setting, is among the early local colour stories | 29 |