AP Literature Terms Flashcards
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| 4788494226 | Enjambment | Moving over from one line to another without a terminating punctuation mark. | 0 | |
| 4788495526 | Epic | A long narrative poem written in elevated style, in which heroes of great historical or legendary importance perform valorous deeds. | 1 | |
| 4788496538 | Epitaph | Inscription written on a grave; brief composition having figurative sense in verse or prose from, written to pay tribute to deceased person or commemorate an event. | 2 | |
| 4788498762 | Foot | A unit of measure, consisting of a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. | 3 | |
| 4788501622 | Free verse | Poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms. | 4 | |
| 4788502521 | Hubris | Extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately brings about his downfall. | 5 | |
| 4788503754 | In media res | "In the midst of things"-Latin. The practice of beginning an epic or other narrative by plunging into a crucial situation that is part of a related chain of event: the situation is an extension of previous events and will be developed in later action. | 6 | |
| 4788504994 | Allegory | A complete narrative which involves characters and events that stand for an abstract idea or event. | 7 | |
| 4788506783 | Unreliable narrator | A narrator whose credibility has been seriously compromised. | 8 | |
| 4788507470 | Tragic flaw | A trait in a character leading to his downfall and the character is often the hero of the literary piece. | 9 | |
| 4788508196 | Soliloquy | A popular literary device often used in drama to reveal the innermost thoughts of a character; spoken only to the character themselves. | 10 | |
| 4788509518 | Inversion | The normal order of words is reversed in order to achieve a particular effect of emphasis or meter. | 11 | |
| 4788510122 | Irony | Figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meanings of the words. | 12 | |
| 4788511101 | Onomatopoeia | The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is name. | 13 | |
| 4788511611 | Opposition | A pair of related terms and concepts that are opposite in meaning. | 14 | |
| 4788512390 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech that infuses two contradictory or opposing ideas to make perfect sense. | 15 | |
| 4788515005 | Parable | A short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson. | 16 | |
| 4788515961 | Paradox | A statement that appears to be self-contradictory but may include a latent truth. | 17 | |
| 4788516573 | Parody | A humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing. | 18 | |
| 4788516996 | Pastoral | "Beautiful place". A literary work that portrays or evokes rural life, usually in an idealized way. | 19 | |
| 4788518532 | Refrain | A line or set of lines at the end of a stanza or section of a longer poem or song. These lines repeat at regular intervals in other stanzas or sections of the same work. | 20 | |
| 4788519186 | Requiem | A song or prayer for the dead. | 21 | |
| 4788519356 | Rhapsody | An intensely passionate verse or section of a verse, usually of love or praise. | 22 | |
| 4788519736 | Satire | A technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor,irony, exaggeration or ridicule intends to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles. | 23 | |
| 4788521361 | Anecdote | A short story of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature. | 24 | |
| 4788521582 | Aphorism | A statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. | 25 | |
| 4788524906 | Cacophony | Harsh or discordant sounds, often the result of repetition and combination of consonants within groups of words. | 26 | |
| 4788525901 | Euphony | "Sweet voiced". Use of words and phrases that are distinguished as having a wide range of noteworthy melody or loveliness in the sounds they create. | 27 | |
| 4788526805 | Synecdoche | A literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. Ex. "Suits" refer to businessman. | 28 | |
| 4788527653 | Symbolism | The use of symbols to signify ideas and qualifies by giving them symbolic meanings that are different and deeper and more significant than their literal sense. | 29 | |
| 4788528653 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself. Ex. "Lend me your ears." Ears= attention | 30 | |
| 4788529127 | Motif | A central or recurring image or action in a literary work that is shared by other works. Motifs are details whose repetition adds to the works larger meaning. | 31 | |
| 4788529692 | Parallelism | Literary device in which parts of the sentence are grammatically the same or are similar in construction. | 32 | |
| 4788529969 | Analogy | A comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it. | 33 | |
| 4788530354 | Euphemism | Refers to positive, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant. Ex. "Kick the can" = death. | 34 | |
| 4788532028 | Antihero | A protagonist in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional hero attributes. | 35 | |
| 4788532623 | Anticlimax | A disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events. | 36 | |
| 4788533073 | Anthropomorphism | A technique in which a writer ascribes human traits, ambitions,emotions, or entire behavior to animals, non-human beings, natural phenomena, or objects. | 37 | |
| 4788533673 | Conceit | "Concept". An often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual. | 38 | |
| 4788534218 | Anachronism | "Against time". An error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece. | 39 | |
| 4788534545 | Elegey | Poem or song in the form of elegiac couplets, written in honor of someone deceased. | 40 | |
| 4788535778 | Dramatic monologue | A poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation. | 41 | |
| 4788536605 | Dramatic irony | Used to created situations where audience knows more about the causes of conflicts and their resolutions before leading characters. | 42 | |
| 4788537192 | Dissonance | A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms. It is usually intentional and depends more on organization for a jarring effect. | 43 | |
| 4788538150 | Consonance | A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme. | 44 | |
| 4788538566 | Catharsis | An emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state or moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety. Used for the cleansing of emotions of the characters. | 45 | |
| 4788539795 | Cadence | The patterning of rhythm in natural speech, or in poetry without a distinct meter. | 46 | |
| 4788540119 | Ballad | "Dancing song". A poem that is typically arranged in quatrains with the rhyme scheme ABAB. Usually a narrative. | 47 | |
| 4788540848 | Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences. Ex. 'Men sell the wedding bells". The repeated e in between the words. | 48 | |
| 4788541994 | Aside | Used in drama and theater, it is when a character's dialogue is spoken but not heard by the other actors on the stage. Useful for giving audience special info about other characters on stage or the plot. | 49 | |
| 4788543058 | Apostrophe | When a speaker directly addresses someone or something that isn't present in the poem. Could be an abstract concept like love, a person, a place, or an object like the sun. | 50 | |
| 4788544032 | Personification | Figure of speech in which a thing,an idea, or an animal is given human attributes. | 51 | |
| 4788544596 | Metaphor | Figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied, or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics, and does not use "like" or "as". | 52 | |
| 4788545438 | Antecedent | Is where a word or pronoun in a line or sentence refers to an earlier word. | 53 | |
| 4788545777 | Simile | A figure of speech that makes a comparison, showing similarities between two things using "like" or "as". | 54 | |
| 4788547032 | Point of view | The mode of narration that an author employs to let the readers "hear" and "see" what is taking place. | 55 | |
| 4788547583 | Allusion | A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. | 56 | |
| 4788548296 | Hyperbole | "Overbearing". Figure of speech which involves an exaggeration of ideas or the sake of emphasis. | 57 | |
| 4788548753 | Denotation | Literal/dictionary meaning of words. | 58 | |
| 4788548956 | Colloquialism | The use of informal words, phrases, or even slang in a piece of writing. | 59 | |
| 4788549245 | Connotation | Meaning that is implied by a word apart from the actual definition. | 60 | |
| 4788549499 | Theme | Central topic a texts treats. | 61 | |
| 4788549693 | Diction | Style of writing determined by the choice of words used by a speaker or writer. | 62 | |
| 4788549973 | Alliteration | The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. | 63 | |
| 4788550547 | Stream of consciousness/ interior monologue | A narrative mode or device that depicts the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. | 64 |