AP Literature Terms Flashcards

4681437078	allegory	story conveying a meaning other than the literal; abstract principles represented by characters or figures	0
4681438151	alliteration	repetition of initial consonant sounds	1
4681438380	anagnorisis	discovery; hero suddenly becoming aware of a situation or true character	2
4681438895	anaphora	repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of neighboring clauses for emphasis	3
4681439911	antecedent	word, phrase, or clause that a pronoun replaces	4
4681440934	apologue	short story with a moral, often involving talking animals or objects; a fable; short allegory	5
4681441805	apostrophe	speaker addresses an inanimate object	6
4681442333	assonance	repetition of vowel sounds	7
4681442984	ballad	relatively short narrative poem written in song-like stanza form	8
4681461221	bildungsroman	novel tracing the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character usually from childhood to maturity	9
4681464029	blank verse	unrhymed iambic pentameter	10
4681464928	cacophony	deliberate use of harsh or awkward sounds	11
4681465365	caesura	pause or interruption in a poem; opposite of enjambment	12
4681467629	canon	works of a writer	13
4681467785	caricature	portrait that examines a human trait	14
4681468105	catharsis	emotional release of an audience at the end of a sucsessful tragedy	15
4681469089	clarihew	rhyme of four lines, usually regarding a subject mentioned in the first line	16
4681470681	colloquialism	informal speech1	17
4681471369	comedy of manners	play that satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often using stereotypes	18
4681472552	conceit	extended metaphor that compares two seemingly dissimilar things	19
4681474571	connotation	implied meaning of a word	20
4681474934	consonance	repetition of consonant sounds within words	21
4681475422	controlling image	metaphor that dominates an entire work	22
4681476011	couplet	rhyming pair of lines	23
4681476295	dactyl	poetical foot with three syllables, one stressed and two short or unstressed	24
4681477966	denotation	literal meaning of a word; a dictionary definition	25
4681478667	deus ex machina	literally "god out of a machine"; sudden artificial or improbable resolution to a story, often implying a lack of skill on the part of the writer	26
4681481052	diction	word choice	27
4681481684	dramatic monologue	poem in which a character delivers a speech explaining his/her feelings, actions, or motives	28
4681486417	elegy	mournful or melancholic poem	29
4681486873	english sonnet	sonnet divided into 3 quatrains and a final couplet, using the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg; Shakespearean sonnet	30
4681488067	enjambment	continuation of a phrase or clause to another line without pause	31
4681499274	epigram	short, clever poem with a witty turn of thought	32
4681499644	farce	extremely broad humor	33
4681499848	foil	character that contrast with another character, usually the protagonist, to emphasize the other character's traits	34
4681503199	foot	combination of stressed and unstressed syllables	35
4681503401	foreshadowing	event or statement that suggests a future event	36
4681503993	free verse	poetry without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern	37
4681561726	hamartia	fatal flaw of a tragic hero	38
4681682526	hubris	excessive pride that leads to a protagonist's downfall	39
4681683369	hyperbole	exaggeration or overstatement; opposite of understatement	40
4681683778	iamb	poetical foot with two syllables- first unstressed and second stressed	41
4681684394	implicit	implied meaning; opposite of explicit	42
4681684664	lyric	expression of observations and feelings of a single speaker	43
4681685523	magical realism	combination of realistic details with surreal, dreamlike, or magical elements	44
4681687594	metaphor	analogy that states one thing is another	45
4681687881	metonymy	use of a part to mean a whole object; related to synechdoche	46
4681688680	motif	recurring or dominant element in a work	47
4681689372	objectivity	impersonal view of events	48
4681690980	onomatopoeia	word that sounds like what it represents	49
4681691379	opposition	contrasting pair of elements	50
4681691592	paradox	seemingly apparent contradiction which is accurate on closer inspection	51
4681694083	parallelism	repeated words, phrases, clauses, or grammatical structure used for effect	52
4681695136	pastoral	work idealizing the simple life of shepherds or of tranquil nature	53
4681695989	peripeteia	reversal of fortune or character	54
4681696830	persona	narrator in a non-first-person novel	55
4681699914	personification	giving human qualities or form to inanimate objects	56
4681700149	protaganist	main character	57
4681700300	quatrain	four-line stanza	58
4681700668	satire	genre which ridicules its subject by exposing flaws, often to provoke or prevent change	59
4681704267	sestina	poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet, for a total of thirty -nine lines	60
4681711822	simile	"weak" metaphor, often uses "like" or "as"	61
4681712641	stanza	group of lines in verse; poetical equivalent of a paragraph	62
4681713187	subjectivity	personal view of events	63
4681713498	subjunctive mood	mood that sets up a hypothetical situation (i.e. if__were__)	64
4681714027	symbol	word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level	65
4681714881	synecdoche	metaphor in which a part is spoken of as the whole object; related to metonymy	66
4681715576	synesthesia	one kind of sensation is described in the terms of another; mixing of senses	67
4681716154	syntax	word order	68
4681717266	theme	central idea of a work	69
4681718472	terza rima	poem with verses of three lines and rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc	70
4681718844	tragic flaw	weakness of an otherwise good or great individual that leads to his/her downfall	71