AP Literature Terms Flashcards

7994625944	allegory	story or poem that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning	0
7994625945	alliteration	closely connected words that begin with the same sound	1
7994625946	allusion	a reference to another story (literature, art, history, myth)	2
7994625948	antagonist	the character or force that opposes the main character	3
7994625949	apostrophe	a direct address to an inanimate object or a person/character who is not present	4
7994625951	aside	when a character's dialogue is spoken but not heard by other actors on the stage	5
7994625953	blank verse	poetry written in meter without an rhyme scheme	6
7994625954	cacophony	blend of unharmonious sounds	7
7994625955	caesura	pause in the middle of a line	8
7994625956	catharsis	the release of emotions through art (emotional cleanse)	9
7994625962	climax	point where conflict hits its highest point; the turning point in a story	10
7994625964	conflict	struggle between opposing forces	11
7994625965	connotation	meanings and feelings associated with a word	12
7994625976	end-stopped line	line ending in regular punctuation	13
7994625977	Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet	a sonnet rhyming ababcdcdededgg	14
7994625978	epiphany	sudden realization or spiritual insight (by a character)	15
7994625979	euphony	pleasant arrangement of sounds	16
7994625980	extended figure	A figure of speech sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem.	17
7994625981	falling action	Events after the climax, leading to the resolution	18
7994625982	feminine rhyme	a rhyme between stressed syllables followed by one or more unstressed syllables	19
7994625983	figurative language	Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling.	20
7994625984	figure of speech	a way of saying something other than the ordinary way	21
7994625985	foot	basic unit in the scansion or measurement of verse, made up of stressed and unstressed syllables	22
7994625986	form	external pattern or shape of a poem	23
7994625987	free verse	Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme	24
7994625988	hamartia	tragic decision or flaw which causes a character's downfall	25
7994625989	imagery	Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)	26
7994625990	indirect characterization	the personality of a character is revealed by what he or she does or says	27
7994625991	internal rhyme	A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line	28
7994625992	irony	In general, a contrast between expectation and reality	29
7994625993	verbal irony	A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant	30
7994625994	dramatic irony	Irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience/reader but not by the characters in the play/story.	31
7994625995	situational irony	refers to an occurrence that is contrary to what is expected or intended	32
7994625996	Italian or Petrarchan sonnet	A sonnet consisting of an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba, followed by a sestet with the rhyme pattern cdecde or cdcdcd	33
7994625997	masculine rhyme	A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable	34
7994625998	melodrama	a play based upon a dramatic plot and developed sensationally	35
7994625999	metaphor	A comparison without using like or as	36
7994626000	meter	A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry	37
7994626001	metonymy	A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it	38
7994626002	motivation	A need or desire that energizes and directs behavior	39
7994626003	narrator	Person telling the story	40
7994626004	octave	segment of poetry eight lines long	41
7994626005	onomatopoeia	A word that imitates the sound it represents.	42
7994626006	hyperbole	A figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, make a point, or evoke humor	43
7994626007	oxymoron	A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.	44
7994626008	paradox	A contradiction or dilemma	45
7994626009	paraphrase	A restatement of a text or passage in your own words.	46
7994626010	personification	A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes	47
7994626011	plot	Sequence of events in a story	48
7994626012	point of view	The perspective from which a story is told	49
7994626013	omniscient point of view	The point of view where the narrator knows everything about the characters and their problems - told in the 3rd person.	50
7994626014	third person limited point of view	narrator tells the story from only one character's pov	51
7994626015	first person point of view	a character in the story is actually telling the story himself/herself	52
7994626016	objective point of view	a narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events.	53
7994626017	protagonist	Main character	54
7994626018	quatrain	segment of poetry four lines long	55
7994626019	rhythm	The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in writing	56
7994626020	rhyme scheme	A regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem	57
7994626021	rising action	Events leading up to the climax	58
7994626022	sarcasm	the use of irony to mock or convey contempt	59
7994626023	satire	A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.	60
7994626024	scansion	Analysis of verse into metrical patterns	61
7994626025	sestet	segment of poetry six lines long	62
7994626026	setting	The context in time and place in which the action of a story occurs.	63
7994626027	simile	A comparison using "like" or "as"	64
7994626028	soliloquy	A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage	65
7994626029	sonnet	14 line poem	66
7994626030	stanza	A group of lines in a poem	67
7994626031	stream of consciousness	private thoughts of a character without commentary	68
7994626032	syllabic verse	Verse measured by the number of syllables rather than the number of feet per line.	69
7994626033	symbol	A thing that represents or stands for something else	70
7994626034	synecdoche	a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa	71
7994626035	synesthesia	describing one kind of sensation in terms of another ("a loud color", "a sweet sound")	72
7994626036	tercet	segment of poetry three lines long	73
7994626037	terza rima	a verse form with a rhyme scheme: aba bcb cdc, etc.	74
7994626038	theme	Central idea of a work of literature	75
7994626039	tone	Attitude a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character	76
7994626040	tragedy	A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character	77
7994626041	truncation	A line of poetry that has been shortened	78
7994626042	understandment	the deliberate representation of something as lesser in magnitude than it actually is; a deliberate under-emphasis	79
7994626043	verse	writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme	80
7994626044	villanelle	a nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.	81
7994626045	polysyndenton	the use of more conjunctions than is grammatically necessary	82
7994626046	asyndeton	the elimination of conjunctions	83
7994626047	epistrophe	the repetition of words at the ENDS of successive phrases or clauses	84
7994626048	antimetabole (also called chiasmus)	rhetorical device in which a phrase or sentence is repeated, but in reverse order	85
7994626049	enjambment	the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next	86
7994626050	conceit	an extended metaphor; an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things	87
7994626051	epic simile or Homeric simile	an extended simile; often used in epic poetry	88
7994626052	parallelism	successive lines of writing that follow the same grammatical structure	89