Simsbury High School AP English Literature Terms Flashcards

4347929294	act	a drama is usually divided into acts, and the acts are divided into scenes	0
4347947920	allegory	an extended narrative that carries a second meaning along with the surface story	1
4347965050	allusion	a reference, usually brief to a presumably familiar person or thing	2
4347973190	ambiguity	any wording, action, or symbol that can be read in divergent ways	3
4347977098	anaphora	The intentional repetition of a word or beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect	4
4347995490	anecdote	a short and interesting story or an amusing event often proposed to support or demonstrate some point and to make the reader or listener laugh	5
4347999179	antagonist	the character in conflict with the protagonist	6
4348023756	anticlimax	literally, an effect which works against the climax, frequently a descent from a noble or lofty tone to one noticeably less exalted	7
4348038820	antithesis	a rhetorical device in which sharply opposing ideas are expressed within a balanced grammatical structure	8
4348054876	apostrophe	a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply	9
4348058346	aside	a short passage spoken in an undertone, usually directed to the audience and presumed to be inaudible to other characters on the stage, and, most important, presumed to be true	10
4348086506	atmosphere	the emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described	11
4353266564	blank verse	unrhymed iambic pentameter	12
4348089764	flat character	a character who exhibits one dominant quality	13
4348091413	round character	a character that exhibits the complexity of traits associated with real people	14
4348092774	static character	a character that does not change during the course of the action	15
4348094486	dynamic character	a character that undergoes a change during the course of the action (matures)	16
4348096159	stock character	a character found again and again in different literary works	17
4348100791	catastrophe	the conclusion of a play, particularly a tragedy, that winds up the plot	18
4348106480	catharsis	the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music	19
4348127855	climax	the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak; the moment at which the audience realizes whether the protagonist will win or lose the struggle	20
4348140811	colloquial	ordinary language used in everyday speech	21
4348148782	conceit	A figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of an extended similes or metaphors. It develops a comparison which is exceedingly unlikely but is, nonetheless, intellectually imaginative	22
4348163698	comic relief	a humorous scene, incident, character, or bit of dialogue occurring after some serious or tragic moment to relieve emotional intensity	23
4348170384	external conflict	a struggle between a character and some outside force in a literary work	24
4348172552	internal conflict	a struggle that takes place within a character in a literary work	25
4348178406	connotation	the implications or suggestions evoked by a word	26
4348181594	consonance	when two words in a line or lines of poetry have different vowel sounds but share the same consonant sounds	27
4348187621	comedy	Generally deals with the light and amusing side of life, and it usually has a happy ending. It pictures life accurately, but not profoundly, and often deals with the folly and absurdity of people.	28
4351238545	crisis	A brief period of time in a story or play when a conflict is intensified to the point where a resolution must occur.	29
4351273446	dialect	the language of a particular district, class, or group of persons	30
4351274321	dialogue	The lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters, or a literary work that takes the form of such a discussion	31
4351278273	diction	choice, use, and order of words in speech or writing	32
4351280484	denotation	the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests	33
4351281940	denouement/ falling action	the sequence of events that follow the climax and end in the resolution in contrast to the rising action, which leads up to the plot's climax	34
4351285246	deus ex machina	an unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict	35
4351287309	discourse	written or spoken communication or debate -- can be classified into four main categories: exposition, narration, description, argument	36
4353227848	dystopian literature	genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in 'a dark, nightmare world.'	37
4351298755	enjambment	a run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next	38
4351302938	epigram	a short usually witty statement, graceful in style and ingenious in thought	39
4351324260	epigraph	a quotation preceding a book, chapter, or poem often intended to evoke something of its theme or atmosphere	40
4352663331	epilogue	a conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem; the opposite of a prologue	41
4352666884	epithet	an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing, such as Ivan the Terrible	42
4352671805	exposition	the part of the story, usually near the beginning, in which the characters are introduced, the background is explained, and the setting is described.	43
4352691769	euphemism	refers to polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant or harsh	44
4352699010	fable	a brief story which illustrates some moral truth, often through animal characters	45
4352704272	farce	a form of low comedy designed to provoke laughter through highly exaggerated caricatures of people in improbable or silly situations	46
4352711092	flashback	a scene inserted into a film, novel, story or play showing events which happened at an earlier time	47
4352719195	foil	a character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character	48
4353268709	free verse	poetry that lacks regular meter and line length, relying upon the natural speech rhythms of the language	49
4352724732	genre	a type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions	50
4352726952	hamartia	a tragic flaw, especially a misperception, a lack of some important insight	51
4352738902	hero	traditionally, a character who has such admirable traits as courage, idealism, and fortitude, but also defined as the principal character of a literary work	52
4352755017	heroic couplet	a pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines	53
4352756455	hubris	excessive pride and self-confidence - often the tragic hero's hamartia	54
4352761039	hyperbole	deliberate exaggeration, used for either serious or comic effect	55
4352769981	Iambic pentameter	a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable	56
4352777005	Inciting Incident	the event or decision that begins a story's problem	57
4352786767	Invective	an attack, on a person or idea, using abusive language to ridicule or denounce	58
4352792482	inversion (anastrophe)	the deliberate inversion of the common order of words	59
4352802703	irony	a device in which the writer expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or ostensible one	60
4352818901	dramatic irony	something is known by the reader or audience, but unknown by some or all of the characters	61
4352841031	verbal irony	the attitude of the writer or speaker is the opposite to that which is literally stated	62
4352855237	irony of situation	a set of circumstances turns out to be the reverse of those anticipated or considered appropriate	63
4353046241	juxtaposition	a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts	64
4353051447	litotes	an idea is expressed by the denial of it's opposite	65
4353051923	metaphor	a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are compared by identification or substitution of one for the other (without using "like" or "as")	66
4353054542	metonymy	a figure of speech in which the name of some object or idea is substituted for another to which it has some relation (ex. the White House)	67
4353060321	mood	a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions	68
4353063763	monologue	an extended speech by one person when others are on stage	69
4353065173	motif	a theme, character, or verbal pattern which recurs in literature or folklore	70
4353068105	motivation	a reason that explains, or partially explains a character's thoughts, feelings, actions or speech	71
4353077657	narrative structure	generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer	72
4353069101	novel	any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters	73
4353070193	novella	a written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel	74
4353073358	onomatopoeia	words whose pronunciation suggests their meaning	75
4353082066	parable	a short, simple story illustrating a moral lesson	76
4353084156	paradox	a statement which, though it appears self-contradictory, contains a basis of truth that reconciles the seeming opposites	77
4353084962	parallelism	the arrangement of equally important ideas in similar grammatical constructions	78
4353092030	personification	a figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities or characteristics	79
4353096002	point of view	the point from which a story is seen or told: first person, second person, third person omniscient, third person limited omniscient, third person objective	80
4353103564	prologue	an opening section of a longer work	81
4353106314	prose	literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity; the language used in novels, short stories, articles, etc.	82
4353110185	proverb	a short popular saying, generally an observation or a piece of advice	83
4353113499	pun	a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings	84
4353116452	refrain	a line or lines repeated at intervals in a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza	85
4353118213	repetition	repeating a word, phrase, or sentence in a passage of prose or poetry to make an idea more clear or for emphasis	86
4353124557	rhyme Scheme	the arrangement of rhymes in a unit of verse	87
4353125401	rising action	a series of related incidents build toward the point of greatest interest; the part of a play preceding the climax	88
4353128356	sarcasm	the use of irony to mock or convey contempt; bitter, derisive expression	89
4353135323	satire	writing used to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society through humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule with the intention of improving humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles	90
4353138079	simile	an expressed comparison between two unlike objects, usually using "like" or "as"	91
4353145116	slang	informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture	92
4353151139	slant rhyme (also approximate rhyme)	rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds.	93
4353153283	soliloquy	one character ALONE on stage speaks directly to the audience to reveal what he or she is thinking and/or to reveal his or her true self	94
4353154154	stream-of-consciousness	a method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters	95
4353165206	subplot	a literary technique, it is a secondary plot, or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it	96
4353179639	synecdoche	a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole object or idea (ex. All hands on deck)	97
4353185195	syntax	the arrangement of words and sentences in writing	98
4353189104	symbol	a word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level.	99
4353190040	theme	the central idea explored in a literary work; a universal statement (truth) about life	100
4353193438	tone	the attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience	101
4353194413	tragedy	deals with serious themes and is concerned with human suffering; the protagonist struggles but cannot win; defeat is inevitable	102
4353199786	tragic hero	a person of stature who is neither villainous nor exceptionally virtuous; he or she moves from happiness to misery through some frailty or error, his or her "tragic flaw." This tragic flaw brings about his or her downfall.	103
4371697712	tragic flaw	the character flaw that brings down the tragic hero, often hubris	104
4353205666	understatement	the device of presenting something as less significant than it really is	105
4353207930	villain	an evil character who acts in opposition to the hero	106
4353212929	utopian literature	a type of literature in which an ideal society is depicted	107
4353234517	volta	in a sonnet, the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet.	108
4353235407	voice	either, the author's individual writing style or point of view OR the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona	109
4353236091	verse	lines arranged in metrical patterns OR a single line of poetry	110