AP Literature Terms Flashcards
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| 4320610040 | Allegory | a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. "Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey" | 0 | |
| 4320611776 | Allusion | an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference. "an allusion to Shakespeare" | 1 | |
| 4320610041 | Apostrophe | a punctuation mark ( ' ) used to indicate either possession (e.g., Harry's book ; boys' coats ) or the omission of letters or numbers (e.g., can't ; he's ; class of '99 ). | 2 | |
| 4320613335 | Ballad | a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one generation to the next as part of the folk culture. (the Dying Stockman is a ballad.) | 3 | |
| 4320616080 | Blank Verse | verse without rhyme, especially that which uses iambic pentameter. | 4 | |
| 4320619859 | Cacophony | a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. "a cacophony of deafening alarm bells" | 5 | |
| 4320619860 | Caesura | (in Greek and Latin verse) a break between words within a metrical foot. (in modern verse) a pause near the middle of a line. any interruption or break. "an unaccountable caesura: no deaths were reported in the newspapers" | 6 | |
| 4320623988 | Catharsis | the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. | 7 | |
| 4320623989 | Comic Relief | comic episodes in a dramatic or literary work that offset more serious sections. a character or characters providing this. | 8 | |
| 4320626320 | Couplet | two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit | 9 | |
| 4320626321 | Deus ex machina | an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. | 10 | |
| 4320629286 | Enjambment | (in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. | 11 | |
| 4320629287 | Euphony | the quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words. the tendency to make phonetic change for ease of pronunciation. | 12 | |
| 4320634009 | Free verse | poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter. | 13 | |
| 4320634010 | Irony | the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. ""Don't go overboard with the gratitude," he rejoined with heavy irony" | 14 | |
| 4320635662 | Metonymy | the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing. | 15 | |
| 4320640911 | Monologue | a long speech by one actor in a play or movie, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast program. synonyms: soliloquy, speech, address, lecture, sermon, homily; formaloration "he quickly launches into another manic monologue" | 16 | |
| 4320642924 | Motif | a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition. "the nautical motif of his latest novel" | 17 | |
| 4320642925 | Pathos | a quality that evokes pity or sadness. "the actor injects his customary humor and pathos into the role" | 18 | |
| 4320644731 | Satire | the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. | 19 | |
| 4320644732 | Romanticism | a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. | 20 | |
| 4320647105 | Soliloquy | an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play. | 21 | |
| 4320648868 | Sonnet | a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line. | 22 | |
| 4320648869 | Style | a manner of doing something. "different styles of management" | 23 | |
| 4320651171 | Structure | construct or arrange according to a plan; give a pattern or organization to. "the game is structured so that there are five ways to win" | 24 | |
| 4320653497 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning "Cleveland's baseball team"). | 25 | |
| 4320655573 | Tone | the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc. "trust her to lower the tone of the conversation" | 26 | |
| 4320655574 | Tragic Hero | A tragic hero is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction. In reading Antigone, Medea and Hamlet, look at the role of justice and/or revenge and its influence on each character's choices when analyzing any "judgment error." | 27 | |
| 4320657220 | 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. | 28 |