AP English Literature Terms Flashcards

6575738248	Form	The structure of a piece of writing	0
6575738249	Genre	A major literary category (prose, drama, poetry, etc)	1
6575738250	Allegory	When one idea or object is represented in the shape of another	2
6575738251	Anecdote	A brief story that gets the reader's interest and sheds light on the writer's main idea and theme	3
6575738252	Ballad	A story told in song form with simple words and a strong beat	4
6575738253	Bildungsroman	A novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character from his or her youth to adulthood ("coming of age" story)	5
6575738254	Comedy	A humorous play that has a happy ending	6
6575738255	Diary	A writer's record of his or her experiences, ideas, and feelings	7
6575738256	Epistolary	A text that is comprised of a series of letters	8
6575738257	Fable	A short, easy-to-read story that teaches a lesson about people, often featuring animals	9
6575738258	Fabliau	A short narrative in verse that is satiric, sarcastic, and sexual for a bourgeois audience	10
6575738259	Fairy Tale	A fictional story that features folkloric characters and enchantments , often involving a far-fetched sequence of events	11
6575738260	Farce	A humorous play that is based on a silly plot, ridiculous situations, and comic dialogue often with one-dimensional, stereotypical characters	12
6575738261	Myth	A story from ancient days that explains certain aspects of life and nature	13
6575738262	Novel	A long work of fiction with plot, characterization, setting, and theme	14
6575738263	Novella	A work of fiction that is shorter than a novel but longer than a short story	15
6575738264	Parable	A short story that contains a moral or lesson, similar to a fable	16
6575738265	Parody	An imitation of a writer, artist, subject, or genre in such a way as to make fun of or comment on the original work	17
6575738266	Prose	All written work that is not poetry, drama, or song	18
6575738267	Quest	A difficult journey by the protagonist toward a goal that is often symbolic or allegorical	19
6575738268	Verse	A stanza in a poem	20
6575738269	Tragedy	A literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances	21
6575738270	Catharsis	The cleansing of negative emotion experienced by the characters and/or audience	22
6575738271	Hamartia	A fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero	23
6575738272	Hubris	A character's excessive pride, confidence, or arrogance	24
6575738273	Anagnorisis	The moment at which the hero makes the realization that he or she is doomed and expresses that	25
6575738274	Fiction	Writing that tells about made-up events and characters	26
6575738275	Narration	Writing that tells a story	27
6575738276	Narrative Voice	Whose eyes the reader experiences the story through	28
6575738277	Point of View	The position from which a story is told	29
6575738278	First-Person	The narrator is one of the characters in the story, using the pronouns I and me	30
6575738279	Objective	A narrator who "shows rather than tells" and does not explicitly comment on or evaluate the actions	31
6575738280	Omniscent	A narrator who knows everything about all the characters and events	32
6575738281	Limited	The narrative is controlled by the limited perspectives of one main character who does not know everything	33
6575738282	Third-Person	The narrator is not one of the characters in the story, using the pronouns he, she, and they	34
6575738283	Free Indirect Discourse	A technique that involves both a character's speech and the narrator's comments or presentation, lacking introductory expressions	35
6575738284	Reliable	A narrator who is in close proximity to the story and has extensive knowledge of the events it entails	36
6575738285	Unreliable	A narrator whose credibility has been compromised	37
6575738286	Intrusive	A narrator that comments on and evaluates characters and actions, establishing what counts as facts and values in the narrative	38
6575738287	Stream of Consciousness	A method of narration that describes the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters	39
6575738288	Theme	The main idea of a literary work that is a general statement about life	40
6575738289	Moral	A lesson about right and wrong	41
6575738290	Motif	A recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story, contributing to theme and/or mood	42
6575738291	Drama	A piece of literature written to be performed in front of an audience	43
6575738292	Aside	When a character's dialogue is spoken but not heard by the other characters present	44
6575738293	Monologue	The speech or verbal presentation that a single character presents in order to express his or her collection of thoughts and ideas aloud	45
6575738294	Soliloquy	A speech one character speaks while alone on stage, voicing his or her deepest thoughts or concerns	46
6575738295	Diction	The style of speaking or writing determined by the choice of words by a speaker or a writer	47
6575738296	Colloquialism	The use of informal words, phrases, or slang	48
6575738297	Vernacular	The use of a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured, or foreign language	49
6575738298	Archaism	The use of writing that is today considered outdated or old fashioned	50
6575738299	Jargon	The use of specific phrases and words by writers in a particular situation, profession or trade	51
6575738300	Plot	The arrangement of events in a work of literature with a beginning, middle, and end	52
6575738301	Romance	A long, medieval narrative in prose or verse that tells of the adventures and heroic exploits of chivalric heroes	53
6575738302	Conflict	A struggle or fight that makes the story interesting to the reader, either internal or external	54
6575738303	Exposition	The part of a story where the characters, setting, and conflict are introduced	55
6575738304	Rising Action	The part of the story where the conflict builds and the characters are developed	56
6575738305	Climax	The part of the story that shows the highest point of action	57
6575738306	Denouement	The part of the story where all is resolved by tying up loose ends	58
6575738307	Apotheosis	The expansion of consciousness that the hero experiences after defeating a foe	59
6575738308	Falling Action	The part of the story after the climax when the conflict has been resolved	60
6575738309	Epilogue	A piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the work	61
6575738310	Prologue	A piece of writing at the beginning of a work of literature, usually used to establish the setting and give background details	62
6575738311	Epiphany	A moment in a story where a character achieves realization, awareness or a feeling of knowledge after which events are seen through the prism of this new light in the story	63
6575738312	Subplot	A secondary plot or a strand of the main plot that runs parallel to it and supports it	64
6575738313	Flashback	A scene that breaks into the story to show an earlier part of the action, filling in missing information, explaining the characters' actions, or advancing the plot	65
6575738314	Foreshadowing	Clues that hint at what will happen later on in a story, used to create suspense and link related details	66
6575738315	In Media Res	A narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle, usually at some crucial point in the action	67
6575738316	Frame Story	A shorter story within a large one	68
6575738317	Episodic Structure	Structure that is made up of a series of chapters or stories linked together by the same character, place, or theme but held apart by their individual plot, purpose, and subtext	69
6575738318	Character	A person or an animal in a story	70
6575738319	Protagonist	The most important character in a work of literature who is at the center of the conflict and the focus of our attention	71
6575738320	Antagonist	The force or person in conflict with the main character in a work of literature	72
6575738321	Dynamic	A character who undergoes an important inner change, such as a change in personality or attitude	73
6575738322	Flat	A character who is two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work	74
6575738323	Round	A character who is complex and undergoes development throughout the course of a work	75
6575738324	Static	A character who undergoes little or no inner change	76
6575738325	Stock	A character representing a type in a conventional manner and recurring in many works	77
6575738326	Villain	A character who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot	78
6575738327	Hero	A character who is admirable for their noble traits	79
6575738328	Antihero	A protagonist who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities	80
6575738329	Byronic Hero	An antihero who is rebellious, arrogant, anti-social or in exile, and darkly, enticingly romantic	81
6575738330	Dystopian Hero	A protagonist that stands alone against a society in chaos and control	82
6575738331	Foil	A character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character	83
6575738332	Style	An author's distinctive way or writing, made up of diction, sentence structure, figurative language, and tone	84
6575738333	Archetype	A universally recognizable original model of an idea; a repeated pattern in literature	85
6575738334	Atmosphere	The feeling, emotion, or mood a writer conveys to a reader	86
6575738335	Connotation	The generally accepted meaning of a word	87
6575738336	Denotation	The dictionary meaning of a word	88
6575738337	Dialect	The way people speak in a certain region or area, used to describe characters and settings more fully	89
6575738338	Dialogue	The conversation in fiction or drama; the exact words a character says	90
6575738339	Epigram	A cleverly expressed thought in verse or prose or an inscription	91
6575738340	Irony	When something happens that is different from what was expected	92
6575738341	Dramatic Irony	A contrast between what a character believes and what the audience knows is true	93
6575738342	Situational Irony	An event that reverses what the readers or characters expected	94
6575738343	Verbal Irony	A contrast between what is stated and what is suggested	95
6575738344	Mood	The strong feeling we get from a literary work, created by characterization, description, images, and dialogue	96
6575738345	Paradox	A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or silly but may include a latent truth	97
6575738346	Pun	A play on words which usually hinges on a word with more than one meaning or the substitution of a homonym that changes the meaning of the sentence for humorous or rhetorical effect	98
6575738347	Sarcasm	Crude and heavy-handed verbal irony	99
6575738348	Satire	A literary work that exposes and criticizes the foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule	100
6575738349	Slang	Words that are not a part of standard vocabulary or language and are used informally	101
6575738350	Tone	The writer's attitude toward his or her subject matter	102
6575738351	Voice	The author's unique attitude toward the material	103
6575738352	Figure of Speech	Any way of saying one thing and meaning another	104
6575738353	Trope	The use of figurative language, or words and expressions not meant to be taken literally	105
6575738354	Allusion	A reference to a well-known place, event, person, work of art, or other work of literature used to enrich a story or poem by suggesting powerful comparisons	106
6575738355	Anachronism	Something or someone that is not in the correct chronological time period	107
6575738356	Apostrophe	When a thing is addressed directly, as though it were a person listening to the conversation	108
6575738357	Cliche	An expression that has been overused to the extent that it loses its original meaning or novelty	109
6575738358	Epic Simile	An extended simile often running to several lines, used typically in epic poetry to intensify the heroic stature of the subject and to serve as decoration	110
6575738359	Euphemism	A polite, indirect expression which replaces words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant	111
6575738360	Hyperbole	Exaggeration used for a literary effect such as emphasis, drama, or humor	112
6575738361	Inversion	A literary technique in which the normal order of words is reversed in order to achieve a particular effect of emphasis or meter	113
6575738362	Litotes	A special form of understatement that affirms something by negating its opposite	114
6575738363	Metaphor	A figure of speech that compares two unlike things without words of comparison	115
6575738364	Onomatopoeia	When the sound of a word echoes or suggests the meaning of the word	116
6575738365	Personification	Giving human traits to nonhuman things	117
6575738366	Simile	A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using words of comparison	118
6575738367	Symbol	A person, place, or object that represents an abstract idea	119
6575738368	Synecdoche	The substitution of a part of something for the whole, or the whole is used in place of one of the parts	120
6575738369	Metonymy	The substitution of one item for another item that it suggests or to which it is closely related	121
6575738370	Poetry	A type of literature in which words are selected for their beauty, sound, and power to express feelings	122
6575738371	Alliteration	The repetition of initial consonant sounds in several words in a sentence or line of poetry which is used to create musical effects, link related ideas, stress certain words, or mimic specific sounds	123
6575738372	Assonance	A type of rhyme in which the vowels in the words are the same but the consonants are not	124
6575738373	Blank Verse	Unrhymed iambic pentameter	125
6575738374	Cacophony	The use of words and phrases with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds, primarily those of consonants	126
6575738375	Euphony	The use of words and phrases with melodious, pleasant sounds	127
6575738376	Cadence	The rising and falling of the voice when reading a literary piece, including momentary changes in rhythm and pitch	128
6575738377	Caesura	A pause in a poetic line or a sentence	129
6575738378	Conceit	A long, complex metaphor that compares two unlike things in a surprising way	130
6575738379	Consonance	A type of half-rhyme in which the consonants agree but the vowels do not	131
6575738380	Dissonance	The use of impolite, harsh-sounding, and unusual words in poetry	132
6575738381	Elegy	A poem that deals solemnly with death	133
6575738382	Elision	The elimination of a vowel, consonant, or syllable in pronunciation	134
6575738383	End-Stopped Line	When the end of the line corresponds with a natural pause in speech	135
6575738384	Enjambment	Running lines of poetry from one to the next without using any kind of punctuation to indicate a stop	136
6575738385	Epic	A long and serious narrative poem about a hero and his heroic companions often set in a past that is pictured as greater than the present	137
6575738386	Free Verse	Poetry composed of rhythmical lines varying in length, following no fixed metrical pattern, usually unrhymed, and often with a pattern based on repetition and parallel grammatical structure	138
6575738387	Imagery	Words that appeal to one or more of the five senses	139
6575738388	Auditory Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of hearing	140
6575738389	Olfactory Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of smell	141
6575738390	Gustatory Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of taste	142
6575738391	Visual Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of sight	143
6575738392	Kinesthetic Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of movement	144
6575738393	Tactile Imagery	Imagery that appeals to the sense of touch	145
6575738394	Limerick	A jingling poem composed of three long and two short lines that rhyme respectively	146
6575738395	Villanelle	A poetic form that rhymes and repeats lines in a predetermined manner, both as a refrain and as a part of the poem itself	147
6575738396	Sestina	A type of a poem that contains six stanzas, each stanza having six lines, concluding with a seventh stanza having three lines	148
6575738397	Ode	A very long lyric poem characterized by elevated feelings	149
6575738398	Sonnet	A fourteen-line lyric poem written in iambic pentameter	150
6575738399	Pastoral	Any writing concerning itself with shepherds, showcasing rural life	151
6575738400	Refrain	A line or group of lines that are repeated at the end of a poem or song, reinforcing the main point and creating musical effects	152
6575738401	Pathetic Fallacy	A specific kind of personification in which inanimate objects are given human emotions	153
6575738402	Stanza	A group of lines in a poem	154
6575738403	Octave	A verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter	155
6575738404	Setset	A verse form consisting of six lines, usually at the end of a sonnet	156
6575738405	Quatrain	A four-line stanza	157
6575738406	Couplet	A two-line stanza	158
6575738407	Heroic Couplet	A stanza of two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter	159
6575738408	Turn	A rhetorical shift or dramatic change in thought or emotion	160
6575738409	Shift	A change in mood or attitude that is typically accompanied by a corresponding change in the focus and language	161
6575738410	Rhyme	The repeated use of identical or nearly identical sounds, used to create a musical sound, meaning, or structure	162
6575738411	End Rhyme	When words at the end of lines of poetry have the same sound	163
6575738412	Internal Rhyme	When words within a sentence share the same sound	164
6575738413	Feminine Rhyme	Rhyme sounds involving two or more syllables	165
6575738414	Masculine Rhyme	Rhyme sounds involving only one syllable	166
6575738415	Eye Rhyme	Rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently	167
6575738416	Half Rhyme	Rhyme in which only half the word rhymes	168
6575738417	Scansion	Defining the metrical form of a poem, identifying the prevailing foot, naming the number of feet in a line, and describing the stanzaic pattern	169
6575738418	Foot	A group of stressed and unstressed syllables combining to form a unit of verse	170
6575738419	Iambic	Duple meter with an unaccented/accented pattern	171
6575738420	Anapestic	Triple meter with an unaccented/unaccented/accented pattern	172
6575738421	Trochaic	Duple meter with an accented/unaccented pattern	173
6575738422	Dactylic	Triple meter with an accented/unaccented/unaccented pattern	174
6575738423	Spondaic	Meter with syllables of equal accent	175
6575738424	Meter	The beat or rhythm in a poem created by a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables	176
6575738425	Monometer	Metrical line of one foot	177
6575738426	Dimeter	Metrical line of two feet	178
6575738427	Trimeter	Metrical line of three feet	179
6575738428	Tetrameter	Metrical line of four feet	180
6575738429	Pentameter	Metrical line of five feet	181
6575738430	Hexameter	Metrical line of six feet	182
6575738431	Heptameter	Metrical line of seven feet	183
6575738432	Octameter	Metrical line of eight feet	184
6575738433	Syntax	The way in which words and sentences are placed together in the writing	185
6575738434	Anaphora	The repetition of the first part of the sentence	186
6575738435	Antithesis	The use of contrasting concepts, words, or sentences within parallel grammatical structures	187
6575738436	Parallelism	The use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter	188
6575738437	Ellipsis	The omission of a word or series of words	189
6575738438	Chiasmus	Two or more clauses which are related grammatically and conceptually, but in which the grammar and concepts are reversed	190
6575738439	Complex Sentence	The combination of two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses with appropriate modifiers	191
6575738440	Independent Clause	A complete thought with a subject and a verb	192
6575738441	Dependent Clause	An incomplete thought with a subject and a verb	193
6575738442	Agreement	Different parts of a sentence agreeing with each other in grammatical number, gender, case, mood, or tense	194
6575738443	Asyndeton	The omission of a conjunction such as "and" or "as" from a series of related clauses	195
6575738444	Polysyndeton	The use of several conjunctions in close succession where they are not necessary	196
6575738445	Ancient Literature	Period beginning with Homer in the 8th century BC and ending with the decline of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD; includes Greek and Latin literature (balance, order)	197
6575738446	Medieval Literature	Period beginning with the fall of the Roman empire and ending with the start of the Renaissance (romance, chivalry)	198
6575738447	Renaissance Literature	Period beginning in the 15th century and ending after Shakespeare's death in the 17th century (humanism, rebirth of classics)	199
6575738448	Enlightenment Literature	Period beginning in the 17th century and ending after the start of Queen Victoria's reign in the 18th century (reason, secularism)	200
6575738449	Romanticism	Period beginning with the French Revolution and ending after the start of Queen Victoria's reign (Nature, emotion)	201
6575738450	Victorian Literature	Period during the reign of Queen Victoria (conservative, tradition)	202
6575738451	Gothicism	Period from the 16th to the 17th century (spookiness, sublime)	203
6575738452	Realism	Period during the 19th century (logic, truth)	204
6575738453	Modernism	Period at the beginning of the 20th century (fragmentation, innovation)	205
6575738454	Existentialism	Period during the 20th century (individual, freedom)	206
6575738455	Postmodernism	Period during the 20th century (experimental, unconventional)	207