AP Literature Terms Flashcards

9758499497	Action	The bare events in a story and is not to be confused with plot.	0
9758505300	Allegory	An extended story that is one-dimensional which creates a deeper meaning below the surface. The story makes sense on a literal level but also conveys a more significant meaning that is usually spiritual, moral, or political.	1
9758549042	Anthropomorphism	A literary technique in which the author gives human characteristics to non-human objects.	2
9758558685	Aphorism	A short, pithy and instructive statement of the truth; e.g. "Powers tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".	3
9758589821	Apostrophe	A literary device which consists of a rhetorical pause or digression to address a person directly.	4
9758594687	Assonance	The close repetition of similar vowel sounds, in successive or proximate words, usually in stressed syllables; e.g. Twinkle twinkle little star	5
9758604663	Blank verse	Unrhymed iambic pentameter	6
9758614707	Catastrophe	The tragic conclusion or a story or play	7
9758623914	Convention	An understanding between a reader and a writer about certain details of a story that do not need to be explained	8
9758630653	Couplet	Two rhyming lines in poetry	9
9759547647	Deus ex machina	A plot device that resolves conflict through means that seems unrelated to the story	10
9759582912	Epithet	A picturesque tag or nickname associated with a certain character; e.g. Athena is "grey-eyed"	11
9759630103	Hubris	Refers to excessive pride that usually leads to a hero's downfall	12
9759641435	Image-as-text	The use of pictures to convey messages	13
9759650725	Implied metaphor	A metaphor embedded in a sentence rather than expressed directly as a sentence	14
9759665448	Malapropism	A comic misuse of common words	15
9759670933	Meter	Repeated patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry	16
9759684564	Mood	The atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience	17
9759695870	Motif	One of the key ideas or literary devices which supports the main theme of a literary work	18
9759707163	Ode	A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure	19
9759721620	Parable	A usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle	20
9759729791	Plot	The author's plan or scheme to accomplish some purpose. It is the unified structure of events and incidents which expresses the author's purpose.	21
9759741390	Post-modernism	Describes the pessimistic, contemporary worldview which began in the 1960s, rejecting tradition, resisting authority, and denying any final or enduring meaning and purpose in life	22
9759753166	Prose	The ordinary use of language, without the artistic embellishments of rhythm, meter or rhyme. In general usage, it is any form of language, written or spoken, which is not poetry.	23
9759772979	Rising action	The events of a dramatic or narrative plot preceding the climax	24
9759781482	Sonnet	A fourteen-line lyric poem in predominantly iambic pentameter, with a formal rhyme scheme.	25
9759784599	Style	The choices that writers or speakers make in language for effect	26
9759787252	Synedoche	A figure of speech by which a part of something refers to the whole	27
9759789874	Tone	The writer's attitude, mood, or moral outlook toward the subject and/or readers.	28
9759831862	Voice	An author's distinctive literary style, basic vision and general attitude toward the world.	29