AP Literature Terms Flashcards

9741686253	Allegory	A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one	0
9741686254	Alliteration	repetition at close intervals of initial consonant words	1
9741686255	Allusion	A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history	2
9741686256	Anticlimax	A disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events	3
9741686257	Aside	A brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience	4
9741686258	Assonance	Repetition of vowel sounds	5
9741686259	Atmosphere	The feeling created by a literary work or passage	6
9741686260	Blank verse	Unrhymed iambic pentameter	7
9741686261	Cacophony	A harsh, discordant mixture of sounds	8
9741686262	Caesura	A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line.	9
9741686263	Catharsis	Emotional release	10
9741686264	dynamic character	A character who grows, learns, or changes as a result of the story's action	11
9741686265	flat character	A character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of a story	12
9741686266	round character	A character who demonstrates some complexity and who develops or changes in the course of a work	13
9741686267	static character	A character that does not change from the beginning of the story to the end	14
9741686268	Climax	Most exciting moment of the story; turning point	15
9741686269	Colloquial	Characteristic of ordinary conversation rather than formal speech or writing	16
9741686270	Comic relief	A humorous scene or speech intended to lighten the mood	17
9741686271	Conceit	A fanciful, particularly clever extended metaphor	18
9741686272	Conflict	A struggle between opposing forces	19
9741686273	Crisis	a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger	20
9741686274	Denouement	an outcome or solution; the unraveling of a plot	21
9741686275	Dialect	A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.	22
9741686276	Dialogue	Conversation between characters	23
9741686277	Dramatic monologue	a poem or prose piece in which a character addresses an audience	24
9741686278	Elegy	a sorrowful poem or speech	25
9741686279	Elision	The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry.	26
9741686280	End-stop	a line of poetry which ends with a period or other punctuation	27
9741686281	Enjambment	the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.	28
9741686282	Euphemism	An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant	29
9741686283	Euphony	pleasant, harmonious sound	30
9741686284	Fable	A brief story that leads to a moral, often using animals as characters	31
9741686285	Flashback	a scene in a movie, novel, etc., set in a time earlier than the main story.	32
9741686286	Foot	Basic unit used in the measurement of metrical verse	33
9741686287	Iamb	An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable	34
9741686288	Trochee	Stressed, unstressed	35
9741686289	Free verse	Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme	36
9741686290	Hero	an inspiring character who demonstrates honor and integrity and does noble deeds	37
9741686291	Hubris	Excessive pride or self-confidence	38
9741686292	Irony	Situation or use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy	39
9741686293	Dramatic irony	When the audience knows something the characters don't	40
9741686294	Situational irony	An outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected	41
9741686295	Verbal irony	A figure of speech in which what is said is the opposite of what is meant	42
9741686296	Lyric	A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world.	43
9741686297	Mood	Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader	44
9741686298	narrative voice	how point of view is expressed	45
9741686299	Octave	8 line stanza	46
9741686300	onomatopoeia (n)	a word that sounds like the thing it names	47
9741686301	Paradox	a contradiction or dilemma	48
9741686302	Parable	A simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson	49
9741686303	Persona	An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.	50
9741686304	Objective pov	only reports what is seen and heard	51
9741686305	Quatrain	4 line stanza	52
9741686306	Refrain	A line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem.	53
9741686307	Scansion	The process of marking lines of poetry to show the type of feet and the number of feet they contain	54
9741686308	Sestet (Sextet)	a six line stanza	55
9741686309	soliloquy (n)	speech made to oneself when alone	56
9741686310	Italian sonnet	rhyme scheme of abba, abba, cde, cde (a/k/a Petrarchan sonnet)	57
9741686311	Shakespearean sonnet	ABAB CDCD EFEF GG	58
9741686312	Stream of consciousness	Narrative presents private thoughts of a character without commentary or interpretation by the author	59
9741686313	Stress	The same as an accent	60
9741686314	Subplot	a minor plot that relates in some way to the main story	61
9741686315	Subtext	The hidden or underlying meaning of something	62
9741686316	Symbol	anything that stands for or represents something else	63
9741686317	Theme	Central idea of a work of literature	64
9741686318	Tragedy	A serious form of drama dealing with the downfall of a heroic or noble character	65
9741686319	Tragic flaw	A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.	66
9741686320	Understatement	the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is.	67
9741686321	Verse	Metrical language	68
9741686322	Villain	a wicked or evil person	69
9741686323	Voice	A writers distinctive use of language	70
9741686324	Volta	the shift or point of dramatic change in a poem	71