AP Literature "Literary Terms" Flashcards

11433525088	alliteration	the repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close to one another	0
11433525089	allusion	a reference to historical or fictional characters, places, or events, or to other works the writer assumes the reader will recognize	1
11433525090	apostrophe	figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of responding	2
11433525091	archetype	a pattern or model of action, a character type, or an image that recurs consistently enough in literature to be considered universal	3
11433525092	assonance	repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together	4
11433525093	atmosphere	the mood or feeling in a literary work	5
11433525094	blank verse/cacophony	poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter	6
11433525095	caesura	a pause or break within a line of poetry, usually dictated by the natural rhythm of language	7
11433525096	carpe diem	"seize the day" [Herrick's To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time/Marvell's To His Coy Mistress ]	8
11433525097	conceit	an elaborate and surprising figure of speech comparing two very dissimilar things--it usually involves intellectual cleverness and ingenuity [Donne]	9
11433525098	connotations	all the meanings, associations, or emotions a word suggests	10
11433525099	couplet	two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme	11
11433525100	dialect	a way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people	12
11433525101	diction	a writer's or speaker's choice of words	13
11433525102	enjambment	the carrying of sense and grammatical structure in a poem beyond the end of one line, couplet, or stanza and into the next	14
11433525103	epic	a long narrative poem that relates the great deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of a particular society	15
11433525104	epic simile	an extended, elaborated, ornate simile developed in a lengthy descriptive passage	16
11433525105	epiphany	a moment of sudden insight or revelation that a character experiences	17
11433525106	figure of speech	a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not meant to be understood on a literal level	18
11433525107	flashback	a scene that interrupts the present action of the plot to "flash back" and tell what happened at an earlier time	19
11433525108	foil	a character who is used as a contrast to another character	20
11433525109	foot	the basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry (usually consists of at least one accented (stressed) syllable and one or more unaccented (unstressed) syllables). The number and type of feet in a line of a poem determine its meter	21
11433525110	foreshadowing	use of clues to hint at what is going to happen later in the plot	22
11433525111	free verse	poetry that has no regular meter or rhyme scheme	23
11433525112	heroic couplet	a pair of rhyming iambic pentameter lines	24
11433525113	hubris	the defect of character (excessive pride) which leads a tragic hero to disregard all warnings of impending disaster and thereby hasten the catastrophe	25
11433525114	hyperbole	overstatement/exaggeration to express strong emotion or to create a comic effect	26
11433525115	iambic pentameter	a poetic line of five iambic feet: the meter of blank verse, sonnet, and heroic couplet	27
11433525116	imagery	language that appeals to the senses	28
11433525117	in medias res	the technique of starting a story in the middle and then using flashback to tell what happened earlier	29
11433525118	irony	contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality	30
11433525119	dramatic irony:	audience or reader knows something important that a character doesn't know	31
11433525120	juxtaposition	placing two things (objects, words, ideas) side by side (in close proximity) for the purpose of comparison	32
11433525121	loose sentence	one in which the subordinate elements come at the end to call attention to them	33
11433525122	periodic sentence	one in which the writer builds suspense by beginning with subordinate elements and postponing the main clause	34
11433525123	metaphor	an implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another, dissimilar thing	35
11433525124	meter	a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry	36
11433525125	metonymy	something closely related to a thing or suggested by it is substituted for the thing itself	37
11433525126	mood	prevailing emotional attitude in a literary work or in part of a work	38
11433525127	motif	a word, character, object, image, metaphor, or idea that recurs in a work or in several works	39
11433525128	muse	In Greek mythology, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory), each of which patronized a field of study or art--practitioners in these fields traditionally invoked the aid of the appropriate	40
11433525129	octave	an eight-line stanza or poem, or the first eight lines of an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet	41
11433525130	onomatopoeia	the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning	42
11433525131	paradox	an apparent contradiction that is actually true (a seeming contradiction)	43
11433525132	parallelism	repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure	44
11433525133	pastoral	a type of poem that depicts rustic life in idyllic, idealized terms	45
11433525134	pathetic fallacy	a figurative device in which nature is given human qualities, often responding to human actions	46
11433525135	pathos	the quality in a work of literature which arouses feelings of sympathy, pity, or sorrow in the reader	47
11433525136	personification	a kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human	48
11433525137	plot	series of related events that make up a story or drama	49
11433525138	point of view	the vantage point from which the writer tells the story (omniscient/first-person/limited third-person)	50
11433525139	pun	a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings	51
11433525140	quatrain	a four-line stanza or poem, or a group of four lines unified by a rhyme scheme	52
11433525141	rhetorical question	a question not expecting an answer, or one to which the answer is self-evident	53
11433525142	rhyme	repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together	54
11433525143	rhythm	alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language which communicates a sense of movement	55
11433525144	sarcasm	harsh, cutting, personal remarks to or about someone, not necessarily ironic	56
11433525145	satire	a kind of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform	57
11433525146	scansion	(scanning] analysis of verse into metrical patterns	58
11433525147	sestet	a six-line stanza or poem, or the last six lines of an Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet	59
11433525148	setting	the time and place of a story or play	60
11433525149	simile	a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things by using a connective word such as like, as, or than	61
11433525150	soliloquy	a long speech in which a character who is usually alone onstage expresses his or her private thoughts or feelings	62
11433525151	sonnet	a fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has one of several rhyme schemes	63
11433525152	Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet	divided into two parts--an eight-line octave (abbaabba) and a six-line sestet with a rhyme scheme (cdecde or cdccdc or cdedce) The OCTAVE usually presents a problem, poses a question, or expresses an idea, which the SESTET then resolves, answers, or drives home	64
11433525153	Shakespearean (English) Sonnet	(most common) composed of three four-line units (QUATRAINS), followed by a concluding two-line unit (COUPLET) The three QUATRAINS often express related ideas or examples, while the COUPLET sums up the poet's conclusion or message	65
11433525154	stanza	a group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit	66
11433525155	synecdoche	figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole thing [wheels = automobile]	67
11433525156	symbol	person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself	68
11433525157	syntax	arrangement and grammatical relation of words, phrases, and clauses in sentences; the ordering of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences [sentence length and punctuation should also be considered]	69
11433525158	theme	the central idea or insight of a work of literature, usually expressed as a statement about life	70
11433525159	tone	the attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character	71
11433525160	tragedy	a narrative depicting serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end—a move toward death or away from life (alienation)	72
11433525161	trope	a figure of speech employing a word or phrase out of its ordinary usage in order to give life to an idea	73
11433525162	understatement	a figure of speech that consists of saying less than what is really meant, or saying something with less force than is appropriate (a form of irony)	74
11433525163	verisimilitude	the appearance of truth, actuality, or reality; what seems to be true in fiction given allowances for conventions, premises, etc.--the inherent authenticity of a work	75
11433525164	voice	the sense a written work conveys to a reader of its writer's attitude, personality, and character	76