AP literature terms
Terms
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- Anapest
-
A word or phrase containing two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable.
*unabridged, intercede, on the loose - Aphorism
- A breif statement which expresses an observation of life, usually intended to be a wise observation
- Catastrophe
- the scene of a tragedy which includes the death or moral destruction of the protagonist.
- Anecdote
- A very short tale told by a character in a literary work
- Apostrophe
-
A figure of speech where the speaker talks directly to something nonhuman
*Busy old fool, uruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us? - alliteration
-
repetition of same sounding word beginnings.
*Let us go forth and led the land we love - Antagonist
- A person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work.
- Anacoluthon
- lack of grammical sequence
- Allegory
- A story illustrating an idea or moral principal in which objects take symbolic meaning
- Allusion
- A reference to another well known work
- Ballad
-
A story in poetic form, often about tragic love and usually sung.
*There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep
Nobody shouts or speaks too loud,
not in my castle on a cloud. - Ambiguity
-
A statement which contains two or more meanings
*She slept with him - Assonance
-
The repition of vowel sounds in a literary work, especially a poem.
*Hear the mellow wedding bells
*From the molden-golden notes - Antistrophe
-
repitition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive sentances.
*They attacked-without warning. Everyone died-without warning.
I fell to the ground-without warning.
The beat of my heart stopped...without warning - Asyndeton
-
The lack of conjunctions in a sentance.
*We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, to ensure the life of liberty - Blank verse
-
A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
*what is the boy now,
who has lost his ball,
what, is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street,
and then Merrily over-there it is in
the water! - Analogue
- A comparison between two similar things.
- Aside
- When the character in a drama makes a short speed directly to the audience, and is unheard by the other characters.
- Anaphora
-
Repition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases clauses or lines.
*We shall fight. We shall win. We shall be happy. - Antithesis
- Exact opposite
- Caesura
-
A pause within a line of poetry which may or may not affect the metrical count
*know then thyself, persume not god to scan; The proper study of Mankind is man - Character
- A person (or anything presented as a person) in a literary work
- Characterization
-
The method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character.
*ways to do this (1)though the characters actions (2) by what the character says about himself (3)by what others reveal about the character - Climax
- The decisive moment in a drama, also considered the turning point.
- Conceit
-
A far fetched similie or metaphor, occurs when the speaker compares to highly dissimilar things.
*I have been studying how I may compare,
this prison where I live unto the world. - Conflict
- created by whatever is opposing the protagonist, usually reveals or contributes to the theme of the work
- Connotation/Denotation
-
Connotation-the emotional attachment with the word
Denotation- the literal meaning
*Blue:
connotation= sad lonely
denotation= a color
*Juvinile:
connotation= a mischievious law-breaker
denotation= a youth - Consonance
-
The repitition of constantant sounds
*We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass - Couplet
- Two related lines of poetry often rhymes
- Dialogue
- The conversation between two characters
- Diction
-
An authors choice of words.
*He was a bad guy like a snake
Diction included-He was a slithering serpent, up to no good - Didactic Literature
-
Literature designed explicitly to instruct.
*Paint first a cage
with an open door
paint then
something pretty
something simple
something handsome
something useful
for the bird - Elegy
-
A lyric poem lamenating death
*I have not lost my rings,my purse,
my gold, my gems-my loss is worse,
One that the stoutest heart must move.
My pet, my joy, my little love,
my tiny kitten, my belaud,
I lost, alas, three days ago. - Epic
-
In literature a major work dealing with an important theme.
*Gone with the wind - Epigraph
- A breif quotation that appears at the beginning of a literary work.
- Euphemism
-
A mild word subsituted for another which is too direct.
*"joint" for prision - Exposition
- Occurs when the author fills the reader in with background conserning what happened prior to the stories beginning
- Figurative language
- In literature a way of saying one thing and meaning something else.
- Hyperbole
- a figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs
- Metaphor
- when two things are discribed without the use of "like" "as"
- mood
- the atmosphere created by the word
- Oxymoron
- A combination of contradictory terms
- Paradox
- A situation that looks like it contradicts itself but on closer inspection does not.
- Personification
- to give something nonhuman, human characteristics
- Plot
- the structure of the story
- Protagonist
- The hero or central character of the story
- Pun
- A play on words where a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time
- Romanticism
-
an idealistic way of telling a story
stories containing this are always perfect and end happlily - Similie
- Comparing this with the words like or as
- Soliloquy
- In a drama,a moment when a charcter is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud
- Sonnet
- a lyric poem of fourteen lines whose rhyme scheme is fixed
- Symbolism
-
when an noun (person,place or thing)
represents an idea - Synecdoche
-
a figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing.
*the head of a cow might be a subsitute for a whole cow, as in the following statement-
There were fifty head of cattle - Theme
- the message of the work
- Tone
- The authors attitude towards the work
- Eulogy
- praises the memory of a living or dead person
- Aesthetic movement
-
movement devoted to beauty developed in france
The word "Decadence" refers to this movement - Burlesque
-
A imitation of people or literary type that by distortion aims to amuse.
Tends to ridicule faults not vices - Chronological Order
- When a story is told in the order of beginning to end
- Concrete Poems
- Poems in which the shape not the words matter
- Dead metaphor
- a metaphor that has lost it's figurative value through overuse
- Dipthong
-
Two syllables that are counted as one
to meet the rhyming requirments - Elision
- The elimination of a vowel, constanant or syllable in pronouncation
- Emblematic Poems
-
A poem that takes the shape of what the poem is about.
For example, a poem about a swan, would look like a swan - Epigram
- A short poem usually solemn
- Existentialism
- The writings of this literary movement stress loniless, insecurity, and irrevocablity of human experience.
- Expressionism
- This literary movement presents life as the author passionately feels it to be, not as it appears on the surface.
- Extended Metaphor
- when a metaphor becomes long elaberate and complex
- Farce
- a silly play that is based on a silly plot.
- Hubris
- a greek word for a characters excessive pride confidence or arragence
- Idiom
- Something not to be taken seriously
- Pathetic Fallacy
- A certain kind pf personification that gives objects human emotions