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AP Literary Terms

Copyright 1997 by Robert Harris.

Terms

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METAPHYSICAL POETRY
poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved.
ONOMATOPOEIA
The use of words which in their pronunciation suggest their meaning. The flies buzzing and whizzing around their ears kept them from finishing the test at the swamp
Shakespearean Sonnet
contains three quatrains and a couplet, with more rhymes (because of the greater difficulty finding rhymes in English). The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B C-D-C-D E-F-E-F G-G. In Shakespeare, the couplet often undercuts the thought created in the rest of the poem.
ANAPHORA
The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, commonly in conjunction with climax and with parallelism:
HYPERBOLE
Exaggeration used for emphasis
BLANK VERSE
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
FREE VERSE
Verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.
SETTING
The environment in which the action of a fictional work takes place.
UNDERSTATEMENT
Expressing an idea with less emphasis or in a lesser degree than is the actual case. The opposite of hyperbole.
PERSONIFICATION
The metaphorical representation of an animal or inanimate object as having human attributes--attributes of form, character, feelings, behavior, and so on. As the name implies, a thing or idea is treated as a person:
IRONY
A mode of expression, through words , conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation.
ZEUGMA
Any of several similar rhetorical devices, all involving a grammatically correct linkage (or yoking together) of two or more parts of speech by another part of speech.
FOOT
The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables. STRESSED AND UNSTRESSED
METER
The rhythmic pattern that emerges when words are arranged in such a way that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequence; established by the regular or almost regular recurrence of similar accent patterns (called feet).
ALLITERATION
The recurrence of initial consonant sounds.
FLASHBACK
A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction.
ANADIPLOSIS
A rhetorical trope formed by repeating the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next. It can be generated in series for the sake of beauty or to give a sense of logical progression:
SONNET
A fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. The two main types of sonnet are the Petrarchan (or Italian) and the Shakespearean.
NOVELLA
A prose fiction longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.
Verisimilitude
The semblance to truth or actuality in characters or events that a novel or other fictional work possesses
TRAVESTY
A work that treats a serious subject frivolously-- ridiculing the dignified. Often the tone is mock serious and heavy handed.
APOSTROPHE
The direct address of a person or personified thing, either present or absent.With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! --Sidney
PARODY
A satiric imitation of a work or of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work
CANON
In relation to literature, this term is half-seriously applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones (FILLED WITH WORKS CREATED BY DEAD WHITE EUROPEAN MALES)
SYMBOL
Something that is itself and yet also represents something else, like an idea. WHALE IN MOBY DICK
SYNEDOCHE
A form of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole, the whole for a part, the genus for the species, the species for the genus, the material for the thing made, or in short, any portion, section, or main quality for the whole thing itself (or vice versa).
RIDICULE
Words intended to belittle a person or idea and arouse contemptuous laughter. The goal is to condemn or criticize by making the thing, idea, or person seem laughable and ridiculous.
Petrarchan Sonnet
is divided into two main sections, the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (last six lines). The octave presents a problem or situation which is then resolved or commented on in the sestet. The most common rhyme scheme is A-B-B-A A-B-B-A C-D-E C-D-E, though there is flexibility in the sestet, such as C-D-C D-C-D.
MOCK EPIC
Treating a frivolous or minor subject seriously, especially by using the machinery and devices of the epic EX; THE RAPE OF THE LOCK
HEROIC COUPLET
Two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. Most of Alexander Pope's verse is written in heroic couplets. In fact, it is the most favored verse form of the eighteenth century.
SUBPLOT
A subordinate or minor collection of events in a novel or drama.acting as foils to, commentary on, complications of, or support to the theme of, the main plot.
INVECTIVE
Speech or writing that abuses, denounces, or vituperates against. It can be directed against a person, cause, idea, or system. It employs a heavy use of negative emotive language cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth. --Swift
LAMPOON
A crude, coarse, often bitter satire ridiculing the personal appearance or character of a person.
RHYME
The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines.
NOVEL
an extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events."
Spenserian Stanza
A nine-line stanza, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter (called an Alexandrine). The rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B B-C-B-C C.
TONE
The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.
ANTIMETABOLE
Reversal of the order of repeated words or phrases (a loosely chiastic structure, AB-BA) to intensify the final formulation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast:
CONCEIT
An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc"Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, / The Intelligence that moves, devotion is."
ALLEGORY
A form of extended metaphor in which objects and persons in a narrative, either in prose or verse, are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself.
ANALOGY
The comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one.
ALLUSION
A causal and brief reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event:
STYLE
The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use.
Juvenalian Satire
Harsher, more pointed, perhaps intolerant satire typified by the writings of Juvenal.
METAPHOR
A comparison which imaginatively identifies one thing with another dissimilar thing, and transfers or ascribes to the first thing (the tenor or idea) some of the qualities of the second (the vehicle or image).Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life." --John 6:35
Petrarchan Conceit
The kind of conceit (see above) used by Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch and popular in Renaissance English sonnets. Eyes like stars or the sun, hair like golden wires, lips like cherries, etc. are common examples.
OXYMORON
paradox reduced to two words, usually in an adjective-noun ("eloquent silence") or adverb-adjective ("inertly strong") relationship, and is used for effect, to emphasize contrasts, incongruities, hypocrisy, or simply the complex nature of reality. Examples: wise fool, ignorantly learned, laughing sadness, pious hate
SIMILE
A direct, expressed comparison between two things essentially unlike each other, but resembling each other in at least one wayThe soul in the body is like a bird in a cage.
ANTITHESIS
Establishing a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure.I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil. --Romans 16:19b
METONOMY
Another form of metaphor, very similar to synecdoche (and, in fact, some rhetoricians do not distinguish between the two), in which a closely associated object is substituted for the object or idea in mind:
ASSONANCE
The use of similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants:

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