AP Literature and Composition Vocabulary
Terms
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- anticlimax
- occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect; frequently comic
- prelude
- an intro poem to a longer work or verse
- dirge
- a song for the dead, tone is typically slow, heavy, and melancholy
- metaphor
- a comparison, or analogy that states one thing IS another--His eyes were burning coals.
- denotation
- the literal meaning of a word
- classic
- typical; an accepted masterpiece
- subjectivity
- treatment of a matter using the interior personal view of a single observer and is typically coloured with that observer's emotional responses
- feminine rhyme
- lines rhymed by their final two syllables--running, gunning; properly, the penultimate syllables are stressed and the final syllables are unstressed
- paraphrase
- to restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase; not an analysis or interpretation
- couplet
- a pair of lines that end in rhyme
- omniscient narrator
- third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action that's going on
- hubris
- the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall--like Caesar
- archaism
- the use of deliberately old-fashioned language, used to create a feeling of antiquity
- melodrama
- a form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure
- assonance
- the repeated use of vowel sounds--"Old king Cole was a merry old soul."
- point of view
- the perspective from which the action of a novel (or narrative poem) is presented
- decorum
- in order to observe, a character's speech must be styled according to his or her social station, and in accordance with the occasion--bum speaks like a bum about bumly things
- summary
- a simple retelling of what you've just read; covers more material than paraphrase, more general, includes all the facts
- simile
- like a metaphor but softens the full-out equation of things, often, but not always, by using like or as
- periodic sentence
- leaves the completion of its main clause to the end, often produces effect of suspense
- persona
- the narrator in a non-first-person novel. in third person, get an idea of author's personality, but isn't really the author's personality; shadow-author
- complex, dense
- two terms carrying the similar meaning of suggesting that there is more than one posibilty in the meaning of words (image, idea, opposition); there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit
- allegory
- a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself; many fables have this quality; true ones are even more hard and fast; example: Orwell's Animal Farm
- refrain
- a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem
- limited omniscient narrator
- third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character (usually main character) sees, reports only thoughts of that one character
- allusion
- a reference to another work or famous figures; can be classical (refers to Greek and Roman mythology or literature), topical (refers to current event), or popular (refers to something from pop culture--TV show or hit movie)
- euphemism
- a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality--i.e., passed away for died, let go for fired
- personification
- giving an inanimate object human qualities or form--The darkness of the forest became the figure of a beautiful, pake-skinned woman in night-black clothes.
- thesis
- the main position of an argument; the central contention that will be supported
- parody
- when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness
- euphony
- when sounds blend harmoniously
- subjunctive mood
- a mood that represents an act or state (not as a fact but) as contingent or possible; wishful thinking--if I were you, if he were honest
- canto
- the name for a section division in a long work of poetry; divides a long poem into parts the way chapters divide a novel--like in Dante's Inferno
- satire
- exposes common character flaws to humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behaviours will become less common--hypocrisy, vanity, greed
- interior monologue
- a term for novels and poetry, not dramatic literature; refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head; related, but not identical to the stream of consciousness; tends to be coherent, as though the character is actually talking
- farce
- today it's used to refer to extremely broad humor; in earlier times, it was used to mean a simply funny play; a comedy (generic term for play then, btw, no implication of humor)
- in medias res
- Latin for "in the midst of things;" one of the conventions of epic poetry
- objective/camera-eye narrator
- third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera, doesn't know what the character is thinking unless character speaks of it
- dramatic irony
- when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not
- mock-epic
- parody form that deals with mundane events and ironically treats them as worthy of epic poetry
- elegy
- a type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner; often use the recent death of a noted or loved person as a starting point; also memorialize specific dead people
- antecedent
- the word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to
- analogy
- a comparison usually involving two or more symbolic parts; employed to clarify an action or relationship
- symbolism
- a device in literature where an object reps an idea
- *irony
- comes in a variety of forms; a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean, deeper than sarcasm though; an undertow of meaning
- loose sentence
- sentence is clear in the beginning, begins with main clause, followed by subordinates and modifiers
- explicit
- to say or write something directly and clearly
- stock characters
- standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc.
- parable
- a story that instructs like a fable or an allegory
- classical
- refers to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts
- consonance
- the repetition of consonant sounds WITHIN words--"A flock of sick, black-checkered ducks."
- aesthetics
- the study of beauty; "What is beauty?" "Is the beautiful always good?"
- dissonance
- the grating of incompatible sounds
- antihero
- a protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities
- onomatopoeia
- words that sound how they're spelled--boom, splat
- implicit
- to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly; reading between the lines
- foreshadowing
- an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later
- rhetorical question
- a question that suggests an answer
- suggest
- to imply, infer, indicate; you have to pull out the meaning yourself
- cadence
- the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense e.g., iambic pentameter; can be gentle and pulsing, conversational, and even vigorous, marching
- pun
- usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings
- tragic flaw
- in tragedy, weakness of character in an other wise good/great individual that leads to his demise
- syntax
- author's choice of words; refers to the ordering and structuring of the words
- metonym
- a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with---"the crown" referring to the king, "The pen is mightier than the sword." (pen reps writers and ideas, sword reps war)
- lament
- a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss
- lampoon
- a satire
- parallelism
- repeated syntactical similarities used for effect--He likes playing the piano, eating cookies, and reading lengthy novels.
- pastoral
- a poem set in a tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds
- masculine rhyme
- a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable--spent, went
- soliloquy
- a speech spoken by a character alone on stage; meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts; not meant to imply that the actor acknowledges the audience is listening
- black humor
- the use of disturbing themes in comedy; morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world, ordinary characters or situations exaggerated beyond normal limits of satire or irony
- travesty
- a grotesque parody
- theme
- the main idea of the overall work; the central idea; topic of discourse or discussion
- foil
- a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast
- epitaph
- lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place; usually a line or a handful of lines, often serious or religious, but sometimes witty and even irreverent
- bombast
- pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language; one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words
- catharsis
- drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy; refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage; purging of emotions through a form of art, in this case, literature
- apostrophe
- a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman, absent, or dead
- means, meaning
- literal meaning-concrete and explicit; emotional meaning
- zeugma
- the use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings--On the fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.
- abstract
- a style in writing that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points
- enjambment
- the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause--i.e.,
- stanza
- a group of lines roughly analogues in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose
- aesthetic
- adj.: "appealing to the senses"; noun: coherent (logically connected) sense of taste
- protagonist
- the main character of a novel or play
- opposition
- a pair of elements that contrast sharply, not necessarily "conflict," rather a pairing of images, each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one; creates mystery and tension, can be obvious or lead to irony, not always though
- atmosphere
- the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene
- colloquialism
- a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isn't a part of accepted "schoolbook" English; slang words, informal English
- plaint
- a poem or speech expressing sorrow
- cacophony
- using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds--the sound of midday traffic
- anachronism
- Greek for "misplaced in time"; something or someone that isn't in its correct historical or chronological time--i.e., Brutus wearing a watch
- dramatic monologue
- when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience
- genre
- a subcategory of literature--i.e., scientific fiction, detective stories->types of fiction
- oxymoron
- a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction
- objectivity
- treatment of a matter as impersonal or as an outside view of events
- hyperbole
- exaggeration or deliberate overstatement: He has a watermelon head.
- elements
- the basic techniques of each genre of literature
- inversion
- switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase--Yoda speech!
- nemesis
- the protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty
- epic
- a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style; typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter--i.e., great war, heroic journey, battle with supernatural, etc.
- burlesque
- broad parody, one that takes a style or form, such as tragic drama, and exaggerates it into ridiculousness; achieves its effects through caricature, ridicule, and distortion, devoid of any ethical element; interchangeable with parody
- controlling image
- when the image of conceit dominates and shapes the entire work
- paradox
- a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, it does not---"It's raining, but I don't believe that it is."
- academic
- an adjective describing style; dry and theoretical writing; piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis
- technique
- the methods, the tools, "how-you-do-it" ways of the author
- aphorism
- a short and usually witty saying; astute observation--"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton)
- pathos
- when the writing of a scene evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy
- lyric
- a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world; when used to describe a tone, refers to a sweet, emotional melodiousness
- caricature
- a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality
- requiem
- a song or prayer for the dead
- Gothic, Gothic novel
- form first showed up in the middle of the 1700s, heyday of popularity for sixty years; sensibility: mysterious, gloomy, sinister
- diction
- author's choice of words, choice of specific words
- stream of consciousness technique
- method is like first-person, but instead of the character telling the story, the author puts the reader in the character's head
- alliteration
- the repetition of INITIAL consonant sounds; consonant clusters coming closely cramped and compressed
- free verse
- poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern
- rhapsody
- an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise
- aspect
- a trait or characteristic
- coinage (tech. term: neologism)
- a new word, usually one invented on the spot
- accent
- in poetry, the stressed portion of a word; sometimes set, often a matter of opinion
- anecdote
- a short narrative
- first-person narrator
- narrator who is a character in the story and tells the story from his or her point of view; when crazy, a liar, or very young, narrator is unreliable
- chorus
- the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it
- utopia
- an idealized place; paradise
- conceit
- refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines
- doggerel
- crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme--i.e., limericks
- parenthetical phrase
- a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail
- foot
- the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry, formed by a combination of two or three syllables, either stressed or unstressed
- anthropomorphism
- when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behaviour, or motivation--"In the forest, the darkness waited for me, I could hear its patient breathing."
- suspension of disbelief
- demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination
- connotation
- what a word suggests or implies, not its literal meaning--i.e., dark meaning dangerous instead lacking of light
- aside
- a speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage
- ballad
- a long, narrative poem, usually in regular meter and rhyme; typically has a naive folksy quality that sets it apart from epic poetry
- truism
- a way-too-obvious truth
- bathos
- when the writing of a scene strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to jerk tears from every little hiccup; intends to be dramatic but goes to the extreme of becoming ridiculous