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AP English Final
What to study
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| metaphor | compares two things without using like or as |
| simile | compares two things using like or as |
| conceit | an unlikely comparison - John Donne's The Flea is an example |
| personification | giving something non-human human qualities |
| apostrophe | a term used when a speaker directly addresses someone or something that isn't present in the poem - often an abstract idea or thing - also often begins with "O." |
| symbol | an idea, item, person - anything really that represents something else in literature |
| motif | a narrative element with symbolic meaning that repeats throughout a work of literature. |
| hyperbole | use of exaggeration in literature |
| litotes | a figure of speech in which a negative statement is used to affirm a positive sentiment. Ex: [Beowulf] raised the hard weapon by the hilt, angry and resolute – the sword wasn’t useless to the warrior… (Beowulf, line 1575) |
| allusion | a reference to an object outside of the work of literature. |
| irony | Irony is a figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different ... |
| paradox | the use of concepts or ideas that are contradictory to one another |
| oxymoron | a figure of speech in which two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect. ex: pretty ugly |
| epic | a long narrative poem, often written about a hero or heroines. An example of a literary epic is Beowulf |
| elegy | a mournful poem, usually written in remembrance of a lost one for a funeral or as a lament. |
| ode | a poem in which a person expresses a strong feeling of love or respect for someone or something |
| sonnet | a fourteen line poem |
| villanelle | a poetic device which requires a poem to have 19 lines and a fixed form. It has five tercets (first 15 lines), a quatrain (last four lines), and a couplet at the end of the quatrain. |
| sestina | a type of a poem that contains six stanzas, each stanza having six lines, while concluding seventh stanza having three lines called as envoi, that is also known as tornada. |
| parable | a short fictitious story that is presented to teach a religious principle, simple truth or moral lesson |
| parody | an imitation of a particular writer, artist or a genre, exaggerating it deliberately to produce a comic effect |
| satire | a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, |
| soliloquy | a speech that a character makes in a work of drama only to him or herself. |
| monologue | in literature and drama, an extended speech by one person |
| dialogue | a literary technique in which writers employ two or more characters to be engaged in conversation with each other |
| enjambment | occurs when a phrase carries over a line-break without a major pause |
| octave | a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter |
| sestet | a rhythmic group of 6 lines of verse |
| volta | the turn of thought or argument |
| refrain | a poetic device that repeats at regular intervals in different stanzas |
| couplet | a successive pair of lines in a poem. |
| stanza | refers to a single, related chunk of lines in poetry |
| iamb | a foot of two syllables in poetry - an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable |
| iambic pentameter | rhyming lines of poetry consisting of five iambs |
| blank verse | un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter |
| free verse | a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms |
| alliteration | repetition of beginning sounds in literature |
| consonance | the recurrence of similar sounds, especially consonants, in close proximity (not necessarily at the beginning of words) |
| assonance | the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible (e.g., penitence, reticence ) |
| onomatopoeia | the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named |
| caesura | a break between words within a metrical foot. (in modern verse) a pause near the middle of a line. any interruption or break. |
| diction | the word choice of an author |
| colloquial language | reference to ordinary or familiar conversation |
| anaphora | the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they. |
| syntax | the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language |
| inverted syntax | occurs when lines do not follow traditional sentence patterns, for example when the subject and verb or the object and subject are reversed - Shakespeare used this a lot |
| ballad | a form of verse, often a narrative set to music |
| cacophony | a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds |
| foil | a character who serves to highlight one or more attributes of another character, often the protagonist, by providing a contrast. In the Harry Potter series, Draco Malfoy is a foil to Harry Potter. |
| omniscient narrator | all-knowing narrator |
| pastoral | these poems are set in beautiful rural landscapes |
| tragic flaw | the secret weakness of character that brings about a tragic hero's downfall |
| frame narration | a literary technique used to contain an embedded narrative, a story within a story, to provide the reader with context about the main narrative. |
| tragic hero | a person of noble birth with heroic or potentially heroic qualities. This person is fated by the Gods or by some supernatural force to doom and destruction or at least to great suffering. |
| quatrain | 4 lines of poetry together |
Created by:
arecob
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