click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Lit Terms Set 3
AP Literature Exam Literary Terms
Question | Answer |
---|---|
use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings. | zeugma |
idealized place; imaginary community in which people are able to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace | utopia |
first-person narrator who is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible | unreliable narrator |
a way-too-obvious truth | truism |
grotesque parody | travesty |
in a tragedy, this is the weakness of character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise | tragic flaw |
main position of an argument; the central contention that will be supported | thesis |
main idea of the overall work; central idea; topic of discourse or discussion | theme |
methods, tools, the "how-she-does-it" ways of the author | technique |
device in literature where an object represents an idea | symbolism |
demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination; | suspension of disbelief |
simple retelling of what you've just read; includes all the facts | summary |
to imply, infer, indicate | suggest |
set up a hypothetical situation, a kind of wishful thing; grammatical situation involves the words "if" and "were." | subjunctive mood |
treatment uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses | subjectivity |
author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all the character's thoughts | stream of consciousness |
standard or clichéd character types | stock characters |
group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose | stanza |
a speech spoken by a character alone on stage | soliloquy |
a comparison or analogy that softens the full-out equation of things, often but not always by using "like"or "as." | simile |
exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor; attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common. | satire |
a question that suggests an answer | rhetorical question |
instensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise | rhapsody |
song of prayer for the dead | requiem |
line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem | refrain |
usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings | pun |
main character of a novel or play | protagonist |
introductory poem to a longer work of verse | prelude |
narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his/her point of view | first-person narrator |
third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera | objective narrator |
third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privileged character | limited omniscient narrator |
third-person narrator who sees, like God, into each character's mind and understands all the action going on | omniscient narrator |
the perspective from which the action of the novel is presented | point of view |
poem or speech expressing sorrow | plaint |
giving an inanimate object human qualities or form | personification |
the narrator in a non-first-person novel; shadow-author | persona |
not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase | periodic sentence |
complete before its end | loose sentence |
poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds | pastoral |
work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness | parody |
phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail | parenthetical phrase |
to restate phrases and sentences into your own words, showing that you comprehend what you've just read | paraphrase |
repeated syntactical similarities used for effect | parallelism |
situation or statemtn that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not | paradox |
a story that instructs, like a fable or allegory | parable |
phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction | oxymoron |
a pair of elements that contrast sharply | opposition |
words that sound like what they mean | onomatopoeia |
impersonal or outside view of events | objectivity |
protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty | nemesis |