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AP Lit Terms
AP Literary Terms Howards Grove
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Allegory | A story or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning typically a moral or political one |
| Caesara | A break of pause in the middle of a line or verse. Initial, medial, terminal |
| Foil | Any aspect of a work of literature that helps us understand another aspect by providing a contrast; a character who contrasts with another character, typically, a character who contrasts with the protagonist, in order to better understand the protagonist |
| Juxtaposition | Doesn't exactly mean that this and that are opposites. Means to put object x by object y, putting them next to each other draws emphasis to both |
| Hyperbole | Speaker exaggerates. EX, her looks could kill, I'm so hungry I could eat a hippo |
| Understatement | Speaker down plays |
| Enjambment | The running on of a sentence without proper punctuation, typically in poems |
| syllepsis | A figure of speech in which a word is applied to two others in different sentences. "Went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan chair" |
| Verisimilitude | The idea that literature should somehow be true to reality. Textual elements, characters, dialogue, setting, images should be believable, plausible, and authentic/life like |
| Imagery | When a writer uses very descriptive language, sometimes figurative language, appeal to all your senses |
| mood | the emotion the author strives to evoke in the reader, embodies the overall feeling or atmosphere of the work. The readers feeling they get. |
| Tone | Reveals the narrators attitude or conveyed by their specific word choice. The narrators attitude |
| Connotation | The use of a word to suggest a different association than its literal meaning; selling a home VS selling a house. Evoke emotions |
| Denotation | Without any emotional and or implied meaning hidden; literal dictionary meaning |
| Diction | The careful selection of words to communicate a message or establish a particular voice or writing style; science book words vs fantasy book words |
| Stream of Consciousness | Little is said beyond what is required. Refers to a narrative technique where the thoughts/ emotions of a narrator or character are written out such that a reader can track the fluid mental state of the character. Hear everything in their mind/no filter |
| Apostrophe | Speech or address to a person who is not present, or to a personified object. It adds drama when a character is thinking aloud |
| Paradox | Used to force the reader to consider a statement more deeply or critically than at face value, contradictory statements. "Some animals are made more equal than others" |
| Flat Character | uncomplicated, simple |
| Round Character | Complex character |
| Assonance | Repetition of a vowel in non rhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other to be discernible. “His tender heir might bear his memory” |
| Consonance | The repetition of the same consonant sound in a line of text. "Blade blood, flash, flesh" |
| Alliteration | Occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning or adjacent or closely connected words. "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." |
| Malapropism | One word is replaced by another in sound but different in meaning. Used for humor. "I can dribble with my left, I can dribble with my right hand. I guess I'm amphibious. |
| Indirect characterization | What the author shows you about the character without exactly saying it. |
| Direct characterization | What the author tells you about the character. EX: Jamo is smart and naughty |
| Anthropomorphism | Giving human characterization to things that are not human. Kung Fu panda, Utopia. They actually have these traits |
| Oxymoron | Figure of speech that puts together two opposite or contradicting words together but yet still makes sense. "Organized chaos" "Big baby" |
| Static Character | Character that doesn't change throughout the story |
| Dynamic | Character who undergoes significant internal changes |
| Conceit | Type of figurative language in which the writer establishes a comparison between two very different concepts or objects. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; coral is far more red than her lips; if snow be white why then her breasts are dun |
| Rhetorical question | A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer. "What were you thinking" |
| Euphony | a combination of words put together to sound pleasant and easy to pronounce. "Floral, euphoria, murmur, lullaby, willow" |
| Cacophony | Words are put together to sound harsh. "CRUMPLED, EXPLOSIVE, HONKING" |
| Anaphora | When a word or phrase is repeated to put emphasis on it, gives a phrase more strength. EX: MLK I have a dream speech |
| Onomatopeia | Words that sounds like the noise it describes. "oink, cluck, honk, woof, moo" |
| Irony | Literary device in a situation in which there is a contrast between expectation vs reality |
| Verbal Irony | The speaker is the exact opposite of what the speaker means. "Water water everywhere nor any drop to drink" |
| Situation Irony | The opposite of what is expected to happen happens. "Fire station caught on fire" |
| Dramatic Irony | When the audience or reader knows what is ironic in the situation but the character doesn't. EX: Oedipus or Romeo and Juliet |
| Epithet | Describes a person, place, or object by accompanying or replacing it with a descriptive word or phrase. In the odyssey; Athena, goddess of wisdom was replaced by grey eyed, over and over |
| Syntax | The set of rules that determines the arrangement of words in a sentence. "They boy ran hurriedly" "HURRIEDLY ran the boy" |
| First Person point of view | The narrator is a character and is telling the story from their point of view. "my" "I" |
| Third person point of view | Talking about somebody else, rather than speaking about yourself or directly addressing someone |
| Third person omniscient point of view | Narrator is the all-knowing voice in a story, has greater insight into the narrative events |
| Third person limited point of view | Uses a narrator with access to only one character's perspective, a limited perspective. This means that the narrator experiences one character''s emotions and internal thoughts. Allows us to step back and give us more info on the character |
| Third Person objective point of view | The narrator completely is detached from the characters. They can't access their emotions or motivations; tells exactly what's going on with no bias |
| Hyperbaton | Transposition or inversion of usual word order. "Don't be afraid of greatness" vs "Be not afraid of greatness" |
| Theme | What says about the whole subject. "Be kind to everyone" |
| Asyndeton | Is the omission or absence of a conjunction parts of a sentence. "Live, laugh, love" |
| Polysyndeton | The use of multiple coordinating conjunctions. typically using and, or, nor. "Neither snow, nor rain, nor wind" |
| Anachronism | A literary device that places someone or something associated with a particular historical time in the wrong period. EX: Alexander the Great using an iPhone |
| Motif | A symbolic image or idea that appears frequently in a story, can be symbols, sounds, actions, ideas or words. EX: every time two characters fight it's raining outside |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely related to it. EX; refereeing to your car as your ride |
| Synecdoche | Using part of something to refer to it as a whole. EX: referring to your car as your wheels |
| Symbol | Something used or regarded as representing something else. Often an object or physical thing representing a concept. EX: refereeing to your car as your pride |
| Euphemism | Using a mild or more indirect word in place of another to make something less offensive, harsh, or make fun. EX; "The beast of two backs" instead of sex or "Passed away" instead of saying they died |
| Internal conflict | when a character struggles with their own opposing desires or beliefs. It happens within them, and it drives their development as a character. Conflict inside their head |
| External conflict | a type of literary conflict in which the protagonist has to struggle against other characters (called antagonists), nature, or society. EX Raskolinkov killing both of those ladies |
| Dialect | a form of a language in which an author writes their dialogue. Many times, authors will write characters' dialogue in a particular dialect in their literature to add authenticity and substance to the characters. EX: The way slaves would talk |
| Satire | the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices. similar to sarcasm. EX: catch 22 makes fun and satirizes the war |
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heathroethel
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