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AP Lit
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Meter | basic rhythmic structure of a verse, made up of feet |
| Scansion | analysis of a poem’s metrical structure |
| Iambic Pentameter | most common meter in English poetry – sequence of five iambic feet each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one: da-DUM |
| Trochaic Meter | the inverse of iambic meter: DUM-da |
| Euphony | words that sound good together (musical) |
| Cacophony | sounds that grate, annoy, or create a sense of distaste |
| Onomatopoeia | imitates the sound it refers to |
| Imagery | language that appeals directly to one of the senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, or taste. |
| Synesthesia | when description of one kind of sensation produces another |
| Tone | manner in which something is said; voice the poet projects |
| Rhythm | pacing, from slow to fast, and pauses, stops, and starts |
| Rhyme | a repetition of similar sounds in words |
| End rhyme | most common rhyme – occurs at end of verse lines |
| Internal rhyme | the end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the same line or nearby line. |
| Eye rhyme | words that look alike but do not sound alike blood, food |
| Alliteration | repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words |
| Assonance | repetition of vowel sounds that are close together |
| Consonance | repetition of consonant sounds within a series of words |
| Dissonance | A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms |
| Verse | rhymed or metrical poetry- a line or stanza of such poetry |
| Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter (still rhythmic) |
| Free Verse | avoids pre-established rhyme, stanza pattern, or meter |
| Metaphor | implied comparison of two unlike things |
| Simile | explicit comparison of two unlike things |
| Irony | (verbal) saying one thing and meaning another |
| Paradox | an apparently impossible circumstance, situation or condition (like oxymoron) |
| Personification / Pathetic Fallacy | giving a nonbeing the characteristics of a person |
| Pun | humorous use of words with multiple meanings or words that sound similar with different meanings |
| Metonymy | when one thing is used in place of something closely related to it –suits = business people |
| Synecdoche | uses part for the whole – wheels = car, hands = sailors |
| Hyperbole | overstatement or exaggeration for effect |
| Litotes | understatement that downplays for effect. -The party wasn't a total disaster |
| Symbol | a representative image, event, word, or pattern that stands for something else |
| Allegory | fixed symbol that definitively represents one other thing – no room for interpretive license |
| Sonnet | a form poem containing 14 lines of iambic pentameter and end rhyme |
| Ode | long irregular poem lyric in nature and exalted in tone – meant to praise and honor its subject |
| Couplet | pair of rhymed lines |
| Tercet/Triplet | grouping of three rhymed lines |
| Quatrain | group of four rhyming lines |
| Stanza | grouping of verse lines in a poem set off by a space break |
| Apostrophe | direct and explicit address either to an absent person or to an abstract or inanimate entity |
| Theme | idea or claim a poem is expressing |
| Allusion | reference to art, popular culture, or literature |
| Denotation | what a word means on a dictionary level |
| Connotation | what a word means on an emotional level |
| Diction | -word choice |
| Dramatic monologue | one side of a conversation – one voice the reader “hears” |
| Internal dramatic monologue | stream-of-consciousness version of dramatic monologue |
| End-stopped lines | lines of poetry that have a pause at the end, usually indicated by punctuation |
| Enjambement | lines of poetry that force you to read into the beginning of the next line |
| Caesura | pauses or breaks within a line of poetry. See how the flowers || as at a parade, …. |
| Prose poem | poem that is not set up in a recognizable system of individual lines, but rather, in paragraph form |
| Concrete poem | poem whose shape is reflective of the poem’s subject |
| Conceit | an extended metaphor |
| Asyndeton | The omission of conjunctions (and, but, etc) between parts of a sentence |
| Polysyndeton | The use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially when they can be omitted. |
| Anaphora | repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses |