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AP English Review
The whole compiled list!
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Aestheticism | The movement developed in Europe in the late 19th century, encouraging the separation of morality from artistic value. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| Allegory | A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance |
| Allusion | A reference to history, mythology, literature or popular culture |
| Ambiguity | A statement whose meaning is intentionally left unclear or that has multiple meanings |
| Analogy | Comparison of two things for clarification or explanation |
| Anapest | A three beat poetic foot that ends with the accented syllable |
| Anaphora | The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or sentences |
| Antagonist | The force against which the protagonist struggles in a world of literature |
| Antecedent | the word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun |
| Antithesis | the placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast of ideas |
| Apostrophe | a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction |
| Archetype | the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form |
| Aside | A part of an actor's lines supposedly not heard by others on the stage and intended only for the audience. |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds in a line of poetry |
| Atmosphere | the emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described |
| Ballad | simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing – identified by alternating iambic tetrameter and trimester and ABCB rhyme |
| Beat Poets | A group of writers interested in changing consciousness and defying conventional writing. |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Black Humor | a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic |
| Cacophony | the use of unharmonious or dissonant speech sounds in language |
| Caesura | a break, especially a sense pause, usually near the middle of a verse, and marked in scansion by a double vertical line |
| Cavalier Poets | cavaliers together is their use of direct and colloquial language expressive of a highly individual personality, and their enjoyment of the casual, the amateur, the affectionate poem |
| Characterization | The methods used by authors to develop character traits |
| Chiaroscuro | The arrangement of light and dark elements in a work of art |
| Cliché | A trite or overused expression |
| Chinese Box Narrative | refers to a novel or drama that is told in the form of a narrative inside a narrative (and so on), giving views from different perspectives |
| Colloquial | a word or phrase appropriate to conversation and other informal situations |
| Comedy of Manners | a comedy satirizing the manners and customs of a social class, especially one dealing with the amorous intrigues of fashionable society |
| Comedy of Ideas | Dramatic genre that combines comedy with political, philosophical, and controversial attitudes. |
| Compression | What often distinguishes poetry from prose – the condensed language – compressed for effect |
| Conceit | a fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects |
| Confessional Poets | Confessional poetry is the poetry of the personal or "I." |
| Connotation | the nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning |
| Consonance | Repetition of internal or ending consonant sounds of words close together in poetry |
| Couplet | Two successive lines of poetry that rhyme |
| Dactyl | A three syllable poetic foot with the accent on the first syllable |
| Denotation | the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color |
| Dialogue | the conversation between characters in a novel, drama, etc |
| Diction | referring to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness |
| Didactic | instructional literature in artistic form |
| Dumb Show | A part of a play, especially in medieval and Renaissance drama, that is enacted without speaking |
| Dramatic Irony | facts or events are unknown to a character but known to the reader or audience or other characters in work |
| Elegy | a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead |
| End Stop | a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse |
| Enjambment | The running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break. |
| Epic | noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style |
| Epiphany | a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something |
| Epigram | any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed |
| Euphemism | a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept |
| Euphony | pleasing and harmonious in sound |
| Explication | analysis or interpretation, esp. of a literary passage or work |
| Exposition | part of a text that sets the stage for the drama to follow: it introduces the theme, setting, characters, and circumstances |
| Existentialism | a modern philosophical movement stressing the importance of personal experience and responsibility and the demands that they make on the individual |
| Extrametrical | Additional poetic syllables at the start or end of a poetic line |
| Farce | a light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character |
| Figurative Language | writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning |
| Flashback | A device in the narrative of a motion picture, novel, etc., by which an event or scene taking place before the present time in the narrative is inserted into the chronological structure of the work. |
| Foil | A character that is presented as a contrast to a second character so as to point to or show to advantage some aspect of the second character. |
| Foot | A single unit of poetic verse consisting of one stressed and on or two unstressed syllables |
| Frame Narration | Story within a story |
| Free Verse | Poetry that lacks organized rhyme and rhythm |
| Genre | A general category under which pieces of literature may be grouped |
| Gothic | Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. |
| Hamartia | Tragic flaw |
| Hubris | The sin of extreme pride |
| Hyperbole | a figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement |
| Iamb (iambic) | A poetic foot consisting of on unaccented and one accented syllable |
| Imagery | the sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion |
| Inciting Event | In a drama, this begins the action and also sets up the main question (Motivating Question) that the audience wants the play to answer |
| Inference | to draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented |
| Interior Monologue | A narrative form capturing the unorganized ideas within the mind of a character |
| Intertextuality | the whole network of relations, conventions, and expectations by which the text is defined |
| Irony | An unexpected twist – irony may be situational, verbal or dramatic |
| Juxtaposition | an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast |
| Litotes | A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite |
| Low Comedy | Comedy that appeals to the lowest elements – pratfalls, bodily noises, etc. |
| Metaphor | a figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity |
| Meter | Organized Rhythm in poetry (dimeter, trimester, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octameter) |
| Metrical Split | When a line of poetry (or a play in Shakespeare’s case) is split between two speakers |
| Metonymy | from the Greek "changed label", the name of one object is substituted for that of anotherclosely associated with it |
| Mood | the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a word |
| Motif | A recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in a literary, artistic, or musical work. |
| Octave | An 8 ined stanza |
| Ode | A formal, stanzaic poem written in honor or tribute |
| Onomatopoeia | natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words |
| Oxymoron | author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox |
| Paradox | a statement that appears to be self |
| Parallelism | the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity |
| Parody | a work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule |
| Pastoral | refers to a literary work dealing with shepherds and rustic life |
| Persona | the narrator of or a character in a literary work, sometimes identified with the author |
| Personification | a figure of speech in which the author presents other tings as human |
| Point of View | the perspective from which a story is told |
| Prose | Non poetic writing |
| Prosody | the science or study of poetic meters and versification |
| Protagonist | the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work |
| Pseudonym | a fictitious name used by an author to conceal his or her identity |
| Pun | A clever play on words |
| Prose | genre including fiction, nonfiction, written in ordinary language |
| Rhetoric | from the Greek for "orator," the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively |
| Rhyme Scheme | The pattern of repeated end rhymes |
| Romanticism | A movement in literature and the fine arts, beginning in the early nineteenth century, that stressed personal emotion, free play of the imagination, and freedom from rules of form |
| Satire | a work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule |
| Sestet | A 6 lined stanza |
| Simile | A comparison using like or as |
| Soliloquy | A dramatic speech when a character directly addresses the audience |
| Sonnet | A formal poem of 14 lines with specific rhyme patterns – Shakespearean and Petrarchan |
| Spondee – | A two syllable poetic foot with both accented |
| Stream of Consciousness | thought regarded as a succession of ideas and images constantly moving forward in time |
| Substitution | Using one poetic foot to substitute for another |
| Subtext | The underlying or implicit meaning, as of a literary work. |
| Surrealism | a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects |
| Synesthesia | a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color |
| Symbol | anything that represents or stands for something else |
| Syntax | the way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences |
| Theme | the central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life |
| Tone | similar to mood, describes the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both |
| Tragedy | A dramatic form that follows the downfall of the tragic hero by his or her own flaw |
| Trochee | A two syllable poetic foot starting with the accented syllable |
| Troubadours | Travelling poets who originated aural forms, the ballade being one |
| Truncation | The shortening of a line of poetry |
| Unreliable narrator | A subjective narration where the narrator cannot be believed |
| Verisimilitude | the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability |
| Vignette | a short graceful literary essay or sketch |
| Villanelle | A short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes. |
| Wit | intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights |
Created by:
tmartinson
Popular English Vocabulary sets