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Literary Terms AP Li
Literary terms for AP literature
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Allegory | A narrative technique in which characters representing things or abstract ideas are used to convey a message or teach a lesson. |
| Allusion | An indirect or implied reference to a person, place, thing, character, or event from mythological, biblical, literary, or historical contexts. |
| Ambiguity | the quality of being understood in two or more possible ways; also, uncertainty |
| Anachronism | Something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred; an artifact that belongs to another time; a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age. |
| Analogy | A comparison of two things made to explain something unfamiliar through its similarities to something familiar, or to prove one point based on the acceptance of another. |
| Anthropomorphism | The presentation of animals or objects in human shape or with human characteristics ("human form"). |
| Antithesis | Opposing or contrasting ideas balance against each other in parallel grammatical structure. |
| Aphorism | A tersely phrased statement of truth or opinion; an adage. |
| Apostrophe | A form of personification in which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present and the inanimate, as if animate. |
| Aside | A comment made by a stage performer that is intended to be heard by the audience but supposedly not by other characters. |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds in a series of words. |
| Burlesque | Any literary work that uses exaggeration to make its subject appear ridiculous, either by treating a trivial subject with profound seriousness or by treating a dignified subject frivolously. |
| Cocophony | A dissonant unpleasant combination of sounds. |
| Euphony | A harmonious, pleasant combination of sounds |
| Catharsis | The release or purging of unwanted emotions (esp. fear and pity) brought about by exposure to art. |
| Chorus | In ancient Greek drama, a group of actors who commented on and interpreted the unfolding action on the stage. |
| Comic Relief | The use of humor to lighted the mood of a serious or tragic story, esp. in plays. |
| Conceit | A clever and fanciful metaphor, usually expressed through elaborate and extended comparison, that presents a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. |
| Connotation | An association that comes along with a particular word (ideas implied by the word). |
| Consonance | (In poetry) Words appearing at the ends of two or more verses have similar final consonant sounds but have final vowel sounds that differ, as with "stuff" or "off". |
| Couplet | Two lines of Poetry with the same rhyme and Meter, often expressing a complete and self-contained thought. |
| Denotation | The definition of a word, apart from of the impressions or feelings it creates in the reader. |
| Didactic | A term used to describe works of literature that aim to teach some moral, religious, political, or practical lesson. |
| Elegy | A lyric poem that laments the death of a person or the eventual death of all people. |
| Enjambment | The running over of the sense and structure of one line of poetry into the next line without syntactical pause. |
| Epitaph | An inscription on a tomb or tombstone, or a Verse written on the occasion of a person's death. |
| Epithet | In literature, a word or phrase proceeding or following a name which serves to describe the character of that name (makes reader see object in clearer light). |
| Exposition | The gradual revelation of setting, relationship between characters, and other background information needed for understanding the plot of a story. |
| Farce | a form of dram/play that narrows in on an extremely unlikely plot with exuberant/exaggerated characters; an extreme situation, so extreme that it is to the point of becoming absurd. |
| Figurative Language | A technique in writing in which the author temporarily interrupts the order, construction, or meaning of the writing for a particular effect. |
| Free Verse | (Also known as Vers libre) Poetry that lacks regular metrical and rhyme patterns but that tires to capture the Cadences of everyday speech. |
| Hamartia | In tragedy, the event or act that leads to the hero's or heroine's downfall. |
| Idiom | A word construction or verbal expression closely associated with a given language ("a piece of cake"=easy). |
| Induction | The process of reaching a conclusion by reasoning from specific premises to form a general premise. Also an introductory portion of a work of literature, esp. a play. |
| Invective | An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language. |
| Kenning | Frequent in Old English Poetry such as Beowulf, compound noun or short descriptive phrase with metaphoric value ("whale-path"=sea). |
| Litotes | understatement by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. |
| Meter | In literary criticism, the repetition of sound patterns that create a rhythm in poetry. |
| Metonomy | A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for a related word or phrase. |
| Monologue | An extended narrative, whether oral or written, delivered uninterrupted and exclusively by one person. |
| Mood | The "air breathed by the reader" as he enters into the word of a literary work (atmosphere). |
| Oxymoron | A form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression ("sweet sorrow"). |
| Parable | A story designed to suggest a principle, illustrate a moral, or answer a question. |
| Paradox | A statement that appears illogical or contradictory at first, but may actually point to an underlying truth. |
| Parallelism | A method of comparison of two ideas in which each is developed in the same grammatical structure. |
| Pedantic | An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly scholarly, academic, or bookish. |
| Polemic | A work in which the author takes a stand on a controversial subject, such as abortion or religion. |
| Prose | One of the major divisions of genre, refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms, because they are written in ordinary language and most closely resemble everyday speech. |
| Proverb | A brief, sage saying that expresses a truth about life in a striking manner. |
| Rhetoric | In literary criticism, denotes the art of ethical persuasion (arranging facts and ideas in a clear, persuasive, appealing, manner). |
| Satire | A work that uses ridicule, humor, and wit to criticize and provoke change in human nature and institutions ("direct" satire=to the reader, and "indirect" satire=characters illustrate point). |
| Soliloquy | A speech in which a character who is alone speaks his or her thoughts out loud. |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which part of something stands for the whole (opposite of metonymy). |
| Synesthesia | A description of one sensory experience in terms of another. |
| Syntax | Sentence structure; the way the sequence of words are ordered into phrases, clauses, and sentences. |
| Tone | The author's attitude toward his or her audience. |
Created by:
klaetice
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