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AP Lit Vocab Lawlor
For Mrs. Lawlor's AP Lit Summer terms
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| ad misericordiam | An appeal to the audience's sympathy; an attempt to persuade another using a hard luck story rather than logic or reason |
| allegory | an expression of truths about human conduct and experience (by means of symbolic fictional characters and actions) |
| alliteration | repetition of accernted consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close to each other |
| allusion | a reference in literature or in art to previous literature, history, mythology, pop culture, current events, or the bible |
| ambiguity | quality of being intentionally unclear |
| anachronism | an element in a story that is out of its time frame |
| analogy | explains an unfamiliar concept or object by comparing it with one which is familiar |
| analysis | the process of examining the components of a literary work |
| anecdote | a short and often personal story used to emphasize a point, to develop a character or a theme, or to inject humor |
| antagonist | a character who functions as a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist |
| antecedent | the word or phrase to which a pronoun refers |
| anticlimax | an often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation |
| antihero | a protagonist who carries the action of the literary piece but does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility |
| antithesis | a concept that is directly opposed to a previously presented idea |
| anapest | a metrical foot of poetry consisting of two unaccented syllables, followed by one accented syllable (_ _ -) |
| anaphora | repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines |
| aphorism | a terse statement that expresses a general truth or moral principle |
| apostrophe | a rhetorical figure of direct address to a person, object, or abstract enntity |
| apotheosis | elevating someone to the level of a god |
| archetype | a character, situation, or symbol that is familiar to people in all cultures because it occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore |
| aside | a short speech or remark made by an actor to the audience rather than to the other characters, who do not hear them-often seen in Shakespeare |
| assonance | the repeated use of a vowel sound |
| attitude | the author's feelings toward the topic he or she is writing about |
| aubade | a poem or song about lovers who must leave one another in the early hours of the morning |
| ballad | a folk song or poem passed down orally that tells a story which may be derived from an actual incident or from legend or folklore; usually in quatrains with a refrain and abcb rhyme scheme |
| bildungsroman | a novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character |
| blank verse | unrhymed poetry of iambic pentameter |
| cacophony | harsh, discordant sounds, unpleasant to the ear |
| caesura | a speech pause occurring within a line |
| carpe diem | latin for "seize the day" |
| catharsis | an emotional cleansing or feeling of relief |
| chiasmus | the opposite of parallel construction; inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form |
| colloquial | of or relating to slang or regional dialect |
| comic relief | humor that provides a release of tension and breaks up a more serious episode |
| conceit | a far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things |
| connotation | associations a word calls to mind |
| consonance | same consonant sound in words with different vowel sounds |
| couplet | two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables, with matching cadence |
| dactyl | foot of poetry with three syllables, one stressed and two unstressed (- _ _) |
| denotation | the dictionary or literal meaning of a word or phrase |
| denouement | the outcome or clarification at the end of a story or play; the winding down from climax to ending |
| deus ex machina | literally when, the gods intervene at a story's end to resolve a seemingly impossible conflict |
| diction | the deliberate choice of a style of language for a desired effect or tone |
| didactic | a story, speech, essay, or play in which the author's intention is to instruct, teach, or moralize |
| distortion | an exaggeration or stretching the truth to achieve a desired effect |
| enjambment | in poetry, the running over of a sentence from one verse or stanza into the next without stopping at the end of the first |
| epigram | a short, clever poem with a witty turn of thought |
| epigraph | a brief quotation found at the beginning of a literary work, reflective of theme |
| epiphany | a sudden flash of insight |
| epistolary novel | a novel in the form of a letter written by one or more of the characters |
| essay | a short composition on a single topic expressing the view or interpretation of the writer on that topic |
| euphemism | substitution of an inoffensive word or phrase for another that would be harsh, offensive, or embarrassing |
| euphony | the quality of a pleasant or harmonious sound of a word or group of words as an intended effect |
| farce | a kind of comedy that depends on exaggerated or improbable situations, physical disasters, and sexual innuendo to amuse the audience |
| figurative language | using figures of speech (metaphor, simile, metonymy, personification, hyperbole; appeals to one's senses |
| first person | a character in the story tells the story, using the pronoun I |
| flashback | interruption of a narrative by the introduction of an earlier event or by an image of a past experience |
| flat character | a simple one dimensional character who remains the same, and whom little or nothing is revealed throughout the course of the work |
| foil | a character whose contrasting personal characteristics draw attention to enhance or contrast with those of the main character |
| foot | the basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of metrical verse; usually on stressed and one or two unstressed syllables |
| foreshadowing | hints at what is to come |
| free verse | poetry without rhyme or rhythm |
| genre | the category into which a piece of writing can be classified |
| hamartia | a tragic flaw |
| heroic couplet | in poetry, a rhymed couplet written in iambic pentameter |
| hubris | excessive pride |
| hyperbole | an extreme exaggeration for literary effect that is not meant to be interpreted literally |
| iambic pentameter | a five foot line made up of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable |
| imagery | anything that affects or appeals to the reader's senses |
| in medias res | in literature, a work that begins in the middle of a story |
| interior monologue | a literary technique used in poetry and prose that reveals a character's unspoken thoughts and feelings |
| internal rhyme | a rhyme that is within the line, rather than at the end |
| inversion | a switch in the normal word order (Yoda talk) |
| litotes | affirmation of an idea using a negative understatement (opposite to hyperbole) |
| lyric poem | a fairly short, emotionally expressive poem that expresses the feelings and observations of a single speaker |
| meiosis | understatement |
| metamorphosis | a radical change in character, physical or emotional |
| metaphor | a figure of speech, which compares two similar things, asserting that one thing is another, not just that one is like another |
| meter | the rhythmical pattern of a poem |
| metonymy | a figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or phrase closely associated with it |
| myth | a story usually with supernatural significance, that explains the origins of gods, heroes, or natural phenomena |
| narrative poem | a poem that tells a story |
| near off/slant rhyme | a rhyme based on an imperfect or incomplete correspondence of end syllable sounds |
| octave | an eight line stanza |
| ode | usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern |
| onomatopoeia | words that imitate sounds |
| oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines two contradictory words, placed side by side |
| paean | a hymn sung in ancient Greece in invocation of or thanksgiving to a deity; any song of praise |
| parable | a short story illustrating a moral or religious lesson |
| paradox | a statement or situation that at first seems impossible or oxymoronic, but solves itself and reveals meaning |
| parallelism | the repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or a series of sentences. |
| parody | a comical imitation of a serious piece with the intent of ridiculing the author of his/her work |
| pathos | the quality of a literary work or passage which appeals to the reader/viewer's emotions |
| periodic sentence | a sentence that delivers its point at the end |
| personification | the attribution of human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object |
| point of view | perspective of the speaker or narrator in a literary work |
| prose | the ordinary language people use to express themselves; the opposite of poetry |
| protagonist | the main or principal character; often considered the hero/heroine |
| pun | harmonious play on words that have several meanings or words that sound the same and have different meanings |
| quatrain | four line stanza |
| refrain | repetition of a line, stanza, or phrase |
| repetition | a word or phrase used more than once to emphasize an idea |
| rhetorical question | a question with an obvious answer, so no response is expected |
| satire | the use of humor to ridicule and expose the shortcomings and failings of society, hopefully to cause change |
| scansion | the process of measuring metrical verse |
| sestet | a six line stanza |
| shift | in writing, a movement from one thought to another |
| simile | a comparison of unlike things using like or as |
| sonnet (Shakespearean/English) | a fourteen line stanza in iambic pentameter (abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme) |
| sonnet (Petrarchan/Italian) | fourteen line stanza divided into an octave then a sestet |
| spondee | a metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented (- -) (aka HI I'M BILLY MAYS!) |
| stanza | a grouping of poetic lines |
| stock character | a stereotypical character |
| stream of consciousness | describes the unbroken flow of thought and awareness of the waking mind;in literary context used to describe the narrative method where novelists describe unspoken thoughts and feelings |
| structure | the basic layout of a literary work (a sonnet is made of fourteen lines, a play is made of acts, etc) |
| style | the way a writer uses language |
| symbol | a concrete object, scene, or action which has deeper significance |
| synechdoche | a figure of speech in which one part represents the entire object, or vice versa |
| syntax | the way in which words, phrases, and sentences are ordered and connected |
| tercet | a three-line stanza in terza rima as well as in other poetic forms |
| terza rima | an italian form of iambic poetry having three lines, the middle line rhyming with the first and last of the next (ababcbcdc); made by Dante Allegheri |
| theme | the central idea of a literary work |
| tone | refers to the author's attitude toward the subject, often sets the mood |
| tragic flaw | a defect in a hero/heroine that leads to their downfall |
| transition/segue | the means to get from one portion of a poem or story to another |
| trochee | metrical foot of poetry consisting of one stressed syllable followed by on unstressed syllable (-_) |
| verse | metrical language, opposite of prose |
| zoomorphism | attributing animal qualities to a god |
Created by:
johnthief
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