AP English Vocab (b-d's) Flashcards
Ballad
A folk songs or open passed down orally that tells a story which may be derived from an actual incident or from legend or folklore. Usually composed in your line stanzas (quatrains) with the rhyme scheme abcb. Ballads often contain a refrain.
blank verse
Unrhymed poetry of iambic pentameter (five feet of two syllables each-uncstressed and stressed); favored technique of Shakespeare “When honor’s at the stake. How stand I then, that have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d…
cacophony
Harsh, discordant sounds, unpleasant to the ear; the sound of nails scratching a blackboard is cacophonous. Cacophony is used by poets for effect. “And squared and stuck there squares of short white chalk, and with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each.” Notice all the cacophonous sounds in these two lines: sq, st, ck, ft, t k, sc,ch
carpe diem
Latin for “seize the day”; frequent in 16th-and 17th century court poetry. Expresses the idea that you only go around once; refers to the modern saying that “life is not a dress rehearsal.: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
Catharsis
In his Poetic, Aristotle wrote that a triaged should “arouse pity and fear in such a way as to accomplish a catharsis of such emotions in the audience.” The term refers to an emotional cleansing or feeling of relief. Many cry at the end of Gone With the Wind, empathizing with Scarlett O’hara and her losses. They are experiencing catharsis.
Chiasmus
The opposite of parallel construction; inverting the second of two phrases that would otherwise be in parallel form parallel construction: “I like the idea; I don’t like its execution.” chiasmus: “I like the ideas; its execution, I don’t”
colloquial
of or relating to slang or regional dialect, used in familiar everyday conversation. In writing, an informal style that reflects the way people spoke in a distinct time and/or place.
comic relief
Humor that provides a release of tension and breaks up a more seious episode Some of the nurse’s speeches in Romeo and Juliet and the grave-digging scene in Hamlet provide perfectly timed coming relief
conceit
A far-fetched comparison between two seemingly unlike things; an extended metaphor that gains appeal from its unusual or extraordinary comparison. “Oh stay? three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yea more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is
connotation
Associations a word alls to mind. House and home have the same denotation, or dictionary meaning- a place to live. But home connotes warmth and security; house does not. The more connotative a piece is, the less objective its interpretation becomes. Careful, close reading often reveals the writer’s intent. Some very connotative words are light, fire, mother, father, rose, waters, and home
consonance
Same consonant sound in words with different vowel sounds. The following word groups reflect consonance: work, stack, ark, belong, among
conventional character
A character with traits that are expected or traditional. Heroes are expected to be strong, adventurous, and unafraid. Conventional female characters often yearn for a husband, or once married, stay at home and care for their children; conventional men are adventurers. If married, they tend to “wear the pants in the family.”
couplet
Two successive rhyming lines of the same number of syllables, with matching cadence. “Hope springs eternal in the human breast:/ Man never is,but always to be blest.”
dactyl
Foot of poetry with three syllables, one stressed and two short or unstressed. Think of the waltz rhythm “Just for a handful of silver he left us.”
denotation
The dictionary or literal meaning of a word or phrase. Compare to connotation
