AP Lit Terms - Test 2 Flashcards
In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is synatically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. In prose, this is called antimetabole.
Chiasmus
A word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse.
Cliché
A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations.
Colloquialism
In general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters.
Comedy
An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor.
Conceit
A twentieth century term used t describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet’s life.
Confessional Poetry
The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.
Conflict
Conflicts can exist between two people, between a person and nature or a machine or between a person and a whole society.
External Conflict
A conflict can be internal, involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.
Internal Conflict
The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.
Connotation
Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.
Couplet
A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.
Dialect
A speaker or writer’s choice of words.
Diction
Form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.
Didactic
A poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.
Elegy
Great praise or recommendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.
Eulogy
Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence.
Epanalepsis
A long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.
Epic
A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.
Epigraph
Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase, is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (it is the opposite of anaphora).
Epistrophe
An adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality.
Epithet
A compound adjective used with a person or thing
Homeric Epithet
A short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject.
Essay
Act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.
Explication
A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.
Fable
