AP Terms Flashcards
Ad hominem argument
From the latin meaning “to or against the man” this is an argument that appeals to emotion rather than reason to feeling rather than intellect
Alliteration
Close repetition of consonant sounds at beginning of words
Allusion
Brief reference to familiar person/thing /incident (often Biblical, historical, mythological or literary).
Apostrophe
Directly addressing an absent or imaginary person
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds
Ballad
Narrative poem originally sung (ballade a french verse form),
caesura
Pause in line, dictated by rhythm (“A little learning ….is a dangerous thing).
Consonance
Close repetition of identical consonant sounds around different vowel. (flip-flop) or at the end of words (Hid-bed).
Couplet
Two lines of verse usually rhymed and of same meter
Denouement
Events following the climax and falling action (resolution)
Deus ex machina
“god of machine “ (saves the day )
Diction
The choice of words and their placement in sentence
Dissonance
Juxtaposition of jarring sounds
Doggerel
rough ,crudely written verse usually comic
Elegy
dignified poem mourning death
End -stopped line
End of phrase or sentence coincides with end of line
Epic
Extended narrative poem , exalted in style and heroic in theme
Epic (homeric) simile
Extended simile
Epigram
Short, witty statement. graceful and ingenious
Epilogue
Final section of speech or written work
Epiphany
Showing forth (Greek) an insight
Epitaph
Death inscription(“ On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia “ W.C.Fields).
Epithet
Term used to characterize a person( Jack the Ripper).
Fable
Narrative illustrating a moral truth
Figurative Language
makes uses of figures of speech (techniques comparing dissimilar objects) specific figures of speech are listed separately
Foot
Group of syllables forming metrical unit: lamb, Trochee, Anapest and Dactyl
Form
Fixed metrical arrangements
Free Verse
Lacks regular meter and line strength (relies on natural rhythm: most modern poetry).
Gallows Humor
Black humor(like dead baby jokes)
Genre
literary type of class or specific or general( carpe, diem, poetry, tragedy, novels, etc)
Heroic couplet
pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines
Hyperbole
Deliberate exaggeration
Imagery
Language which evokes sensory experience engaging sight smell taste and etc.
Irony
writer expresses a meaning contradictory to stated or ostensible one : verbal irony is when attitude opposite to what is literally said and the last type of irony is dramatic irony this is when a situation understood in double sense by audience ( and mot by characters on stage)
litotes
or meiosis understatement (in hamlet “ a play of some interest
Lyric
originally (Greek)sung to lyre lyric poetry expresses feelings of speaker in words which have musical qualities
Metaphor
two unlike objects compared (Life is but a walking shadow
Metonymy
figure of speech name of objects substituted for another(my light{vision} is spent
Meter
Pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables see foot a foot being the metrical until the following terms refer to number of feet per line : manometer, dimeter trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter,hexameter, heptameter, octometer,. Iambic meter is referred to a line of five feet of iambs.
Motif
Recurring image character verbal patterns etc..
Narrative Verse
Tells a story (as does anything narrative)
Ode
Lyric poem of some length serious in subject and dignified in style
Onomatopoeia
Words whose sounds express or reinforce the meanings
Ottava rima
Eight lines iambic pentameter (abababcc)
Oxymoron
Two apparently contradictory terms (cold fires:conspicuous by his absence
Pathetic fallacy
Human characteristics given to inanimate objects
Pathos
Quality which evokes feelings of pity. sympathy and tenderness etc..
Persona
a “mask” which the author assumes to speak to the audience
Personification
Inanimate objects endowed with human qualities
Petrarchan sonnet
14 lines divided into two parts , an octave (abbabba) and sestet(cdecde)
Quatrain
Stanza of four lines.
Repetition
Duplication of an element of language such as a word, phrase clause etc..
Rhyme Royal
7 line stanza in iambic pentameter (ababbcc)
Shakespearean sonnet
14 lines iambic pentameter (abab cdcd efef gg or abba cddc effe and gg)
Simile
Comparison using like or as
Spenserian sonnet
same with rhyme of abab bcbc cdcd ee
Stanza
group of lines that form division of a poem
Style
The qualities that make up a literary personality of way of writing
Syllogism
A deductive logical argument formulated around one major premise one minor premise and a conclusion (e.g all men are mortal socrates is a man therefore socrates is mortal )
Symbol
something that stands for something else but also exist as an entity itself ( a hammer and sickle for the USSR)
Synecdoche
Part represents the whole (all hands on deck )
Syntax
The choice of words and their placement in sentence
Terza rima
aba bcb cdc etc
Tone
authors attitude toward subject (can also be towards audience or both
Villanelle
French fixed form (5 tercets and a quatrain all with two rhymes)
synecdoche
a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland’s baseball team”).
