AP Test Terms Flashcards
Abstract
Complex style, discusses intangible qualities, rarely uses examples
Academic
Dry + theoretical writing
Accent
Stressed portion of a word
Aesthetic
Appealing to senses or coherent sense of taste
Allegory
Story in which each aspect has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself
Alliteration
Repetition of initial consonant sounds
Allusion
Reference to another work or famous figure
Anachronism
Misplaced in time
Analogy
Comparison usually involving 2+ symbolic parts used to clarify an action or relationship
Anecdote
Short narrative
Anthropomorphism
Inanimate objects having human characteristics (doesn’t require object to take on human shape like personification)
Anticlimax
Action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect, frequently comedic
Antihero
Protagonist who is markedly unheroic
Aphorism
Short + usually witty saying
Apostrophe
Speaker talks directly to something nonhuman
Archaism
Use of deliberately old-fashioned language
Aside
Speech made by an actor to an audience, usually short
Assonance
Repeated use of vowel sounds
Atmosphere
Emotional tone or background surrounding a scene
Ballad
Long narrative poem, usually regular in meter + rhyme, has naive folksy quality
Bathos
Abrupt + ridiculous transition from elevated to ordinary (form of anticlimax) or excessively sentimental pathos
Black humor
Use of disturbing themes in comedy
Bombast
Pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language
Burlesque
Broad parody, takes a style or form and exaggerates it
Cacophony
Use of deliberately harsh + awkward sounds
Cadence
Beat or rhythm of poetry
Canto
Section division in long work of poetry
Caricature
Portrait exaggerating a facet of personality
Catharsis
Cleansing of emotion experienced by audience member after living vicariously through experiences of theater
Chorus
Group of citizens standing outside the main action on stage + provide commentary, part of Greek theater
Classic
Accepted masterpiece
Coinage
New word, usually invented on the spot
Colloquialism
Word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that is not formally accepted
Conceit
Startling + unusual metaphor or metaphor expanded on over course of several lines, called controlling image when it dominates the work
Connotation
Things that a word suggests or implies
Consonance
Repetition of consonant sounds within words (unlike alliteration at beginnings of words)
Couplet
Pair of lines that end in rhyme
Decorum
Character’s speech styled according to social station + occasion
Denotation
Literal meaning of word
Diction
Author’s choice of words
Dirge
Song for dead, typically slow, heavy, depressed, + melancholy
Dissonance
Grating of incompatible sounds
Doggerel
Crude + simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme
Dramatic irony
When the audience knows something characters in a drama do not
Dramatic monologue
When a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience
Elegy
Type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious + thoughtful manner
Epic
Long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style, typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter
Epitaph
Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place, usually one or several lines, often serious + religious but sometimes witty + irrelevant
Euphemism
Word or phrase taking place of harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality
Euphony
Sounds blend harmoniously
Farce
Extremely broad humor, funny play or comedy
Feminine rhyme
Lines rhymed by their final 2 syllables
First person narrator
Narrator who is a character in the story + tells it from their point of view
Foil
Secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of the main character, usually by contrast
Foot
Basic rhythmic unit of poetry, composed of combination of 2 or 3 syllables
Foreshadowing
Event or statement in a narrative in miniature that suggests a larger event coming later
Free verse
Poetry written w/o regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern
Genre
Sub-category of literature
Gothic
Sensibility derived from gothic novels
Hubris
Excessive pride or ambition leading to main character’s downfall
Hyperbole
Exaggeration or deliberate overstatement
In medias res
In the midst of things
Interior monologue
Writing recording mental talking going on inside of a character’s head (more coherent than stream of consciousness)
Inversion
Switching customary order of elements in sentence or phrase
Irony
Statement that means opposite of what it seems to mean
Lament
Poem of sadness or grief over death of a loved one or intense loss
Lampoon
Satire
Loose sentence
Complete before its end
Lyric
Type of poetry that explores personal interpretation of + feelings about the world
Masculine rhyme
Rhyme ending on final stressed syllable
Melodrama
Form of cheesy theater
Metaphor
Comparison or analogy stating that one thing is another
Metaphysical conceit
Form of metaphor used in metaphysical poems
Metonym
Word used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated w/
Nemesis
Protagonist’s arch enemy or supreme + persistent difficulty
Neologism
Formal term for coinage
Objectivity
Impersonal or outside view of events, have objective point of view
Omniscient Narrator
Third person narrator who sees into each character’s mind + understands all actions going on, limited can only report on one character
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like what they mean
Oxymoron
Phrase composed of opposites
Parable
Story that instructs
Paradox
Situation or statement that seems to contradict itself but does not upon closer inspection
Parallelism
Repeated syntactical similarities used for effect
Parenthetical phrase
Phrase set off by commas that interrupt the flow of sentence to add commentary or detail
Parody
Work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness
Pastoral
Poem set in tranquil nature or one about shepherds
Pathos
Scene evokes feelings of dignified pity + sympathy
Periodic sentence
Not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase
Persona
Narrator in non first-person novel, gives aspect of author’s personality
Personification
Inanimate object takes human shape
Plaint
Poem or speech expressing sorrow
Point of view
Perspective from which the action of a novel is presented
Prelude
Introductory poem to longer work of verse
Protagonist
Main character of novel or play
Pun
Usually humorous use of word to suggest 2+ meanings
Refrain
Line or set of lines repeated several times over course of poem
Requiem
Song of prayer for dead
Rhapsody
Intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise
Rhetorical question
Question that suggests an answer
Satire
Exposes common character flaws to humor, attempts to improve things by pointing out mistakes
Simile
Comparison using like or as
Soliloquy
Speech spoken by character alone on stage (unlike aside in that it isn’t meant to imply that the actor acknowledges audience’s presence)
Stanza
Group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to paragraph’s function in prose
Stock characters
Standard or chliched character types
Stream of consciousness
Method like first person narration showing all of character’s thoughts as they arise
Subjectivity
Using interior or personal view of single observer, typically colored with observer’s emotional responses
Suspension of disbelief
Demand made of theater audience to accept limitations of staging + supply detials with imagination, acceptance on audience’s or reader’s part of incidents of plot in play or story
Symbolism
Object represents idea
Syntax
Ordering + structuring of words
Thesis
Main position of argument, central contention that will be supported
Tragic flaw
Weakness of character in otherwise good individual leading to their demise in tragedy
Travesty
Grotesque parody
Truism
Way-too obvious truth
Unreliable narrator
First person narrator that isn’t entirely credible
Utopia
Idealized place
Zeugma
Use of word to modify 2+ words for different meanings
