AP English Literary Terms

Terms in this set (146)

a line of poetry written in iambic hexameter. The line is made up of six feet, each containing one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stressed syllable.

literary work with two or more levels of meaning- one literal level and one or more symbolic levels. The events, settings, objects, or characters in an ___ stand for ideas or qualities beyond themselves.

the repetition of initial consonant sounds.

a reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art.

a foot with two weak stresses followed by one strong stress "dis-em-bark"

a brief story about an interesting, amusing or strange event.

Anglo-Saxon poetry

rhythmic poetry composed in Old English before about A.D. 1100.

a character or force in conflict with the main character, or protagonist.

figure of speech in which contrasting or paradoxical ideas are presented in parallel forms

a general truth or observation about life usually stated concisely and pointedly. Often witty or wise.

a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person or a personified quality, object, or idea.

type of writing that presents and logically supports the writer's views about an issue.

a statement delivered by an actor to an audience in such a way that other characters on stage are presumed not to hear what is said.

the repetition of vowel suonds in stressed syllables contatining dissimilar consonant sounds.

feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage (a).

form of nonfiction in which a person tells his or her own life story.

songlike poem that tells a story often one dealing with adventure or romance.

a four or six-line stanza form used in folk ballads and in literary imitations of folk ballads.

form of nonfiction in which a writer tells the life story of another person.

poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. Each iambic foot has one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stresed syllable.

natural pause, or break in the middle of a line of poetry

section of a long poem

distorted or exaggerated portrayal of a person

Latin phrase meaning "seize the day"

a list included in a literary work

person or animal who takes part itn he action of a literary work.

characterization

act of creating and developing a character

an approach to literature and to the other arts that stresses reason, harmony, balance, proportion, clarity, and idealism in imitation of the philosphers and artist of ancient Greece and Rome.

high point of interest or suspense in a literary work.

meaning and grammar complete within two lines

a work of literature, especially a play, that has a happy ending.

comedy of manners

satirically challenges the social costumes of a sophisticated society.

the feeling created by a humorous action or speech that appears within a serious work of literature.

an unusual and suprising comparison between two very different things.

poem with a shape that suggests its subject

a struggle between opposing forces

an association that a word calls to mind in addition to its dictionary meaning.

the repetition of consonant sounds in stressed syllables.

pair of rhyming lines written in the same meter

in the plot of a story or play is the turning point for the protagonist- the point at which his or her situation or understanding is changed.

one strong stress followed by two weaks "sol-i-tude"

metaphor that has been so overused that its orginal metaphorical impact has been lost

a word's objective meaning, that to which the word refers, independent of other associations the word calls to mind.

a literary work is anything that happens after the resolution of the plot

is a portait, in words, of a person, place, or object.

conflict runs its course and intensifies

the form of language spoken by people in a particular region or group.

is a conversation between characters.

a personal record of daily events, usually written in prose.

verse written in two-foot lines

direct characterization

he/she states the characters' traits explicitly

a story written to be performed by actors.

contradiction between what a character thinks and what the audience/reader knows to be true

dramatic monologue

a poem in which an imaginary character speaks to a silent listener.

dramatic poetry

dramatic monologue/dialogue

dynamic character

character who changes

a solemn and formal lyric poem about death.

emblematic image

a symbolic figure or shape presented through the arrangement of the lines of a poem.

rhyming words at the ends of lines

end-stopped line

concludes with a break in the meter and in the meaning. Often i9s punctuated by a period, comma, dash, or semicolon

a long narrative poem about the adventures of gods or of a hero.

epic convention

a traditional characteristic of epic poems

a brief, pointed statment in prose or in verse.

a quotation that appears at the beginning of a literary work

a term introduced by James Joyce to describe a moment of revelation or insight in which a character recognizes some truth

an inscription written on a tomb or burial place.

word or phrase that states a characteristic quality of some person or thing.

a short, nonfiction work about a particular subject

use of identical rhyming sounds

a short tale or anecdote with a moral, especially one used in a medieval sermon

writing or speech that explains, informs, or presents information

an artistic movement early im the twentieth century that emphasized the inner experiences of individuals rather than objective external realities

extended metaphor

a metaphor that is developed over length and involves several points of comparison

a brief story, usually with animal characters, that teaches a lesson, or moral

all of the action that takes places after the climax in a literary work

highly imaginative writing that contains elements not found in real life

a kind of comedy that features physical horseplay, stereotypical characters, and absurd plots, often ones involving mistaken identities and recognition scenes.

figurative language

writing or speech not meantn to be interpreted literally

figure of speech

an expression or a word used imaginatively rather than literally

first-person point of view

a character within a story tells the story

a section of a literary work that interrupts the sequence of events to relate an event from an earlier time

a simple character

character who provides a contrast to another character, thus intensifying the impact of that other character

songs that originated from illiterate peoples and were passed from singer to singer by word of mouth

includes the stories, legends, myths, ballads, riddles, sayings, and other traditional works produced orally by illiterate or semi-literate peoples.

a story compsed orally and then passed from person to person by word of mouth

weak and strong stresses are divided into vertical lines called feet

the use of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur

a literary work's structure, shape, pattern, organization, or style- the way it is made

forms of discourse

main types of writing- description, narration, exposition, and persuasion or argumentation

poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter

term used to describe literary works that make extensive use of primitive, Medieval, wild, mysterious, or natural elements.

seven-foot line

seven-line stanza

a character whose actions are inspiring or noble

rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines

homeric epithet

"wide-wayed city" "clear-voiced heralds" "high-hearted princes"

deliberate exaggeration or overstatement

a foot with one weak stress followed by one strong stress

a word or a phrase that appeals to one or more of the five senses

descriptive language used in literature to re=create sensory experiences

inciting incident

introduces the central conflict

juxtaposition of imcompatible or opposite elements

incremental repetition

used in ballads and in other oral poetry, is the technique of repeating a line or a stanza with slight but significant changes

Latin phrase for "in the middle of things"

rhyming words fall withing a line

a reversal or change in the regular word order of a sentence

an appeal to a Muse or to another divine being for help in writing the poem.

the general name given to literary techniques that involve surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions

irony of situation

an event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience

a daily autobiographical account of events and personal reactions

a metaphorical phrase, used in Anglo-Saxon poetry to replace a conrete nounce

a widely told story about the past, one that may or may not have a foundation in fact

limited point of view

knowledge of the storytell is limited to the internal states of one character

literary ballad

sophisticated poem in the style of folk ballad

literary criticism

art of analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating literary works

poem that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. Unlike a narrative poem, it presents an experience or a single effect, but it does not tell a full story.

major character

plays an importatn role in the story

a Latin phrase meaning "remember that you must die"

figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else

metaphysical poetry

term used to describe works of such seventeenth-century poets such as John Donne

rhythmical pattern of a poem

figure of speech that substitutes something closely related for the thing actually meant

minor character

character who doesn't play an important role

told Biblical stories

two metaphors are jumbled together

poem about a trivial matter written in the style of a serious epic

a speech or performance given entirely by one person or by one character

the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage (m)

verse written in 1-foot lines

dealt with personified vices and virtues

a recurring literary convention or an element that is repeated within a literary work

a reason that explains or partially explains a character's thoughts, feelings, actions, or speech.

a fictional tale, originally with religious significance, that explains the actions fo gods or heroes, the causes of natural phenomena, or both.

writing that tells a story

the story itself

tells a story in verse

a literary movement among writers at the end of the nineteenth century and during the early decades of the twentieth century. Viewed people as hopeless victims of immutable natural laws

a literary movement during the Restoration and the eighteenth century in which writers turned to classical Greek and Roman literary models and standards.

prose writing that presents and explains ideas or that tells about real people

a long work of fiction

objective correlative

TS Eliot- complex emotional state suggested by images that are carefully chosen to evoke this state

an 8-line stanza

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