Ap English Literature & Composition

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Abstract Language

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Diction that describes intangible things like ideas or emotions or denotes general qualities of persons or things.

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Alliteration

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The repetition of initial consonant sounds.

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Allusion

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Brief reference to a commonly known historical or literary figure, event or object. Indirect device used for association.

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Ambiguity

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Intentional creation of multiple meanings.

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Analogy

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A device explaining or describing something through a comparison.

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Analysis

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The methodical examination of the parts in order to determine the nature of the whole.

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Anaphora

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A rhetorical device of repeating the same word or words at the start of two or more lines of poetry.

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Antagonist

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Character in conflict with the protagonist.

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Antecedent action

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Events that preceded the starting point of the piece of literature.

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Anticlimax

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A rhetorical device in which details of lesser importance are placed where something greater is expected.

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Antithesis

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A rhetorical device constructing words, clauses, sentences or ideas balancing one against the other in strong opposition.

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Archetype

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A recurrent pattern in bodies of literature.

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Aside

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Convention in drama by which an actor directly addresses the audience, revealing his or her observations or emotions.

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Assonance

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Repetition of vowel sounds.

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Ballad

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A narrative poem often using common meter and sometimes including a refrain.

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter. (Freedom from rhyme, a shifting caesura and frequent enjambment.

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Cacophony

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A combination of harsh, unpleasant sounds, used consciously for effect.

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Caesura

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A pause in a line of poetry.

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Caricature

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The exaggeration or even distortion of personal qualities to ridiculous effect.

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Carpe Diem Poetry

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Poetry based on the idea of yielding to love while still young and beautiful.

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Catalog

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A rhetorical device which lists people, things, or attributes.

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Common meter

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Alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, in four-line stanzas typically rhyming abab or abcb.

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Conceit

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A metaphor of great ingenuity in which a fanciful notion, an elaborate analogy, or a striking parallel between seemingly dissimilar things is spun out at length.

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Concrete language

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The diction of specificity, referring to particular persons or things.

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Continuous form

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Poetry not divided into stanzas.

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Couplet

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A unit of two consecutive lines of verse with the same rhyme.

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Double rhyme

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Rhyming stressed syllables followed by identical unstressed syllables.

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Elegy

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A formal poem meditating on death or another solemn theme, often a lamentation for a particular person.

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Envoy

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A conventionalised stanza at the close of a poem, which is addressed to a prince or a patron, usually having four lines of abab.

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Epigram

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A pithy saying in which, in it;s classical model, is compressed, balanced, and polished. Often used for satire.

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Epithet

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Adjective, noun or noun phrase used to point out a characteristic, often figuratively conveyed.

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Euphony

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Pleasant, easy to articulate sounds.

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Explication

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The close analysis of the meanings, relationships and ambiguities of words, images and other small units of literary work.

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Exposition

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Material that introduces a story or drama by establishing the mood and setting, the characters and their relationship to each other, and antecedent action.

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Heroic couplets

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Iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs. Used in 17th century poetic drama and later by Pope and Dryden.

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Horatian satire

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Satire which is indulgent, tolerant, amused, and witty, wryly and gently ridiculing human absurdities and follies.

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Italian sonnet

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The fourteen lines are broken into an octave and a sestet, with no more than five rhymes.

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Juvenalian satire

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This mode of satire attacks vice and error with contempt and indignation. It is realistic and harsh in tone.