Ap English Literature Terms

Front 1

Apostrophe

Back 1

When a character speaks to a character or object that is not present or is unable to respond.

Front 2

Assonance

Back 2

The repetition of the same vowel sound in a phrase or line of poetry.

Front 3

Connotation

Back 3

An idea or meaning suggested by or associated with a word or thing.
e.g. bat=evil

Front 4

Convention

Back 4

An understanding between a reader and a writer about certain details of a story that does not need to be explained.

Front 5

Consonance

Back 5

The repetition of consonant sounds in a phrase or line of poetry. The consonant may be at the beginning, middle, or end of the word.

Front 6

Denouement (day-new-mon)

Back 6

The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot.

Front 7

Elegy

Back 7

A poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person.

Front 8

Emotive Language

Back 8

Deliberate use of language by a writer to instill a feeling or visual.

Front 9

Enjambment

Back 9

The continuation of reading one line of a poem to the next with no pause, a run-on line.

Front 10

Expansion

Back 10

Adds an unstressed syllable and a contraction or elision removes an unstressed syllable in order to maintain the rythmic meter of a line.
e.g. th' instead of the; o'er instead of over; 'twas instead of it was

Front 11

Feminine Ending

Back 11

Term that refers to an unstressed extra syllable at the end of a line of iambic pentameter.

Front 12

Foot

Back 12

The metrical length of a line is determined by the number of feet it contains.

Front 13

Monometer

Back 13

One foot

Front 14

Dimeter

Back 14

Two Feet

Front 15

Trimeter

Back 15

Three Feet

Front 16

Tetrameter

Back 16

Four Feet

Front 17

Pentameter

Back 17

Five Feet

Front 18

Hexameter

Back 18

Six Feet

Front 19

Iamb

Back 19

An iambic foot has two syllables. The first is unstressed and the second is stressed. Most common type of foot.

Front 20

Trochee

Back 20

A trochaic foot has two syllables. The first is stressed and the second is unstressed.

Front 21

Dactyl

Back 21

A dactylic foot has three syllables beginning with a stressed syllable; the other two unstressed.

Front 22

Anapest

Back 22

An anapestic foot has three syllables. The first two are unstressed and the last is stressed.

Front 23

Gothic Novel

Back 23

A genre of fiction characterized by mystery and supernatural horror, often set in a dark castle or other medieval setting.

Front 24

Illocution

Back 24

Language that avoids meaning of the words. When we speak, sometimes we conceal intentions or sidestep the true subject of a conversation. Writing illocution expresses two stories, one of which is not apparent to the characters but is apparent to the reader.

Front 25

In media res

Back 25

A story that begins in the middle of things.

Front 26

Inversion

Back 26

In poetry is an intentional digression from ordinary word order which is used to maintain regular meters. For example, rather than saying "the rain came" a poem states "came the rain."

Front 27

Masculine Ending

Back 27

Stressed extra syllable at the end of a line.

Front 28

Meter

Back 28

The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line.

Front 29

Metonymy

Back 29

The use of a word or phrase to stand in for something else which it is often associated.
e.g. lamb means Jesus

Front 30

Neutral Language

Back 30

Language opposite from emotive language as it is literal or even objective in nature.

Front 31

Oblique Rhyme

Back 31

Imperfect Rhyme Scheme

Front 32

Poetic Justice

Back 32

The rewarding of virtue and the punishment of vice in the resolution of a plot. The character gets what he/she deserves.

Front 33

Rhyme Scheme

Back 33

The act of assigning letters in the alphabet to demonstrate the rhyming lines in a poem.

Front 34

Rites of Passage

Back 34

An incident which creates tremendous growth signifying a transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Front 35

Resolution

Back 35

Solution to the conflict.

Front 36

Sonnet

Back 36

A poem with fourteen lines. An Italian sonnet subdivides into two quatrains and two tercets; while an English sonnet subdivides into three quatrains and one couplet.

Front 37

Volta

Back 37

A sudden change of thought.
Common in sonnets.