Ap Lit Term Packet 2

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Literal

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Focusing on the explicit meaning of words only, and dealing with context, connotation, figurative language, or other elements that add deeper shades of meaning to a text.

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Genre

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One of the types of literature, such as short stories, poetry, drama, and novels, or one of the categories within those types, such as romance, science fiction, mystery, and melodrama.

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Hamartia (tragic flaw)

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A “tragic” or “fatal” character flaw that causes the downfall of a person of high status.

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third-person limited point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while discussing these thoughts in the third person, using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

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Foreshadow

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To present ideas, images, events, or comments that hint at events to come in a story.

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Foil

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A character who illuminates the qualities of another character by means of contrast.

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First-person narration/ first-person point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator tells the story from his/her own point of view and refers to him/herself as I. The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer.

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Eulogy

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A formal statement of praise.

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Exposition

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An explanation of the meaning or purpose of a piece of writing, especially one that is difficult to understand.

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Explication

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The detailed analysis of a literary work.

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Euphony

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A pleasing arrangement of sounds.

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Epitaph

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A brief statement to memorialize a deceased person or a thing, time, or event that has ended.

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Epistolary

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Narrated through letters.

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Epiphany

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A sudden, powerful, and often spiritual or life-changing realization that a character reaches in an otherwise ordinary everyday moment.

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Caricature

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In writing and literature, an author’s exaggeration or distortion of certain traits or characteristics of an individual.

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Black comedy

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Disturbing or absurd material presented in a humorous manner, usually with the intention of confronting uncomfortable truths.

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Canon

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A group of literary works commonly regarded as authoritative or central to the literary tradition.

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Bildungsroman

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A novel about the education or psychological growth of the protagonist, or main character.

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Archetype

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A theme, motif, symbol, or stock character that holds a familiar place in a culture’s consciousness.

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Antihero / antiheroine

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A protagonist who is not admirable or who challenges our notions of what should be considered admirable.

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Antecedent

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In grammar, a substantive word, phrase, or clause whose denotation is referred to by a pronoun. In logic, the conditional element in a proposition.

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Ambiguity

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A word or idea that can be understood in multiple ways; frequently refers to the condition of being obscure or difficult to understand.

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Anachronism

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The misplacement of a person, occurrence, custom, or idea in time; also sometimes refers to an individual or thing that is incorrectly placed in time.

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Anecdote

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The brief narration of a single event or incident.

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Emphasis

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Force or intensity of expression brought to bear on a particular part of a text or speech.

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Epigraph

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A quotation placed at the beginning of a piece of literature or at the beginning of one of its chapters or scenes to provide the reader with some ideas about the content or meaning to follow.

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Emblem

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A concrete object that represents something abstract; unlike a symbol, an emblem has a fixed meaning that does not vary in different contexts.

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Dramatic irony / tragic irony

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A technique in which the author lets the audience in on a character’s situation while the character remains uninformed.

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Ellipses

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A figure of speech in which a word or short phrase is omitted, but easily understood from the context; also the marks (...) that indicate the omission of a word or phrase.

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Digression

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To turn or move away from the main subject of discussion or the main argument in a piece of writing.

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Didactic

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Intended to instruct or to educate.

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Dialectic

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A form of reasoning that proceeds by juxtaposing contradictory ideas and synthesizing or finding areas of agreement between them.

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Denotation

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The explicit, literal meaning of a word.

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Cosmic irony

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The depiction of fate or the universe as malicious or indifferent to human suffering, creating a painful contrast between our purposeful activity and its ultimate meaninglessness.

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Convention

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In writing, a practice or principle (such as a rule of spelling, grammar, or usage), that is accepted as true or correct.

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Conceit

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An extended metaphor, or an elaborate parallel between two seemingly dissimilar objects or ideas.

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Connotation

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The association or implied meaning that a word carries along with its literal meaning.

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Colloquialism

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An informal expression, or slang term; acceptable in conversation but not usually in formal writing.

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Closure

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An ending or completion, or something that gives a sense of finality.

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Catharsis

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A cleansing or purification of one’s emotions through the art.

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Romantic irony

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An author’s persistent presence in his or her work, meant to ensure that the audience will maintain critical detachment and not simply accept the writing at face value.

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Satire

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A work that exposes to ridicule the shortcomings of individuals, institutions, or society, often to make a political point.

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Rhetoric

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The art of persuasion, or the art of speaking or writing well. Rhetoric involves the study of how words influence audiences.

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Retrospection

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A narrative technique in which some of the events of a story are described after events that occur later in time have already been narrated; also called analepsis and flashback.

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Red herring

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Something that distracts attention from the real issue.

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Realism

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A loose term that can refer to any work that aims at honest portrayal over sensationalism, exaggeration, or melodrama. Technically, realism refers to a later 19th-century literary movement that aimed at accurate, detailed portrayals of ordinary, contemporary life.

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Protagonist

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The main character around whom the story revolves.

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Prose

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Any composition not written in verse. The basic unit of prose is the sentence, whereas the basic unit of poetry is a line of verse. Prose writing can be rhythmic but is generally less musical than verse.

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Prior Knowledge

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Ideas facts, or awareness that an audience already possesses about a topic.

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Point of view

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The perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes.

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Poetic license

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The liberty that authors sometimes take with ordinary rules of syntax and grammar, employing unusual vocabulary, metrical devices, or figures of speech, or by committing factual errors, in order to strengthen a passage of writing.

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Perspective

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The point of view through which a subject or its parts are mentally perceived.

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Persona

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The character an author assumes in written work.

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Pathos

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From the Greek word for “feeling”; the quality in a work of literature that evokes high emotion, most commonly sorrow, pity, or compassion.

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Pastiche

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A word that imitates the style of a previous author, work, or literary genre; also a work that contains a hodgepodge of elements or fragments from different sources or influences. The imitation in pastiche is not meant as satire or mockery.

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Passive voice

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In this verb form, the subject of the sentence receives the action denoted by the verb. Always consists of a form of “to be” plus the past participle of the verb. Example: The floor was swept by Gretchen.

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Parody

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A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.

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Parable

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A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory (in which literal meaning and symbolic meaning correspond clearly and directly).

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Overstatement

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An exaggeration of fact; also called hyperbole

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Omniscient narration / Third-person omniscient point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator knows all the actions, feelings, and motivations of all the characters and discusses these using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

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Situational irony

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A technique in which one understanding of a situation stands in sharp contrast to another, usually more prevalent, understanding of the same situation.

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Stream-of-consciousness narration

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Form of narration in which the narrator conveys a subject’s thoughts, impressions, and perceptions exactly as they occur, often in disjointed fashion and without the logic and grammar of typical speech and writing. Usually written in first-person narration, but sometimes written in third person as free indirect discourse.

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Syllepsis

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A stylistic device in which a single word governs or modifies two or more other words in different ways. Example: “Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave.”

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Symbolism

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The use of objects, characters, figures, or colors to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Unlike emblems, symbols may have different meanings in different contexts.

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Syntax

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The way the words in a piece of writing are put together to form lines, phrases, or clauses; the basic structure of a piece of writing.

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Theme

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A fundamental and universal idea explored in a literary work.

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Thesis statement

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The main idea, or principal claim, that is supported in a work of nonfiction.

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Third-person narration / third person point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she , it, they.

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Tone

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The author’s attitude toward the subject or characters of a story or poem, or toward the reader.

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Transition words

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Words that connect ideas and show the relationships between those ideas (relationships such as casual links, similarities, contrasts, and so on).

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Trope

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A figure of speech that extends the literal meanings of words by inviting a comparison to other words, things, or meanings. Metaphor, metonymy, and simile are three common tropes.

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Unreliable narration

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A process of narrating in which the narrator is revealed over time to be an untrustworthy source of information.

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Utopia

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An imaginary, idealized world presented in literature.

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Verbal irony

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The use of a statement that, because of its context, means the opposite.

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Voice

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An author’s individual way of using language to reflect his or her own personality and attitudes. An author communicates voice through tone, word choice (or diction), and sentence structure.

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Wit

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A form of wordplay that displays cleverness or ingenuity with language. Often, but not always, wit displays humor.

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Hero / heroine

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The principle character in a literary work or narrative.

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Idiom

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A way of speaking that is peculiar to a region, group, or class, or the conventional forms peculiar to a language. Also an expression that is odd or incorrect and yet accepted, or one that has a meaning that does not clearly derive from the words that combine to form it.

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Imagery

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Language that brings to mind sense-impressions, especially via figures of speech.

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Informal

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Refers to language appropriate for everyday, casual, or familiar conversation or writing.

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In medias res

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Latin for “in the middle of things”; refers to the technique of starting a narrative in the middle of the action.

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Irony

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A technique of detachment that draws awareness to the discrepancy between words and their meanings, between expectation and fulfillment, or, most commonly, between what is and what seems to be. There are five types to be aware of: verbal irony, situational irony, romantic irony, dramatic irony (also called tragic irony), and cosmic irony.

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Limited omniscient narration / third-person limited omniscient point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator conveys the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters and discusses these using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it, and they.

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Allegory

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A narrative in which literal meaning corresponds directly with symbolic meaning.

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Aesthetic

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Relating to beauty or to a branch of philosophy concerned with art, beauty, and taste.

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Active voice

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In this verb form, the subject of the sentence performs the action denoted by the verb. Example: Gretchen sweeps the floor.

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Abstract

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Not attached to anything specific or concrete; for this reason, abstract terms or ideas are sometimes difficult to understand, and the word abstract is sometimes applied to difficult or dense works.

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Ode

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A serious lyric poem, often of significant length, that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.

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Objective narration / third-person objective point of view

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A style in which the narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters but offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states.

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Neologism

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A new or invented word, expression, or usage.

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Nostalgia

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A yearning for the past or for some condition or state of existence that cannot be recovered.

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Narrative device

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A design or pattern in a literary work used to achieve a particular effect.

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Myth

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A story about the origins of a culture’s beliefs and practices or of supernatural phenomena, usually derived from oral tradition and set in an imagined supernatural past.

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Motif

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A recurring idea, structure, contrast, or device that develops or informs the major themes of a work of literature.

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Mood

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The atmosphere of a work of literature; the emotion created by the work (most notably by its setting).

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Melodrama

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The use of sentimentality, gushing emotion, sensational action, or plot twists to provoke audience or reader response. Popular in Victorian England, melodrama is now considered manipulative and hokey.

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Logos

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Greek for “wisdom” or “reason”; in the context or rhetoric, refers to the process of persuading by means of logic and reason, as opposed to style, authority, or emotion.

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overstatement

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An exaggeration of fact; also called hyperbole.

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omniscient narration / third-person omniscient point of view

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A literary style in which the narrator knows all the actions, feelings, and motivations of all the characters and discusses these using proper names and the third-person pronouns he, she, it and they.

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Epigraph

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A quotation placed at the beginning of a piece of literature or at the beginning of one of it’s chapters or scenes to provide the reader with some ideas about the content or meaning to follow.

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Realism

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A loose term that can refer to any work that aims at honest portrayal over sensationalism, exaggeration, or melodrama. Technically, realism refers to a late 19th century.