Ap Lit Terms

Front 1

Anadiplosis

Back 1

Rhetorical trope formed by repeating last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next
... Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain...

Front 2

Anaphora

Back 2

Repetition of same word or words at beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Commonly in conjunction with climax and with parallelism

Front 3

Antimetabole

Back 3

Reversal of order of repeated words or phrases (a loosely chiastic structure, to intensify the final formulation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast:
All work and no play is as harmful to mental health as all play and no work

Front 4

Antithesis

Back 4

Establishing a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure. human beings are inveterate systematizers and categorizers, so the mind has a natural love for antithesis, which creates a definite and systematic relationship between ideas.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil.

Front 5

Apostrophe

Back 5

The direct address of a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most commojn purpose in prose is to give vent or to display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back. Thus an apostrophe often interrupts the discussion

O how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!

Front 6

Assonance

Back 6

The use of similarvowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants.

Front 7

Blank Verse

Back 7

Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Front 8

Burlesque

Back 8

Works that ridicule a style, literary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (with mock dignity). It focuses on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms.

Front 9

Caesura

Back 9

A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. It may or may not be typographically indicated

Front 10

Chiasmus

Back 10

A crossing parallelism, where the second part of a grammatical construction is balanced or paralleled by the first part, only in reverse order. Instead of an A, B structure (learned unwillingly paralleled by forgotten gladly), the A,B is followed by B, A (gladly forgotten).

Front 11

Conceit

Back 11

an elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended. "Let man's soul be a sphere...

Front 12

Diacope

Back 12

Repetition of a word or phrase after an intervening word or phrase.

We will do it, I tell you; we will do it.

Front 13

End-stopped

Back 13

A line that has natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.)
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
Coral is far more red than her lips red.

Front 14

Enjambed

Back 14

The running over of a sentence or thought into the next line or couplet without a pause at the end of the line. .. a runon line.

Front 15

Epistrophe

Back 15

The repetition of the same word or words at the end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. aka antistrophe,"",, it is the counterpart to anaphora...
... where affections bear rule, there reason is subdued, honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things else that withstand evil, for ever a re subdued.

Front 16

Epithet

Back 16

adjective or adjective phraseappropriately qualifying a subject (noun) by naming a key or important charactgeristic of the subject, as in "laughing happiness" "sneering contempt,and untroubled sleep peaceful dawn and life-giving water.

Front 17

Transferred epithet

Back 17

adjective modifying a noun which it cannot logically modify, yet which works because the metaphorical meaning is clear

...; at length I heard the ragged noise and mirth of thieves and murderers...

Front 18

Epizeuxis

Back 18

The repetition of a word for emphasis.... the best way to describe the portion of south america is lush, lush,lush.

Front 19

Foot

Back 19

basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables. scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet.

Front 20

Frame

Back 20

a narrative structure that provides a setting and exposition for the main narrative in a novel. Often, a narrator will describe where he found the manuscript of the novel or where he heard someone tell the story he is about to relate. The frame helps control the reader's perception of the work, and has been used in the past to help give credibility to the main section of the novel.

Front 21

Free verse

Back 21

verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.

Front 22

Heroic couplet

Back 22

two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter

Front 23

humours

Back 23

four liquids in the human body affecting behavior. each is associated with element of nature. in a balanced personality, no humour predominated.
Blood...air... hot and moist; sanguine, kindly, joyful, amorous
Phlegm...water...cold and moist... phlegmatic, dull,pale cowardly
yellow bile...fire...hot and dry...choleric, angry, impatient, stubborn, vengeful
black bile;.. earth...cold and dryl... melancholy, gluttonous, backward, ,lazy, sentimental, contemplative

Front 24

invective

Back 24

speech or writing that abuses, denounces, or vituperates against. can be directed at person, cause, idea, or system. employs a lot of negative emotional language

Front 25

Juvenalian Satire

Back 25

harsher, more pointed , perhaps intolerant satire attacks particular people, sometimes thinly disguised as fictional characters... uses invective and a slashing attack

Front 26

Lampoon

Back 26

curde, coarse, often bitter satire ridicuuling personal appearance or character of a person

Front 27

Metaphysical poetry

Back 27

involves highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved

Argumentative structure

Dramatic and colloquial mode of utterance...describes dramatic event

Acute realism..psychological analysis...images advance argument

Metaphysical wit...unexpected..shocking analogies... elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things

Front 28

Meter

Back 28

rhythmic pattern that emerges when words are arranged in such a way that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequence, established by the regular or almost regular recurrence of similar accent patterns (called feet)

Front 29

Metonymy

Back 29

another form of metaphor, similar to synecdoche (some don't distinguish the two). A closely associated object is substituted for the object or idea in mind.

THE ORDERS CAME DIRECTLY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

Front 30

Mock Epic

Back 30

treating a frivolous or minor subject seriously

Front 31

Novel of manners

Back 31

focuses on describing social customs and habits of a particular social group

Front 32

Persona

Back 32

the person created by the author to tell story. whether story is told by an omniscient narrator or by character in it, the actual author of the work often distances himself from what is said or told by adopting a persona,"",, a narrator may not be the same as those of the actual author.

Front 33

Picaresque novel

Back 33

an episodic, often autobiograph. novel about a person of low social degree wandering around and living off his wits. the wandering hero provides author with opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since hero can wander into any situation. they tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail.

Front 34

Roman a clef

Back 34

novel with a key... a novel in which historical events and actual people are written about under the disguise of fiction

Front 35

Romance

Back 35

extended fictional prose narrative about improbable events involving characters that are quite different from ordinary people.... knights on a quest for magic sword ... fairies... trolls

Front 36

Couplet

Back 36

pair of lines rhyming consecutively

Front 37

eye rhyme

Back 37

words whose spellings make them look like they should rhyme

slough tough cough bough

Front 38

feminine rhyme

Back 38

two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed

Front 39

masculine rhyme

Back 39

similarity between terminally stressed syllables

Front 40

Sonnet

Back 40

fourteen line poem, usually in iamb pent. with a varied rhyme scheme

Front 41

Synecdoche

Back 41

a form of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole, the whole for a part, the genus for the species, the species for the genus, the material for the thing made, or in short, any portion, section, or main quality for the whole thing itself (or vice versa)..

If I had some wheels, I'd put on my best threads and ask for Jane's hand in marriage

Front 42

Travesty

Back 42

A work that treats a serious subject frivolously... ridiculing the dignified.. often the tone is mock serious and heavyhanded

Front 43

Verisimilitude.

Back 43

the semblance to truth or actuality in characters or events that a novel or other fictional work possesses..TO SAY THAT A WORK HAS A HIGH DEGREE OF VERISIMILITUDE MEANS THAT IT IS VERY REALISTIC AND BELIEVABLE.

Front 44

Zeugma

Back 44

Any of several similar rhetorical devices, all involving a grammatically correct linkage (or yoking together) of two or more parts of speech by another part of speech. Examples would include one subject with two or more verbs, a verb with two or more direct objects, two or more subjects with one verb, and so forth. The main benefit of the linking is that it shows relationships between ideas and actions more clearly.

Front 45

Juxtaposition

Back 45

placement of 2 unlike terms side-by-side for greater impact