Ap Literature Exam

Front 1

diction

Back 1

the poet's choice of words, can carry meaning on both a literal and an abstract level

Front 2

metonymy

Back 2

substitutes word or phrase that relates to the thing for the thing itself
ex: white house plans new tax cuts

Front 3

synechdoche

Back 3

part for whole
'the suits are at work'

Front 4

allusion

Back 4

historical, literary or cultural reference to a person, place or event, can be enormously suggestive and richly symbolic

Front 5

allegory

Back 5

a story or vignette that has both literal and figurative meaning, concrete images or characters to represent abstract ideas

Front 6

paradox

Back 6

self-contradictory statement that under scrutiny makes perfect sense, subtext and implied meaning

Front 7

understatement

Back 7

leaves room for imagination, saying less than one means

Front 8

litotes

Back 8

double negative
You are not a bad teacher
Nat at all bad

Front 9

hyperbole

Back 9

exaggeration, intensifies emotions values physical features etc.

Front 10

tone

Back 10

speaker's attitude toward subject, toward reader or toward himself, tone comes from sum total of emotional and intellectual effects of a poem

Front 11

lyric poem

Back 11

neither dramatic nor narrative, express an individual's thoughts and emotions, ballads, sonnets, elegies, odes, villanelles

Front 12

ballad

Back 12

originally sung, life, death, heroism, love, murder betrayal

Front 13

couplet

Back 13

two rhymed lines, usually in the same meter but not always

Front 14

heroic couplets

Back 14

express a complete thought, with the second line often reinforcing the first

Front 15

allegory

Back 15

fable, moral story each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself

Front 16

anachronism

Back 16

misplaced in time-period, caesar is wearing a watch

Front 17

anthropomorphism

Back 17

when objects, animals or phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior or motivation

Front 18

anticlimax

Back 18

build up for a weak result

Front 19

aphorism

Back 19

short and witty saying

Front 20

bombast

Back 20

pretentious, exaggerated language

Front 21

burlesque

Back 21

broad parody that takes a style or form and exaggerates it into ridiculousness

Front 22

cadence

Back 22

the beat or rhythm of poetry

Front 23

caricature

Back 23

a portrait that exaggerates a facet of a personality

Front 24

conceit

Back 24

startling or unusual metaphor, is a controlling image when the metaphor/image dominates and shapes the entire work

Front 25

syntax

Back 25

order and structuring of words

Front 26

doggerel

Back 26

crude simplistic verse, bad poetry, limericks

Front 27

dramatic irony

Back 27

when the audience knows something that the characters do not

Front 28

elegy

Back 28

poem that meditates on death or mortality

Front 29

enjambment

Back 29

line break in the middle of a sentence, the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line to the next with no pause

Front 30

epic

Back 30

long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style

Front 31

epitaph

Back 31

lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place

Front 32

euphemism

Back 32

a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant or impolite reality

Front 33

free verse

Back 33

poetry written without rhyme or meter

Front 34

interior monologue

Back 34

mental talking within a characters head

Front 35

inversion

Back 35

switching the order of a sentence

Front 36

irony

Back 36

a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean, undertow of meaning, sliding against the literal meaning of the words, irony insinuates, whispers underneath the explicit statement

Front 37

opposition

Back 37

pair of elements that contrast sharply

Front 38

onomatopoeia

Back 38

words that sound like what they mean

Front 39

objectivity/ subjectivity

Back 39

impersonal or outside view/interior or personal view

Front 40

parallelism

Back 40

repeated syntactical similarities for effect

Front 41

refrain

Back 41

a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem

Front 42

requiem

Back 42

a song of prayer for the dead

Front 43

satire

Back 43

exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor, attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed such behavior will become less common

Front 44

soliloquy

Back 44

a speech spoken by a character alone on stage, as if the audience is hearing the character's thoughts

Front 45

zeugma

Back 45

use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings

he closed the door and his heart on lost love