Ap Literature Exam Terms

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Rhetorical Techniques

Back 1

Used in effective or persuasive language. Ex: apostrophe, contrast, repetitions, paradox, understatement, sarcasm, and rhetorical question.

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Satire

Back 2

Writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Typically comedic.

Front 3

Allegory

Back 3

A story in which people, things, and events have another meaning.

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Ambiguity

Back 4

Multiple meanings a literary work may communicate, especially two meanings that are incompatible.

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Connotation

Back 5

Implications of a word or phrase as opposed to its exact meaning.

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Denotation

Back 6

The dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to connotation.

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Convention

Back 7

Device of style or subject matter so often used that it becomes a recognized means of expression.

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Didactic

Back 8

Explicitly instructive. This type of poem or novel may be good or bad.

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Disgression

Back 9

The use of material unrelated to the subject of a work.

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Epigram

Back 10

A pithy (Concise or forceful) saying, often using contrast. It is also a verse form, usually brief and pointed.

Front 11

Euphemism

Back 11

A figure of speech using indirection to avoid offensive bluntness, such as “deceased” for “dead” or “remains” for “corpse.”

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Oxymoron

Back 12

A combination of opposites; the union of contradictory terms.

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Soliloquy

Back 13

A speech in which a character who was alone speaks their thoughts aloud.

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Syllogism

Back 14

A form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn from them. One begins with a major premise (“All tragedies end unhappily.”) followed by a minor premise (“Hamlet is a tragedy.”) and a conclusion (Therefore, “Hamlet ends unhappily.”).

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Alliteration

Back 15

Repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning of words. Ex: “Gnus never know pneumonia”

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Assonance

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The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. “A land laid waste with all its young men slain” repeats the same sound “a” in the bold words.

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Ballad meter

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A four-line stanza rhymed abcb with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.

Ex:

O mother, mother make my bed.

O make it soft and narrow.

Since my love died for me today,

I’ll die for him tomorrow.

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter, used in most of Shakespeare’s plays.

Ex:

Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve.

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Dactyl

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A metrical foot of three syllables, an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables.

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End-stopped

Back 20

A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point, or question mark.

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Free verse

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Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. Walt Whitman is well known for his use of this.

Hint 21

O captain, my captain

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Heroic couplet

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Two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two line unit.

Ex:

When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,

And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,

This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,

And ‘midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.

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Hexameter

Back 23

A line containing six feet.

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iamb

Back 24

A two syllable foot with an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. It is the most common foot in English poetry

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Internal rhyme

Back 25

Rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end.

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Pentameter

Back 26

A line containing five feet. It is the most common line in English verse written before 1950.

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Rhyme royal

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A seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chaucer and other medieval poets.

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Sonnet

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Normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrarchan, it is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, version is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

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Terza rima

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A three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc.

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Tetrameter

Back 30

A line of four feet.

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Antecedent

Back 31

That which goes before, especially the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers. Ex: (the boldface word) “The witches cast their spells.”

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Clause

Back 32

A group of words containing a subject and its verb that may or may not be a complete sentence.