AP Literature Literary Terms
Adage: a saying often in metaphorical form that embodies a common observation.
Allegory: A story in which the characters, setting, and events stand for abstract or moral
concepts.
Ex. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in which the main character is named Christian,
and the story describes the Christian journey through temptation on their way to the
celestial city. The character Christian represents all Christians.
Anastrophe: Inversion of the natural or usual word order.
Ex. _____________________________________________________________
Anticlimax: The arrangement of descriptive or narrative details such as that the lesser, the
trivial, or the ludicrous appears at the point where something greater and more serious is
expected.
Antithesis: A contrast of ideas expressed in a grammatically balanced statement, often in
parallel structure.
Ex. ______________________________________________________________
Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person,
an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of responding.
Ex. _______________________________________________________________
Appeals:
Logical: appeals to reason (logos) Ex.____________________________________
Ethical: appeals to authority (ethos) Ex. __________________________________
Emotional: appeals to emotion (pathos) Ex. _______________________________
Audience: the person or people the author writes for.
Comedy of Manners: genre that satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class.
Ellipsis: Deliberate omission of a word or words which are readily implied by context.
Ex. And he to England shall along with you.
Ex. _________________________________________________________________
Epistolary Novel: A novel written as a series of documents, usually as letters, although diary
entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are occasionally used.
Gothic: A genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance
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Grotesque and Arabesque: Anything with an element of horror is “grotesque”; anything with
an element of wonder is “arabesque.”
Grotesque Ex:__________________________________________________________
Arabesque Ex:__________________________________________________________
Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration for effect.
Ex. I am so hungry I could eat a horse.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Local Color: The customs, manner of speech, dress, or other typical features of a place or period
that contribute to its particular character.
Metaphysical Conceit: a clever figure of speech that makes a surprising comparison between
two dissimilar things.
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Metonymy: The name of a thing is applied to another thing or person with which it is closely
associated.
Ex. The White House announced.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Narrative: Telling a story or depicting a series of related events, usually in chronological order.
Novel of Manners: A work of fiction that re-creates a social world, conveying with finely
detailed observation, aspects of behavior, language, customs and values characteristic of a
particular class of people in a specific historical context.
Occasion: the event for which we write (antecedent).
Persona: Naming speakers in literature, stressing the fact that they are all part of the fiction,
invented for a particular artistic purpose.
Pastoral: depicts rural life in an ideal manner but is naïve.
Pathetic Fallacy: Attributing human emotions to inanimate objects.
Ex. Friendly sun
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Point of view: The mode or perspective established by the author; either first person, third
person observer, third person limited, or third person omniscient.
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Polysyndeton: The deliberate use of many conjunctions. Proliferation of conjunctions slows the
rhythm and produces an impressively solemn note.
Ex. This semester I am taking English and history and science and math and theatre.
Ex. ________________________________________________________________
Purpose: The reason for writing.
Rhetorical Question: A statement that is formulated as a question but that is not meant to be
answered.
Semantics: The meanings of words, either denotative or connotative.
Structure: the sequential arrangement of plot elements in fiction or drama; in poetry, the
internal organization of content.
Style: This encompasses everything pertaining to the way in which you write. You might have a
poetic style, a didactic style, ironic or satirical style, etc.
Syllogism: A formula for presenting an argument logically. Demonstrates logic through
analysis. In its simplest form it consists of three divisions: a major premise; a minor premise,
and a conclusion.
Ex. “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell (we will fill this in when we read the poem).
Major premise: _______________________________________________________.
Minor premise: _______________________________________________________.
Conclusion: _________________________________________________________.
Synecdoche: A form of metonymy in which a part is used to symbolize the whole.
Ex. Lend me a hand. Lend me your ears. I give you my heart.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Synesthesia: presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another
sensation.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Tone: The speaker’s attitude towards his audience or subject. Tone can be formal or intimate,
outspoken or reticent, abstruse or simple, solemn or playful, arrogant or prayerful, angry or
loving, serious or comic, condescending or obsequious, happy or sad, didactic or questioning,
etc.
Trope: A figure of speech involving a “turn” or change of sense- the use of a word in a sense
other than the literal; (metaphors, similies, irony, paradox, etc.)
Ex. ___________________________________________________________________
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Vignette: A short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives an acute
impression about a character, idea, setting, or object.
AP Literature Poetry Literary Terms
Accented/Stressed Syllables: syllables given more prominence in pronunciation than the rest.
Anapest: a metrical foot consisting of two short syllables followed by one long syllable or of
two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable.
Ex. uň-děr-stánd
Anaphora: Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a series of lines of poetry.
Ex. _____________________________________________________________
Approximate (Slant) Rhyme: includes words with any kind of sound similarity, from close to
fairly remote.
Ex.____________________________________________________________________
Ballad: A song or songlike poem that tells a story and has a rhyme scheme and refrain.
Ex.(summary)____________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
(rhymescheme)___________________________________________________________
(refrain)_________________________________________________________________
Blank Verse: Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Ex. Romeo and Juliet (Act II. Scene ii. Lines 2-3)
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Cacaphony: a harsh, discordant, unpleasant sounding choice and arrangement of sounds.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Caesura: A pause or break within a line of poetry, usually indicated by the natural rhythm of the
language.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
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Continuous Form: the form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal
grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning.
Couplet: two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme.
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Dramatic Monologue: a poem in which a character addresses one or more listeners who remain
silent or whose replies are not revealed.
Dactyl: metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables.
Ex. mér-ři-lȳ
End Rhyme: rhymes that occur at the end of the lines.
End-Stopped Line: the end of the line corresponds with a natural speech pause.
Enjambment: When a phrase, a clause, or a sentence in a line of poetry doesn't finish at the line
break but spills over into the next line.
Epistrophe: Repetition of a word or phrase at the end of a series of lines.
Ex. ___________________________________________________________________
Euphony: a smooth, pleasant sounding choice and arrangement of sounds.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Extra-Metrical syllables: syllables added at the beginnings or endings of lines.
Feminine Rhyme: A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.
Ex. As if her song could have no ending.
And o’er the sickle bending.
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Fixed Form: a form of poetry in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage
or tradition, such as sonnet, limerick, etc.
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Free Verse: Poetry that has no regular meter or rhyme scheme.
Ex. Walt Whitman’s “When I heard the learn’d astronomer”
When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
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How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Grammatical Pause: a pause introduced into the reading of a line by a mark of punctuation.
Iamb: metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable.
Ex. rě-heárse
Internal Rhyme: Rhyme within a verse-line.
Ex. Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow.
Ex. ____________________________________________________________________
Masculine Rhyme: The rhyme consists of a single stressed syllable.
Ex. I listened, motionless and still.
And as I mounted up the hill,
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Metrical Variations: call attention to some sounds because they depart from what is regular.
Octave: An eight line stanza; the first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
Paean: A song of praise or triumph.
Prose Meaning: the ingredient of a poem that can be separated out in the form of a prose
paraphrase such as descriptive, emotional, human character, etc.
Prose Poem: depends on ordinary prose rhythms, short composition with intentions of poetry
but written in prose rather than poetry.
Quatrain: a four line stanza
Rhetorical Pause: a natural pause, unmarked by punctuation, introduced into the reading of a
line by its phrasing or syntax.
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Rhetorical Stresses: syllables or parts that are stressed to make intentions clear.
Rhythm: wave like recurrence of motion or sound.
Scansion: the process of defining the metrical form of a poem.
Sestet: A six line stanza; the last six lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
Spondee: metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented.
Ex. true-blue
Stanzaic Form: the form taken by a poem when it’s written in a series of units having the same
numbers of lines and usually other characteristics common such as meter and / or rhyme scheme.
Tercet: A three line stanza exhibited in villanelle as well as in other poetic forms.
Total Meaning: the experience a poem communicates.
Trochee: metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable.
Ex. bár-těr
Truncation: the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line.
Variation: variety of feet, accent and/or pauses within poetry.
Villanelle: A 19 line fixed form poem consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding
quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating
pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19.
Ex. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
Ex. __________________________________________________________________
Volta: Also called a turn, a volta is a sudden change in thought, direction, or emotion near the
conclusion of a sonnet.
Ex._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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Literary Terms you should already know
Types of Writing:
Allegory: a story that can be read on two distinct levels
Anecdote: A short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature,
especially a true one.
Argument: persuasive writing that appeals to reason, rather than emotion.
Autobiography: an account of the writer’s own life; it will be subjective.
Biography: an account of a person’s life, written or told by another person; it will be objective.
Comedy: In general, a story that ends happily, usually with a wedding.
Descriptive: type of writing intended to create a mood or to re-create a person, place, thing,
event, or experience.
Epic: a long story told in elevated language (usually poetry), which relates the great deeds of a
larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of a particular society.
Expository Writing: type of writing that explains, gives information, defines, or clarifies an
idea.
Fable: a very brief story told in prose or verse that teaches a moral or a practical lesson about
life or enforces a truth; usually supernatural in nature and animals are personified.
Legend: a widely believed, but unverifiable, story handed down through the ages.
Memoir: an account based on a personal experience.
Narration: type of writing that talks about a series of related events.
Novel: long fictional story, at least one hundred book pages long.
Objective: writer presents material fairly, without bias.
Parable: a short story that illustrates a moral or a religious attitude.
Parody: An imitation of a serious literary work or the signature style of a particular author in a
ridiculous manner. Parody is a form of satire and could be considered the literary equivalent of a
caricature or cartoon.
Persuasion: type of writing that is aimed at convincing the reader to think or act in a certain
way, using language that appeals to the emotions.
Poetry: type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery to
appeal to the reader’s emotions and imagination.
Prose: ordinary writing, as opposed to poetry.
Satire: type of writing that ridicules something—a person, a group of people, humanity at large,
an attitude or failing, a social institution—in order to reveal a weakness; most satires are an
attempt to convince us of a point of view or to persuade us to follow a course of action by
pointing out how the opposite point of view or action is ridiculous or laughable; often involves
exaggeration.
Shakespearean Tragedy: Five-part pattern.
Act I: Exposition, introduction to characters, setting, and main conflict.
Act II: Rising Action, complications occur as main characters try to resolve their problems.
Act III:Turning Point, main character makes a choice that determines the downward direction of
plot.
Act IV: Falling Action, consequences of the turning point, locking characters deeper into
disaster.
Act V: Climax, the deaths of the main characters and Resolution (denouement), the loose parts of
the plot are all tied up.
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Sonnet: Fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of
several rhyme schemes.
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet: abba abba cde cde.
Shakespearean Sonnet: abab cdcd efef gg. Most common theme of a sonnet is love.
Spenserian Sonnet: ababbcbccdcdee
Subjective: writer stresses personal responses and interpretations.
Tragedy: a play, novel or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the
main character comes to an unhappy end.
Literary Elements
Allusion: a brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art. An
allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.
Antagonist: the character who opposes the main character (protagonist). Often but not always
the villain.
Characterization: the process of revealing the personality of a character in a story.
Direct: we are told directly what the character is like. The narrator/writer tells us directly
what the character’s personality is like: cruel, kind, sneaky, brave, and so on.
Indirect: we use our own judgment to decide what a character is like based on the
evidence the writer gives us.
1. Letting us hear the character speak.
2. Revealing what other characters in the story think or say about the character.
3. Describing how the character looks and dresses.
4. Letting us listen to a character’s inner thoughts and feelings.
5. Showing us what the character does—how he or she acts.
Dynamic character: a character that changes throughout the course of the story.
Static characters: a character that does not change much in the course of a story.
Round character: a character that is well developed, 5 or more details.
Flat character: a character that is not well developed, less than 5 details.
Climax: Arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance.
Comic relief: The use of humor to lighten the mood of a serious or tragic story, especially in
plays. The technique is very common in Elizabethan works, and can be an integral part of the
plot or simply a brief event designed to break the tension of the scene.
Denouement: a French word that means, “unraveling the knot”.
Dialogue: In general, dialogue is a conversation between at least two people; dialogue can also
refer specifically to the speech of characters in a drama. As a literary genre, a "dialogue" is a
composition in which characters debate an issue or idea.
Flashback: a scene that interrupts the present action of the plot to flash backward and tell what
happened at an earlier time; breaks the normal time sequence of events in the narrative, usually
to give the readers/viewers some background information that helps make sense of the story.
Foil: character who is used as a contrast to another character; a writer uses a foil to accentuate
and clarify the distinct qualities of two characters; the foil sets off or intensifies the qualities of
another character.
Foreshadowing: the use of clues to hint at events that will occur later in the plot; used to arouse
the reader’s curiosity and create suspense about what is to come.
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Irony: a contrast between expectation and reality.
Verbal irony: a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something completely
different.
Ex. Calling a clumsy basketball player “the new Michael Jordon
Situational irony: when there is a contrast between what would seem appropriate and
what really happens or when there is a contradiction between what we expect to happen
and what really does take place.
Ex. A man is cured of cancer only to die in a car accident.
Dramatic irony: when the audience or the reader knows something important that a
character in a play or novel does not know.
Ex. We know there is someone hiding in the closet, but the character in the movie
does not.
Motivation: The fears or conflicts or needs that drive a character. Characters can be motivated
by fear, vengeance, greed, love, boredom...
Narrator: the voice that tells the story; it’s the perspective from which the reader hears/reads the
story.
Plot: series of related events that make up a story or drama. The “bare bones” of a plot would
include the story’s
1) Basic Situation/Exposition: the opening of the story, where the characters and their
conflict are usually introduced; the introduction.
2) Conflict/Problem: Struggle or clash between opposing characters of opposing forces;
it’s what drives the story.
Internal Conflict: takes place entirely within a character’s own mind; a struggle
between opposing needs or desires or emotions within a single person (Man vs.
Self).
External Conflict: a character struggles against an outside force. This outside
force might be another character, or society as a whole (Man vs. Man), or
something in nature (Man vs. Nature).
3) Main Events/Complications: the main character (protagonist) takes some action to
resolve the conflict and meets with more or new problems or complications.
4) Climax: the highly charged moment when the suspense is greatest, when we finally
discover how the conflict is going to work out. The moment that brings about some
change in the situation, the main character, or both. The main character makes some
dramatic discovery.
5) Resolution: the final part of the story; all the struggles are over; we know what’s
going to happen to the people in the story; it closes the story.
Point of view: perspective from which the writer tells the story.
First-person: One of the characters is actually the narrator telling the story, using the
pronoun I.
Third-person limited: The narrator, who plays no part in the story, zooms in on the
thoughts and feelings of just one character.
Third-person omniscient: Omniscient means all knowing; the person telling the story
knows everything there is to know about the characters and their problems.
Protagonist: the main character. The character we focus our attention on, the person who sets
the plot in motion.
Repetition: familiar combinations or patterns
Setting: time and place of the story.
Speaker: the voice that is talking in a poem.
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Suspense: an anxious uncertainty or curiosity about what will happen next in a story; the degree
of suspense the reader feels will vary from one story to another.
Theme: the main idea, a generalization about the meaning of the literary piece; reveals a truth
about human behavior.
Words to Discuss Language
Alliteration: the repetition of the initial consonant sounds in two or more words that appear
close together.
Analogy: In general, the comparison of two things which have something in common.
In literature, a comparison of two things made to explain something unfamiliar through its
similarities to something familiar. Similes and metaphors are types of analogies.
In testing, it is the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to
discover the relationship between the first pair so you can choose the correct second pair. Types
of relationships you should find: part to whole, antonyms, synonyms, results of... to name a few.
Archetype: a symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be
recognizable as an element of one’s literary experience as a whole. A term that came from Carl
Jung’s depth psychology, which states that behind each individual’s unconscious, lies the
“collective unconscious” of the human race. In literature, the term applies to an image, a
descriptive detail, a plot pattern, or character type that occurs frequently. It is believed to evoke
profound emotions in the reader because it awakens an image in the unconscious memory, which
helps develop a common human experience.
Aside: words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but
that are not supposed to be overheard by the others on stage.
Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds that are followed by different consonant
sounds, especially in words that are close together in a poem.
Blank verse: Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Consonance: the repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in two or more words that
appear close together. The sounds can be at the beginning, within or at the ends of words.
Diction: a writer’s choice of words.
Connotation: all the meanings, associations, or emotions that a word suggests.
Denotation: the dictionary definition/meaning of a word.
Hyperbole: e-x-a-g-g-e-r-a-t-i-o-n. A figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong
emotion or to create a comic effect, sometimes called overstatement.
Image/Imagery: language that appeals to the senses; usually sight, but also sound, touch, taste,
or smell or several at once.
Inference: a conclusion based on reasoning.
Figurative language: word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not
meant to be understood on a literal level; always involves some sort of imaginative comparison
between seemingly unlike things.
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Metaphor: a comparison between two unlike things, in which one becomes another.
Direct: directly compares two things by the use of a verb such as “is”.
Ex. The city is a sleeping woman.
Extended: a metaphor that is developed over several lines of writing or even throughout
an entire poem.
Ex. Emily Dickinson's: “Hope” is the thing with feathers
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at al
Implied: implies or suggests the comparison between the two things without stating it
directly.
Ex. The city sleeps peacefully.
Simile: a comparison between unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles
Epic Simile: a simile that is developed over several lines of writing or even throughout
an entire poem.
Ex. The Iliad, Book 22
And swift Achilles kept on coursing Hector, nonstop as a hound in trhe mountains starts a
fawn from its lair, hunting him down the gorges, down the narrow glens and the fawn
goes to ground, hiding deep in brush but the hound comes racing fast, nosing him out
until he lands the kill.
Personification: special kind of metaphor in which something nonhuman is treated as if it were
human.
Ex. Every computer whispers its secrets.
Focus: in an essay, the emphasis on a certain topic.
Free verse: Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme. Free verse poets capture
the natural rhythms of ordinary speech, using internal rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, refrain,
and parallel structure.
Hubris: Excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.
Iambic pentameter: Line of poetry that contains five iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot, or unit
of measure, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
Juxtaposition: placing two things side by side in order to compare them.
Meter: Regular repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line of poetry. Measured
in feet.
Monologue: a long speech for one person only. Other people may or may not be on stage.
Soliloquy: a special kind of monologue in which a character who is alone onstage expresses
private thoughts or feelings; it is intended for the audience to overhear the private thoughts of the
character, usually on the brink of a major decision.
Onomatopoeia: a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning.
Oxymoron: a contradiction in terms.
Paradox: a statement that appears to contradict itself but contains an element of truth
Parallelism: repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure
or that state a similar idea; also “parallel structure” helps make lines rhythmic and memorable
and heightens their emotional effect (ex. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of time…”
Dickens, Tale of Two Cities).
Prologue: an introduction to a play, story, etc..
Pun: a play on the multiple meanings of a word.
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Refrain: A phrase repeated at intervals throughout a poem. A refrain may appear at the end of
each stanza or at less regular intervals. It may be altered slightly at each appearance.
Some refrains are nonsense expressions — as with "Nevermore" in Edgar Allan Poe's "The
Raven" — that seem to take on a different significance with each use.
Rite of passage: a significant event, ceremony in a person’s life.
Rhyme scheme: The pattern of rhymes in a poem, indicated by the use of a different letter of the
alphabet for each rhyme.
Ex. aabbcc
“Old Mary” by Gwendolyn Brooks
My last defense a
Is the present tense. a
It little hurts me now to know b
I shall not go b
Cathedral-hunting in Spain c
Nor cherrying in Michigan or Maine. c
Sonnet: Fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of
several rhyme schemes.
Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet: abba abba cde cde.
Shakespearean Sonnet: abab cdcd efef gg. Most common theme of a sonnet is love.
Spenserian Sonnet: ababbcbccdcdee
Stanza: A subdivision of a poem consisting of lines grouped together, often in recurring patterns
of rhyme, line length, and meter. Stanzas may also serve as units of thought in a poem much like
paragraphs in prose.
Style: expression of a writer’s individuality through use of diction, syntax and details.
Symbol: something that represents itself and something beyond itself as well.
Syntax: order of words in a sentence.
Thesis statement: A thesis statement is a clearly worded answer to a question and/or a clearly
worded statement of the view(s) a writer will prove in a paper. The thesis should articulate an
insight or position valuable enough to write about.
Overstatement: e-x-a-g-g-e-r-a-t-i-o-n. A figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express
strong emotion or to create a comic effect.
Understatement: the opposite of hyperbole (in order to show the magnitude of something, the
writer minimizes it).
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