AP Vocab list #2
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apotheosis
the elevation of a person, as to the status of a god
The word “apotheosis” is derived from the Greek word deify. Apotheosis occurs in literature when a character or a thing is
elevated to such a high status that it appears godlike.
asyndeton
omission of conjunctions where they would normally be used
One type of asyndeton is used between words, phrases and a sentence.
For example: “Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?”
(Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare)
bombast
pompous or pretentious talk or writing
cadence
Cadence is derived from a Latin word “cadentia” that means “a falling”. It is the term used to signal the rising and falling of
the voice when reading a literary piece. In poetry, it is the momentary changes in rhythm and pitch. Cadences help set the
rhythmic paces of a literary piece. (in free verse) a rhythmic pattern that is nonmetrically structured.
canto
a major division of a long poem
A long subsection of an epic or long narrative poem, such as Dante Alighieri’s Commedia (The Divine Comedy), first
employed in English by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene. Other examples include Lord Byron’s Don Juan and Ezra
Pound’s Cantos.
deus ex machina
refers to the circumstance where an implausible concept or a divine character is introduced into a storyline for the purpose of
resolving its conflict and procuring an interesting outcome.
In the novel Lord of the Flies, the rescue of the savage children by a passing navy officer (which author William Golding
called a "gimmick") is viewed by some critics as a deus ex machina. The abrupt ending conveys the terrible fate that would
have afflicted the children (in particular Ralph) if the officer had not arrived at that moment
Deus ex machinas are solutions. They are not to be seen as unexpected twists and turns in the storyline that end up making
things worse, and not as something that contributes towards changing the understanding of the story. Further, it must be
shown that the problem solved by a deus ex machina is one that is unsolvable or hopeless.
dichotomy
Kurtz himself presents example of dichotomy as though he is a modern civilized man but becomes savage and brutal while
living among savages, which he realizes in the end saying, “The horror…the horror.”
Conrad has employed different dichotomies in his novel, Heart of Darkness, such as light versus dark, turmoil versus
calmness and savagery versus civilization.
Dichotomy as a literary technique divides a thing into two equal and contradictory parts or between two opposing groups. In
literary works, writers use this technique for creating conflicts in the stories and plays.
euphony
any pleasing and harmonious sounds
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
The long vowels such as mounting, soon, languid and slender whereas soft vowels include l, s, f and w sounds that are giving
sense of pleasantness.
Euphony involves the use of long vowels that are more melodious than consonants.
Euphony involves the use of harmonious consonants such as “l, m, n, r” and soft “f” and “v” sounds.
Euphony uses soft consonants or semi-vowels “w”, “s”, “y” and “th” or “wh” extensively to create more pleasant sounds.
litotes
understatement for rhetorical effect
Litotes, derived from a Greek word meaning “simple”, is a figure of speech which employs an understatement by using
double negatives or, in other words, positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite expressions.
“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
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To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
(“Fire and Ice” Robert Frost)
Calling the destruction caused by the “ice” as “great” is balanced by an opposing statement “would suffice” that is an
understatement.
metaphysical
a poetic style in which philosophical and spiritual subjects were approached with reason and often concluded in paradox.
This group of writers established meditation—based on the union of thought and feeling sought after in Jesuit Ignatian
meditation—as a poetic mode.
highly abstract and overly theoretical
Metaphysical poets: A group of 17th-century poets whose works are marked by philosophical exploration, colloquial diction,
ingenious conceits, irony, and metrically flexible lines. Topics of interest often included love, religion, and morality, which
the metaphysical poets considered through unusual comparisons, frequently employing unexpected similes and metaphors in
displays of wit. The inclusion of contemporary scientific advancements were also typical
paralipsis
suggesting by deliberately concise treatment that much of significance is omitted
Paralipsis is a literary device in which a speaker pretends to hide what he exactly wants to say and enforce. It is a type of
irony in which an outline of a message is conveyed in a manner that seems to suppress the exact message.
Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.
You are not wood; you are not stones, but men;
And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad:
For if you should, oh, what would come of it…..
But here’s a parchment, with the seal of Caesar;
I found it in his closet; ‘tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament–
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read it
(Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare)
This is one of the most famous paralipsis examples. Here, Mark Antony provokes the public by talking about the will of
Caesar; meanwhile, he suppresses the matter without directly mentioning the subject.
periodic sentence
a complex sentence in which the main clause comes last and is preceded by the subordinate clause
"Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks,
drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there."
(Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, 1966)
periphrasis
a style that involves indirect ways of expressing things
“I was within a hair’s-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would
have nothing to say”
(The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde)
In the above passage, periphrasis is employed to describe earnestness. This idea could be understood in different ways. In the
text, it is given as the opposite of pettiness but elsewhere it is explained as the reverse of seriousness.
It is a stylistic device that can be defined as the use of excessive and longer words to convey a meaning which could have
been conveyed with a shorter expression or in a few words. It is an indirect or roundabout way of writing about things. For
example, using “I am going to” instead of “I will” is periphrasis
polysyndeton
using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted (as in `he ran and jumped and
laughed for joy')
“There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses,
and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster
shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high
places.” (Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son)
Polysyndeton is opposite to another stylistic device asyndeton. In an asyndeton, the words in a list are separated by commas
and no conjunctions are used to join the words in a list. Thomas S. Kane describes the difference between the two devices
saying that they are nothing more than the techniques of handling a long series of words or lists. Polysyndeton uses
conjunctions after every word or term, while asyndeton uses no conjunctions but commas.
scansion
analysis of verse into metrical patterns
If music be the food of love, play on…
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
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(Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare)
These lines contained unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables, which are underlined. This pattern repeats five
times, which means it is iambic pentameter with un-rhyming lines known as blank verse.
Scansion is also known as scanning, which is, in fact, a description of rhythms of poetry through break up of its lines or
verses into feet, pointing the locations of accented and unaccented syllables, working out on meter, as well as counting the
syllables.
spoonerism
transposition of initial consonants in a pair of words
While they are often unintentional and known as a “slip of the tongue”, in literature they are welcomed as witty wordplay.
Example: The phrase “flesh and blood” being spoken as a character as “blesh and flood” in urgency and heightened
emotion.
syllogism
reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises
Poetry is known for its passion and not reason but we find syllogistic argument in Andrew Marvell’s poem “To his Coy
Mistress”. The poet says to his bashful beloved, “Had we but world enough, and time. This coyness, Lady, were no crime.” It
implies a general truth that life is short and man is mortal. They do not have enough time to love and cannot waste it in
display of coyness.
Likewise, he and his darling may separate eternally before their union in this world is established. Therefore, he says, “But at
my back I always hear/ Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;” and speaks to his beloved, “Thy beauty shall no more be
found,”. The poet reaches a conclusion that they should avail themselves of the time they have, “Now let us sport us while we
may,”
synecdoche
using part of something to refer to the whole thing
“Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them.”
“The hand” in the above lines refers to the sculptor who carved the “lifeless things” into a grand statue.
Synecdoche refers to the whole of a thing by the name of any one of its parts. For example, calling a car “wheels” is a
synecdoche because a part of a car “wheels” stands for the whole car. However, in metonymy, the word we use to describe
another thing is closely linked to that particular thing, but is not necessarily a part of it. For example, “crown” that refers to
power or authority is a metonymy used to replace the word “king” or “queen”.
synesthesia
a sensation that occurs when a different sense is stimulated
Dante’s The Devine Comedy contains one of the good synesthesia examples in literature. In the first canto, the poet tells us
about a place called “Inferno”. He says, “Back to the region where the sun is silent.” Here, Dante binds the sense of sight
(sun) with the sense of hearing(silent).
trope
language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense. Depending upon the meanings and understanding of trope, it has been
classified into several types. Some of its types include ,irony, hyperbole, metaphor, allegory, litotes,
pun, personification, simile, metonymy, and synecdoche, etc. Here are some examples of the types of trope.
zeugma
rhetorical use of a word to govern two or more words
“But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down
under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and
toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus an unweighed fear.”
Zeugma, from Greek “yoking” or “bonding”, is a figure of speech in which a word, usually a verb or an adjective, applies to
more than one noun, blending together grammatically and logically different ideas.