Vocabulary for AP lit

caricature

*An exaggeration or distortion of someone's prominent features or idiosyncratic traits, such as a large nose or the habit of apologizing frequently, that makes the person appear ridiculous. Ex: whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair."

Enjambment

A Poetic statement that snaps more than line. ex: His a beauteous evening, calm, and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathiness with adoration

tragic flaw

A character trait that brings about the downfall of the hero or heroine ex: Romeo killing tybalt.

Foil

A character whose contrast with the main character (protagonist) serves to accentuate the latter's distinctive qualities or characteristics Example: Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet (1602), taking decisive action while Hamlet, the protagonist, vacillates

Aphorism

A concise, pointed, epigrammatic statement that purports to reveal a truth or principle. ex: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (William Shakespeare)

Irony

A contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality. EX: You've saved babysitting money for three months when your friends invite you to the county fair. Once there, you quickly realize your money isn't going to go far; for example, at the concession stand, a snow cone costs $14. "Wow," you say to your friends, "what a bargain! Maybe I ought to buy two?"

Conceit

A figure of speech involving an elaborate and often surprising comparison between 2 apparently highly dissimilar things, often in the form of an extended metaphor. ex: A fairer house than prose more numerous of windows superior- forBoors. Being out in nature to being intoxicated.

Satire

A literary genre or mode that uses irony wit, and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanities vices and foibles.

Epigraph

A passage printed on the title or first page of a literally work or the beginning of a sections of a such work. Example: T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" (1925): "Mistuh Kurtz—he dead" and "A penny for the Old Guy."

Caesura

A pause in a line of poetry. Ex: "I will arise and go now, for always night and day/I will hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore" (William Butler Yeats, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," 1893). *

Pun

A play on words

Pathos

A quality in a work or a portion thereof that makes the reader experience pity, sorrow, or tenderness. ex: Toni Morrison, Beloved which relates the story of a woman who deliberately kills her chlid to keep her from

Motif

A recurrent unifying element in an artistic work, such as an image , symbol, character type, action, idea, object or phrase. ex: "dragon kidnaps princess".

Hyperbaton

A rhetorical figure involving a reversal of word order to make a point Example:"Named must your fear be, before banish it you can." *

Paralipsis

A rhetorical figure involving a speaker's assertion that he or she will not discuss something that he or something or she in fact goes on to discuss ex: The music, the service at the feast,/The noble gifts for the great and small,/The rich adornment of Theseus's palace/All these things I do not mention now (Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, 1380). *

Asyndeton

A rhetorical figure involving the deliberate omission of conjunctions to create a concise, terse, and often memorable statement Example: Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered").

Oxymoron

A rhetorical figure that juxtapose two opposite or apparently contradictory words that present an emphatic and dramatic paradox. ex: "The term Jumbo Shrimp has always amazed me. What is a Jumbo Shrimp? I mean, it's like Military Intelligence—the words don't go together, man" (George Carlin). *

Parallelism

A rhetorical figure used in written and oral compositions since ancient times to accentuate or emphasize ideas or images by using grammatically similar constructions. ex: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

Antithesis

A rhetorical in which two ideas are directly opposed. Ex:"So likewise in the disposition of the mind, either virtue is overshadowed with some vice or vice overcast with some virtue: Alexander valiant in war, yet given to wine; Tully eloquent in his glozes, yet vainglorious; Solomon wise, yet too too wanton; David holy, but yet an homicide; none more witty than Euphues, yet at the first none more wicked" (John Lyly, Euphues, 1579). *

rhetorical question

A rhetorical question is asked just for effect or to emphasize a point. No real answer is expected. ex: What is in a name? If winter come, can spring be far behind?

Tragedy

A serious and often somber drama, written in prose or verse, that typically ends in disaster and that focuses on a character who undergoes unexpected personal reversals

dilemma

A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable. Or both equally as good or bad

Paradox

A statement that seems self-contradictory or nonsensical on the surface but that upon closer examination, may express an underlying truth Ex: "My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practice; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and to practice them" (Lao-tzu). *

Tone

A subtle feeling that an author creates through his or her use of diction and language devices

Epiphany

A sudden revelatory experience or a work in which such experience occurs. Ex: in stephen hero Joyce used... figuratively to describe the insight or revelation gained when one suddenly understand the essence of an object LOOK ON SLIDE SHOW

Hyperbole

A trope employing deliberate, emphatic exaggeration, usually for comic or ironic effect. ex: Here's the smell of blood still;/All the perfumes of Arabia/Will not sweeten this little hand."

Personification

A trope in which human characteristics are bestowed upon anything nonhuman, from an abstract idea to a physical force to an inanimate object to a living organism. Ex: "They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your/painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys./And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen/the gunman kill and go free to kill again" (Carl Sandburg, "Chicago"). *

Metanomy

A trope in which one thing is represented by another that is commonly and often physically associated with it. ex: Calling a monarchy "the crown". "I pledge allegiance to the flag"

Metaphor

A trope that associates two district things without using a connective word to link the vehicle and the tenor. Ex: an implied metaphor specifies only the vehicle, leaving the tenor to inferred from context

Simile

A trope that compares two distinct things by using words such as like or as to link the vehicle (image) and the tenor (subject). Example: life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity Until Death tramples it to fragments...

Litotes

A trope that involves making an affirmative point by negating its opposite. Ex: "Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?" (Ferris Bueller's Day Off). *

Portmanteau

A word coined by combining two other words, encompassing the original meanings of both component parts. Ex: "Well, 'slithy' means lithe and slimy..." (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass). *

Denotation

A word's literal meaning, independent of any connotations (associations evoked by the word) it may carry.

Parody

A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule.

Epithet

An adjective or phrase applied to a noun to accentuate a certain characteristic: Ex: Wilt the Stilt" Chamberlain, "Magic" Johnson, "Give 'em Hell" Harry (Truman), and "Tricky Dick" (Richard Nixon)

cliche

An expression used so often ( so often out of the context) that it has Become hackneyed and has lost its original impact Ex: under the weather

Utopia

An ideal place that does not exist in reality. Ex: The movie The Matrix (1999) depicts a false utopia, in which Agent Smith characterizes the original matrix—which humans rejected—as "designed to be a perfect human world."

Meiosis

Atropella figurative metaphorical use of words of expression, employing deliberate understatement usually for a comic, ironic, or strath effect

Anthropomorphism

Attribution of human form or other characteristics to animals

Verse

Broadly defined, rhythmical or metrical composition, whether poetry in general or an individual poem. Ex: "I wandered lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o'er vales and hills,/When all at once I saw a crowd,/A host, of golden daffodils;/Beside the lake, beneath the trees,/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze" (William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," 1807). *

Imagery

Create imagery through all 5 sense

Form

Either the general type or unique structure of a literary work.

Hamartia

From the Greek for "error," an error in judgment made by a tragic hero that brings about the suffering, downfall, and often death of that hero. Ex: here I am myself--/you all know me, the world knows my fame:/I am Oedipus"

Symbolism

From the Greek symballein, meaning "to throw together," the relatively sustained use of a concrete image or thing used to represent or suggest something more abstract. Ex: Joseph Conrad uses snake symbolism in Heart of Darkness [1899].

Logos

From the greek for "word","speech", and "reason", in the rhetoric logos refers to persuasion through logical reasoning. ex: oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green- eyed monster.

Archetype

Generally the original model from which something is developed or made.

Hubris

Greek for "insolence", excessive pride that brings about the protagonist's downfall. ex: In Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," Faustus' irresistible desire to become superior to all other men causes him to sell his soul to Lucifer. He learns the art of black magic and defies Christianity. Finally, the devil takes his soul and he suffers eternal damnation. *

cacophony

Harsh, unpleasant, or discordant sounds. Ex: The nasal whine of power whips a new universe... Where spouting pillars spoor the evening sky,

Synesthesia

In literature, the association of two or more senses in the same image, with one sensation being related in terms of another. Ex: "The hard and braying light/Is zebra'd black and white" (Edith Sitwell, "Trio for Two Cats and a Trombone"). *

Periphrasis

In rhetoric, a roundabout description of something--verbosity. Example: On the late Boston Transcript, a feature writer, with a fondness for using three words where one would do, once referred to bananas as "elongated yellow fruit." *

Ethos

In rhetoric, the character or emotions of a speaker or writer that are expressed in attempt to persuade an audience. Ex: "Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible" (Aristotle, "On Rhetoric," 350 BCE). *

Allusion

Indirect reference, often to a person, event statement, theme, or work. Ex. Marlow is an important character who tells the story of kong & his important to the native of skull island

didactic

Instructive or providing information for a particular purpose.

Ambigity

Lack of clarity or uncertainty in meaning. Can be interpreted in multiple ways. ex: Pipping song of glee on a cloud i saw a child

Pastiche

Literally, musical, or artistic work that imitates another's recognizable style or pieces together a medley of often incongruous elements from a number of existing works

Diction

Narrowly defined, a speaker's, or author's word choice

Trite

Not interesting or effective because of being used too often: Not fresh or original; hackneyed. ex: By the time the receiving line had ended, the bride and grooms thanks sounded trite and tired.

Trope

One of the two major divisions of figures of speech (the other being rhetorical figures). Example: What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbours, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all" (Voltaire).

Prose

Ordinary written or spoken expression. As applied specifically to literature, non-poetic expression

Alliteration

Repetition of the first initial consonant sound used in poetry

Anachronism

Something outside of its proper historical time period. ex: A Knight's tale includes a scene in which the crowd at a jousting to "we will rock you" in mid- England time.

Invective

Speech or writing that attacks, insults or denounces a person topic, or institution. ex: ' I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious.

discourse

Systems of thoughts composed of ideas,attitudes, and courses of action, beliefs, and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak. Ex. 1 marvel how nature nature could ever find space for so many constraints in 1 human face. There's though and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom and bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and glory.

Chiasmus

Taking words sounds, concepts, or syntactic structures are reversed or repeated in reverse order

verisimilitude

The appearance of truth; likelihood; probability. Ex: The white mares of the moon rush along the sky beating their golden hoofs upon the glass heavens

Syntax

The arrangement ordering, grouping, and placement- of words within a phrase, clause, or sentence. ex: " I rode across the meadow" "across the meadow rode I"

Rhetoric

The art of persuasion through speaking and writing. 5 components. 1: inventions 2: disposition 3: style 4: memory 5: delivery Ex. I promise full funding of special education

Connotation

The association(s) evoked by a word beyond its literal meaning. Example: The word girl had formerly seemed to me innocent and unburdened, like the word child; now it appeared that it was no such thing. A girl was not, as I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become. It was a definition, always touched with reproach and disappointment."

Antagonist

The character who is pitted against the protagonist of a work. Ex: Darth vader is the antagonist in the original star wars trilogy

Vernacular

The commonly spoken language of a particular people or place. Ex: Will no one say hush! to thee, poor lass, poor bit of a wench? Will never a man say: Come, my pigeon, come an' be still wi' me, my own bit of a wench!

Epilogue

The concluding section of a work. EX: The epilogue to William Shakespeare's The Tempest (c. 1611) is spoken by Prospero, who begins by saying: Now my charms are all o'erthrown And what strength I have's all my own

Catharsis

The emotional effect a tragic drama has on its audience. Ex: I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries

Mood

The general feeling created for the reader or audience by the work at a given point: atmosphere Example: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents...

Protagonist

The main character in a work; usually also the hero or heroine, but sometimes an antihero. ex: victor frankenstie

malapropism

The misuse of a word when a word similar in sound but different in meaning is used in place of the correct word, often to a ludicrous effect. ex: "by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning."

Consenance

The repetition of a final consonant sound or sounds following different vowel sounds in proximate words Ex: Blade and blood, and flash and flesh in the following passage: "Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade/How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;/Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;/And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh" (Wilfred Owen, "Arms and the Boy"). *

Assonace

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually in stressed syllables, followed by different constant sounds in proximate words. ex: What large, dark hands are those at the window Grasping in the golden light.

theme

The statement express or implided thst a text seems to be making a bout his subjects.

Foreshadowing

The technique of introducing into a narrative material that prepares the reader or audience for future events, action, or revelations. Ex: "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher" (Edgar Allen Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"). *

extended metaphor

The term extended metaphor refers to a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one sentence and sometimes consists of a full paragraph. Hope with little bird

Polysyndeton

The use of number on conjunctions in the close succession ex: "I said, 'Who killed him?' and he said, 'I don't know who killed him, but he's dead all right,' and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights or windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was right only she was full of water" (Ernest Hemingway, After the Storm). *

Characterization

The various means by which an author describes and develops the characters in a literary work.

pathetic fallacy

To describe the attribute of human traits and emotions to inanimate objects. ex: " the moon smiled at us"

Onomatopoeia

[on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh, ‐mah-tuh‐] From the Greek for "name-making," wording that seems to signify meaning through sound effects. Onomatopoeic words, such as hiss and sizzle, ostensibly imitate the sounds they represent; Ex: "[T]he wind whines overhead,/Coming down from the mountain,/Whistling between the arbors" (Theodore Roethke, "The Storm"). *

Synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special. Ex: The narrator in Elie Wiesel's autobiographical novel Night (1958), interned in Nazi concentration camps where his is terribly underfed and overworked, speaks of himself as "a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach." *

fallacy

an erroneous argument dependent upon an unsound or illogical contention ex: Marilyn monroe says "yes I use Lustre cream shampoo"

Analogy

an explanation in which an idea or a thing is compared to something that is quite different from it, but that would be familiar to the reader. Example: "They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water."

Idiom

an expression whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up

zeugma

broadly defined, a rhetorical figure from the greek for yoking in which 1 word or phrases governs or modifies 2 or more words or phrases

Inference

deductions or conclusions readers make based on the information available. ex: i took another look at the board and i realized you were right.

Juxtaposition

is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts. Ex: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity" (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities). *

euphony

pleasant, harmonious sound achieved by using vowel sounds, liquid consonants, semivowel sounds

Euphemism

polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant. ex: For the time being," he explains, "it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations."

Antihero

protagonist, particularly in a modern literary work, who does not exhibit the qualities of the traditional hero. Ex: jack sparrow from pirates of the Caribbean

elegy

reflective poems that lament the loss of someone or something (or loss or death more generally) but may be used even more broadly to refer. ex:Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter, Robed in the long friends, The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, Secret by the unmourning water Of the riding Thames. After the first death, there is no other.

Anaphora

rhetorical figure involving the exact repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences. Ex: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" (Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream"). *

Colloquialism

the use of informal words, phrases or even slang in a piece of writing. ex: Butter my butt up and call me biscuit. speaking to the sun in a informal way.

Dialect

way of speaking or using a language that is particular to a geographic region or social group and that varies considerably from the speech and usage patterns predominant within that language. Ex: "'The house is filthy with you,' she cried. 'Then get out on it—it's mine. Get out on it!' he shouted. 'It's me as brings th' money whoam, not thee. It's my house, not thine. Then ger out on't—ger out on't!'" (D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers). *

Aspostrophe

when the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, object or thing

Aside

where a character on stage addresses the audience to reveal some inner thought or feeling that is presumed inaudible to any other characters. ex: Speaking directly to the audience