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Terms which might be useful for the A.P. Literature Exam

Terms which might be useful for the A.P. Literature Exam. From Barbara Swovelin’s list. Ad hominem argument. From the Latin meaning “to or against the man,” this is an argument that appeals to emotion rather than reason, to feeling rather than intellect. . alliteration.

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Terms which might be useful for the A.P. Literature Exam

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  1. Terms which might be useful for the A.P. Literature Exam From Barbara Swovelin’s list

  2. Ad hominem argument From the Latin meaning “to or against the man,” this is an argument that appeals to emotion rather than reason, to feeling rather than intellect.

  3. alliteration close repetition of consonant sounds at beginning of words

  4. allusion brief reference to familiar person/thing/incident (often Biblical, historical,mythological or literary)

  5. apostrophe directly addressing an absent or imaginary person

  6. assonance repetition of vowel sounds

  7. ballad narrative poem, originally sung (ballade: a French verse form)

  8. bathos excessive pathos

  9. caesura pause in line, dictated by rhythm (“A little learning…..is a dangerous thing)

  10. consonance close repetition of identical consonant sounds around different vowels (flip-flop, or at the ends of words (hid-bed)

  11. couplet two lines of verse, usually rhymed and of same meter

  12. denoument events following the climax and falling action (resolution)

  13. Deus ex machina “god from machine” (saves the day)

  14. diction the choice of words and their placement in sentences

  15. dissonance juxtaposition of jarring sounds

  16. doggrel rough, crudely written verse, usually comic

  17. elegy dignified poem mourning death

  18. end-stopped line end of phrase or sentence coincides with end of line (poetry)

  19. epic extended narrative poem, exalted in style and heroic in theme

  20. Epic (Homeric) simile extended simile

  21. epigram short, witty statement, graceful and ingenious

  22. epilogue final section of speech or written work (peroration)

  23. epiphany “showing forth” (Greek), an insight

  24. epitaph death inscription (“On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia” W.C. Fields)

  25. epithet term used to characterize a person (Jack the Ripper)

  26. fable truth narrative illustrating a moral

  27. Figurative language makes use of figures of speech (techniques comparing dissimilar objects); specific figures of speech are listed separately

  28. foot group of syllables forming metrical unit: iamb trochee anapest dactyl

  29. form fixed metrical arrangement

  30. Free verse lacks regular meter and line length (relies on natural rhythm; most modern poetry)

  31. gallows humor black humor (like dead baby jokes)

  32. Genre literary type or class, specific or general (carpe diem poetry, tragedy, novels, etc.)

  33. Heroic couplet pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines

  34. hyperbole deliberate exaggeration

  35. imagery language which evokes sensory experiences; engaging sight, smell, taste, etc.

  36. irony writer expresses a meaning contradictory to stated or ostensible one: Verbal irony: attitude opposite to what is literally stated. Dramatic irony: situation understood in double sense by audience (and not by characters on stage). Situational irony: circumstances turn out to be reverse of those anticipated

  37. litotes or meiosis; understatement (in Hamlet, “a play of some interest”)

  38. lyric originally (Greek) sung to lyre; lyric poetry expresses feelings of speaker in words which have musical qualities

  39. metaphor two unlike objects compared (“Life is but a walking shadow”)

  40. metonymy figure of speech, name of object substituted for another (“my light [vision] isspent”)

  41. meter pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; see foot, a foot being the metricalunit; the following terms refer to number of feet per line: monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octometer. Iambic pentameter refers to a line of five feet of iambs

  42. motif recurring image, character, verbal pattern, etc.

  43. Narrative verse tells a story (as does anything narrative)

  44. ode lyric poem of some length, serious in subject and dignified in style

  45. onomatopoeia words whose sounds express or reinforce their meanings

  46. Ottavarima eight lines, iambic pentameter (abababcc)

  47. oxymoron two apparently contradictory terms (cold fires; conspicuous by his absence)

  48. Pathetic fallacy human characteristics given to inanimate objects

  49. pathos quality which evokes feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, etc

  50. persona a “mask” which the author assumes to speak to the audience

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