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AP Structural Terms
Basic terms needed to write about literature
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Allegory | story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities; a symbol story. |
| Antagonist | A character who functions as a resisting force to the goals of the protagonist. |
| Anticlimax | An often disappointing, sudden end to an intense situation. |
| Antihero | A protagonist who carries the action of the literary piece but does not embody the classic characteristics of courage, strength, and nobility. |
| Bildungsroman | A novel in which an adolescent protagonist comes to adulthood by a process of experience and disillusionment. (Coming of age novel) |
| Burlesque | Broad satire; taking tragic drama and exaggerating it into ridiculousness. |
| Contrast | One element is thrown into opposition to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity. |
| Conventions | This term describes traditions for each genre, which, in turn, help to define each genre. |
| Deus ex machina | A Latin term meaning "god out of a machine." By extension, the term refers to any artificial device or coincidence used to bring about a resolution. |
| Didactic | Descriptive of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. |
| Epiphany | Eureka! A sudden flash of insight. A startling discovery and/or appearance; a dramatic realization. |
| Genre | The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama. |
| Essay | A short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject. |
| Myth | A story, usually with supernatural significance, that explains the origins of gods, heroes, or natural phenomena; they contain deeper truths, particularly about the nature of humankind. |
| Novel | In its broadest sense, any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters. |
| Parable | A relatively short, didactic story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life. |
| Parody | A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style. |
| Romance | A story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful. It usually has a “once upon a time” aura to it. |
| Satire | The use of humor to ridicule and expose the shortcomings and failures of society, individuals, and institutions, often in the hope that change and reform are possible. |
| Short Story | "A brief prose tale," as Edgar Allan Poe labeled it. This work of narrative fiction may contain description, dialogue and commentary, but usually plot functions as the engine driving the art. |
| Tall tale | An outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable. |
| Flashback | A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time. |
| Foil | A character who acts as contrast to another character; these are characters who are essentially similar but who have one major difference or who make opposite choices. |
| Frame Story | The result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones. |
| Inclusio | A literary device where words or concepts are repeated at the start and finish of an idea, and these work as bookends or an envelope to enclose a concept or idea. |
| In medias res | “In the midst of things” – standard of epic poetry where the action begins in the middle instead of at the beginning. |
| Verbal Irony | A trope in which the meaning ostensibly expressed “differs sharply from” what the speaker really means. |
| Situational Irony | A plot device in which events turn out contrary to expectation yet are perversely appropriate. |
| Dramatic Irony | The quality exhibited in words spoken by a character in a play or narrative who, because of his ignorance of present or future circumstances that the audience is aware of, does not realize how the words apply to his situation. |
| Cosmic Irony | When situational irony is associated with the notion of fate, or a deity, manipulating events so as to “frustrate and mock” a character in a literary work, situational irony has become its near-twin. |
| Juxtaposition | Poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit. |
| Metamorphosis | A radical change in a character, either physical or emotional. |
| Motif | A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. |
| Paradox | A statement or situation that at first seems impossible or oxymoronic, but which solves itself and reveals meaning. |
| Pathetic Fallacy | The tendency for writers to mirror human emotions or problems in the natural world. |
| Persona | The narrator in a non first-person short story, novel, or poem. This is not the author, but the author’s creation--the voice “through which the author speaks.” |
| Prose | Writing in which the printer determines the length of the line; in poetry, the poet determines the length of the line. |
| Protagonist | The main or principal character in a work; often considered the hero or heroine. |
| Stream of Consciousness | A form of writing which replicates the way the human mind works. Ideas are presented in random order; thoughts are often unfinished. |
| Symbol | A concrete object, scene, or action which has deeper significance because it is associated with something else, often an important idea or theme in the work. |
| Natural Symbol | Objects and occurrences from nature to symbolize ideas commonly associated with them. |
| Conventional Symbol | Symbols that have been invested with meaning by a group. |
| Literary Symbol | Type of symbolism which has been created by an author for use in that one literary piece. |
| Theme | The central or dominating idea in a literary work; the abstract concept made concrete in persons, actions, or images. |
| Verisimilitude | The sense that what one reads is "real," or at least realistic and believable. |
Created by:
erunion
Popular Literature sets