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AP Lit Vocab-Bell
| Word | Definition |
|---|---|
| allegory | a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrate multiple levels of meaning and significance. |
| alliteration | the sequential repetition of a similar initial sound (peter piper picked a peck of peppers) |
| allusion | a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place (fruit of temptation-the bible) |
| anaphora | the regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses (wherever there's...wherever someone's...) |
| anecdote | a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature (canterbury tales) |
| antagonist | a force that is in opposition to the main character or protagonist |
| antithesis | the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas (laugh, and the world laughs with you) |
| apostrophe | an address or invocation to something that is inanimate, such as an angry lover who might scream at the ocean in despair (oh christmas tree) |
| archetype | recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature (femme fatale) |
| assonance | a repetition of identical or similar sounding vowel sounds (in xanadu did kubla kahn [du did are similar]) |
| asyndeton | where conjunctions are omitted (i came, i saw, i conquered) |
| polysyndeton | conjunctions are included (she ran and swam and sat) |
| chiasmus | the reversal of word order (sin's a pleasure and pleasure's a sin) |
| colloquial | ordinary language or vernacular |
| conceit | a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem |
| connotation | what is suggested by a word, apart from what it really means (sweet means cool sometimes instead of tart) |
| consonance | the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in intervening vowels (pitter-patter, pish-posh) |
| denotation | a direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary definition of the word |
| dialect | the language and speech of a specific area (ya'll=south) |
| diction | the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose or effect |
| extended metaphor | a detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of work (also known as conceit) |
| fable | a legend or short moral story often using animals as characters (aesop's fables) |
| foreshadowing | to hint at or present an indication of the future beforehand |
| flashback | retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative |
| genre | a type or class of literature such as epic or narrative or poetry |
| hyperbole | overstatement characterized by exaggerated language (I'm starving!) |
| imagery | any sensory detail or evocation in a work or the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea or to describe an object |
| in medias res | "in the midst of things"; refers to opening in the middle of action, needing flashbacks later on |
| irony | a situation or statement characterize by a significant difference between what is expected and what is said |
| jargon | specialized or technical language (geek, crash, interface) |
| juxtaposition | the location of one thing as being adjacent or juxtaposed with another (cat & dog together) |
| litote | a figure of speech that emphasizes its subject by conscious understatement (not bad) |
| metaphor | one thing picture as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them |
| metonymy | a nickname designated for something (the white house announced) |
| narrator | the character who tells the story, or in poetry, the persona |
| onomatopoeia | a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes (buzz!) |
| oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines to apparently contradictory elements (tight slacks, jumbo shrimp) |
| parable | a short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy |
| paradox | a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true (fight for peace) |
| parallel structure | the use of similar forms in writing nouns, verbs, phrases, etc. (jane likes reading, writing, and skiing) |
| parody | a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original |
| pastoral | a work that describes the life of simple country folk |
| pathetic fallacy | an inanimate or nonhuman being expressing human emotion rather than human actions |
| personification | treating an abstraction or non human object as if it were a person with human qualities |
| protagonist | the main character in a work, who may or may not be heroic |
| satire | a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure |
| simile | a direct, explicit comparison or one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection |
| synecdoche | when a part is used to signify a whole (all hands on deck) |
| style | a distinctive manner of expression through diction, rhythm, imagery, etc. |
| structure | the organization or arrangement of the various elements in a work |
| syntax | the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. influences how a reader receives a particular work |
| symbolism | a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or stands for something else |
| tone | the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme |
| tragedy | a drama in which the character is brought to a disastrous end in his or her final confrontation with a superior force, usually due to their tragic flaw |
| theme | a generalized, abstract paraphrase of the inferred central or dominant idea or concern of a work |
| stereotype | a characterization based on the conscious or unconscious assumptions that some one aspect, such as gender, age, ethnic or national identity, religion, etc, are predictably accompanied by certain character traits, actions, or even values |
| stock character | one who appears in a number of stories or plays |
| setting | the time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play |
| sarcasm | a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical |
Created by:
mandabanana
Popular English Vocabulary sets