a.p. lit terms
DESCRIPTION
This presentation does not have any "bells and whistles" as the content does not lend itself to such. It does provide the students with the lit terms they need to know for both the course and the A P exam.TRANSCRIPT
Terms which might be useful for the A.P. Literature Exam
by Kathleen CurranFrom Barbara Swovelin’s list
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.
Ad hominem argument
close repetition of consonant sounds at beginning of words
alliteration
brief reference to familiar person/thing/incident (often Biblical, historical, mythological or literary)
allusion
directly addressing an absent or imaginary person
apostrophe
repetition of vowel sounds
assonance
narrative poem, originally sung (ballade: a French verse form)
ballad
excessive pathos
bathos
pause in line, dictated by rhythm (“A little learning…..is a dangerous thing)
caesura
close repetition of identical consonant sounds around different vowels (flip-flop, or at the ends of words (hid-bed)
consonance
two lines of verse, usually rhymed and of same meter
couplet
events following the climax and falling action (resolution)
denoument
“god from machine” (saves the day)
Deus ex machina
the choice of words and their placement in sentences
diction
juxtaposition of jarring sounds
dissonance
rough, crudely written verse, usually comic
doggrel
dignified poem mourning death
elegy
end of phrase or sentence coincides with end of line (poetry)
end-stopped line
extended narrative poem, exalted in style and heroic in theme
epic
extended simile
Epic (Homeric) simile
short, witty statement, graceful and ingenious
epigram
final section of speech or written work (peroration)
epilogue
“showing forth” (Greek), an insight
epiphany
death inscription (“On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia” W.C. Fields)
epitaph
term used to characterize a person (Jack the Ripper)
epithet
truth narrative illustrating a moral
fable
makes use of figures of speech (techniques comparing dissimilar objects); specific figures of speech are listed separately
Figurative language
group of syllables forming metrical unit:
iamb trocheeanapest dactyl
foot
fixed metrical arrangement
form
lacks regular meter and line length (relies on natural rhythm; most modern poetry)
Free verse
black humor (like dead baby jokes)
gallows humor
literary type or class, specific or general (carpe diem poetry, tragedy, novels, etc.)
Genre
pair of rhymed iambic pentameter lines
Heroic couplet
deliberate exaggeration
hyperbole
language which evokes sensory experiences; engaging sight, smell, taste, etc.
imagery
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
irony
or meiosis; understatement (in Hamlet, “a play of some interest”)
litotes
originally (Greek) sung to lyre; lyric poetry expresses feelings of speaker in words which have musical qualities
lyric
two unlike objects compared (“Life is but a walking shadow”)
metaphor
figure of speech, name of object substituted for another (“my light [vision] is spent”)
metonymy
pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; see foot, a foot being the metrical unit; 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
meter
recurring image, character, verbal pattern, etc.
motif
tells a story (as does anything narrative)
Narrative verse
lyric poem of some length, serious in subject and dignified in style
ode
words whose sounds express or reinforce their meanings
onomatopoeia
eight lines, iambic pentameter (abababcc)
Ottava rima
two apparently contradictory terms (cold fires; conspicuous by his absence)
oxymoron
human characteristics given to inanimate objects
Pathetic fallacy
quality which evokes feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, etc
pathos
a “mask” which the author assumes to speak to the audience
persona
inanimate objects endowed with human qualities
personification
14 lines divided into two parts, an octave (abbaabba) and sestet (cdecde)
Petrarchan sonnet
stanza of four lines
quatrain
duplication of an element of language, such as a word, phrase, clause, etc
repetition
7-line stanza in iambic pentameter (ababbcc)
Rhyme royal
14 lines, iambic pentameter (abab cdcd efef gg or abba cddc effe gg)
Shakespearean sonnet
comparison using “like” or “as.”
simile
same with rhyme of abab bcbc cdcd ee
Spenserian sonnet
group of lines that form division of a poem
stanza
the qualities that make up a literary personality or way of writing
style
a deductive, logical argument, formulated around one major premise, one minor premise, and a conclusion (e.g. All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.)
syllogism
something that stands for something else, but also exists as an entity itself (a hammer and sickle for the USSR)
symbol
part represents the whole (all hands on deck)
synecdoche
the choice of words and their placement in sentences
syntax
a group of three lines rhyming together or connected by rhyme with the adjacent group or groups of three lines
tercet
aba bcb cdc etc
Terza rima
author’s attitude toward (can also be towards audience or both)
tone
a French fixed form (5 tercets and a quatrain, all with two rhymes)
villanelle
Those are your terms, learn them and use them when
appropriate. As we continue to read we will
use these terms on a daily basis…know them!