Literary Terms For The AP Literature and Composition

Literary Terms For The AP Literature and Composition Exam

Allegory n A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities. The most famous example in English is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which the name of the central character, Pilgrim, epitomizes the book's allegorical nature. Kay Boyle's story "Astronomer's Wife" and Christina Rossetti's poem "Up-Hill" both contain allegorical elements. A couplet is a pair of rhyming lines that are like a stanza

Alliteration Use of the same letter repeatedly ( Ho Hum, Silly Sally) The repetition of initial sounds in consonants, especially at the beginning of words. Example: "Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood. " Hopkins, "In the Valley of the Elwy. "

Allusion n A reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize. Allusions could be drawn from literature, mythology, religion, history, or geography.

Anapest Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in com-pre-HEND or in-ter-VENE. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron's lines from "The Destruction of Sennacherib": "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. "

Assonance The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe. " Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" contains assonantal "I's" in the following lines: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself. "

Aubade A love lyric in which the speaker complains about the arrival of the dawn, when he must part from his lover. John Donne's "The Sun Rising" exemplifies this poetic genre.

APOSTROPHE n. A figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something inanimate or nonhuman is addressed directly. n Apostrophe is a common device in poetry.

ASIDE n. In drama, a short speech spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. An aside is meant to be heard by the audience but not by the characters.

Anachronism n. Derived from Greek. It means “misplaced in time”. the effect can be comic.

Anthropomorphism n. In literature, when inanimate objects are given human characteristics, anthropomorphism is at work. e. g. In the forest, the darkness waited for me.

Ballad n A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style. The Anonymous medieval ballad, "Barbara Allan, " exemplifies the genre.

Blank Verse n A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's sonnets, Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost's meditative poems such as "Birches" include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of "Birches": When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

Black Humor n This is the use of disturbing themes in comedy. E. g. two tramps comically debating about who should commit suicide first, and whether the tree branch will support their weight.

Caesura n A strong pause within a line of verse. The following stanza from Hardys. "The Man He Killed" contains caesuras in the middle two lines: He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand-like--just as I-Was out of work-had sold his traps-No other reason why.

Character n An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Literary characters may be major or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change). In Shakespeare's Othello, Desdemona is a major character, but one who is static, like the minor character Bianca. Othello is a major character who is dynamic, exhibiting an ability to change.

Characterization n The means by which writers present and reveal character. Although techniques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through their speech, dress, manner, and actions. Readers come to understand the character Miss Emily in Faulkner's story "A Rose for Emily" through what she says, how she lives, and what she does.

Climax n The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work. The climax of John Updike's "A&P, " for example, occurs when Sammy quits his job as a cashier.

Couplet n A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare's sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in "For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings. “

Concrete Poetry n Poetry that uses the appearance of the verse lines on the page to suggest or imitate the poem’s subject.

Confessional Poetry n Poetry that makes frank, explicit use of incidents in the poet’s life.

Consonance n The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. Sometimes the term is limited to the repetition of final consonant sounds. Took / Tack Bitter / Butter

Dactyl: A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in FLUT-ter-ing or BLUEber-ry. The following playful lines illustrate double dactyls, two dactyls per line: Higgledy, piggledy, Emily Dickinson Gibbering, jabbering.

Denouement n The resolution of the plot of a literary work. The denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. During the denouement Fortinbras makes an entrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of Hamlet.

Diction n The selection of words in a literary work. A work's diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very different ways of speaking in Othello. We can also refer to a poet's diction as represented over the body of his or her work, as in Donne's or Hughes's diction.

Dramatic Monologue n A narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem.

Dramatic Poem n A narrative poem in which one or more characters speak.

Elegy n A lyric poem that laments the dead. Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" is elegiac in tone. A more explicitly identified elegy is W. H. Auden's "In Memory of William Butler Yeats" and his "Funeral Blues. "

Elision n The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. Alexander uses elision in "Sound and Sense": "Flies o'er th' unbending corn. . "

Enjambment n A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. In the opening lines of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess, " for example, the first line is end-stopped and the second is enjambed: That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now. .

Epic n A long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero. Epics typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values. Examples from western literature include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and Milton's Paradise Lost.

Epigram n A brief witty poem, often satirical. Alexander Pope's "Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog" exemplifies the genre: n I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Epigraph n A quotation or motto at the beginning of a chapter, book, short story, or poem that makes some point about the work.

Epitaph n An inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone who has died.

Epithet n A descriptive name or phrase used to characterize someone or something as “fair-weather-friend” or “Catherine the Great”.

Euphemism n A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality. The use of passed away for died, and let go for fired are two examples of euphemisms.

Falling Meter n Poetic meters such as trochaic and dactylic that move or fall from a stressed to an unstressed syllable. The nonsense line, "Higgledy, piggledy, " is dactylic, with the accent on the first syllable and the two syllables following falling off from that accent in each word. Trochaic meter is represented by this line: "Hip-hop, be-bop, treetop-freedom. "

Foil n A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona. The Hubbell’s are a foil to Stella and Stanley Kowalski.

Foot n A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb or iambic foot is represented by ˘', that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Frost's line "Whose woods these are I think I know" contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot.

Foot Continued n The basic unit for describing meter, usually consisting of a certain number and combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. Stressed and unstressed syllables form one or other of the recognized metrical forms: n an iamb is 'di dúm'; (unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) n a trochee is 'dúm di‘( stressed by an unstressed syllable) n an anapest is 'di di dúm', ( a foot of three syllables 2 unstressed followed by a syllable) and n a dactyl is 'dúm di di'. ( opposite of anapest, stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

Form n The term is usually used in the analysis of poetry to refer to the structure of stanzas (such as ottava rima). It can also be used less technically of the general structural principles by which a work is organized, and is distinguished from its content.

Free Verse n Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is "free" in not being bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and identifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern and contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free verse. Williams's "This Is Just to Say" is one of many examples.

Hyperbole n. A figure of speech involving exaggeration. John Donne uses hyperbole in his poem: "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star. "

Iambic Pentameter: n an unrhymed line of five feet in which the dominant accent usually falls on the second syllable of each foot (di dúm), a pattern known as an iamb. The form is very flexible: it is possible to have one or more feet in which the expected order of accent is reversed (dúm di). These are called trochees.

Limerick n A form of poetry with a lighter form often a pun or a curious rhyme in the last line. It has five lines built on two rhymes with the third and fourth lines shorter than the others- may explain ease in remembering and reciting. n Limerick from the Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear There was an Old Man with a gong, Who bumped at it all day long; But they called out, 'O law! You're a horrid old bore!' So they smashed that Old Man with a gong. n

Lyric Poem n A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. Most of the poems in this book are lyrics. The anonymous "Western Wind" epitomizes the genre: n Western wind, when will thou blow, The small rain down can rain? Christ, if my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

Meter n A regular patterned recurrence of light and heavy stresses in a line of verse. These patterns are given names. Almost all poems deliberately depart from the template established by a metrical pattern for specific effect. Assessing a poem's metre requires more than just spotting an iambic pentameter or other metrical pattern: it requires you to think about the ways in which a poem departs from its underlying pattern and why. Emotion might force a reverse foot or trochee, or the normal patterns of speech might occasionally cut across an underlying rhythm.

Metonymy n A figure of speech in which the name of one object is replaced by another which is closely associated with it. So 'the turf' is a metonym for horse-racing, 'Westminster' is a metonym for the Houses of Parliament, 'Downing Street' is a metonym for the Prime-Minister or his office. 'Scepter and crown came tumbling down' is a metonymic way of saying 'the king fell from power'.

ODE n Its an ancient form of poetic song, is a celebratory poem. Highly lyrical and profoundly philosophical, odes pay homage to whatever the poet may hold dear- another person, a place, an object, an abstract idea. An Ode to a Nightingale- by John Keats My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

Quatrain n A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a Petrachan sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet.

SYNECDOCHE n Resembles metonymy very closely

TYPES OF POETRY n NARRATIVE POEM- Tells part or all of a story. Epics like Gilgamesh and The Odyssey Birches by Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

LYRIC POEM n Lyric Poem- Lyric Poetry consists of a poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, elegy and villanelle that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. The term lyric is now commonly referred to as the words to a song. Lyric poetry does not tell a story which portrays characters and actions. The lyric poet addresses the reader directly, portraying his or her own feeling, state of mind, and perceptions. n.

LYRIC POEM continued, Dying (aka I heard a fly buzz when I died ) by Emily Dickinson I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm

VILLANELLE