Semester 1 Final - Lit. Terms
Semester 1 Final Lit Terms for AP English 11 with Mrs. Schaefer.
Terms
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- allegory
- a story or poem in which characters, settings, and even events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.
- alliteration
- the repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together
- allusion
- a reference to someone or something known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture.
- ambiguity
- a technique by which a writer deliberately suggests two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work.
- analogy
- a comparison made between two things to show how they are alike.
- anecdote
- a very brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something.
- anti-transcendentalism
- the opposite (somewhat) of transcendentalism
- aphorism
- a brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life.
- apostrophe
- a technique by which a writer addresses an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is either dead or absent.
- blank verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- caesura
- a pause or break within a line of poetry
- conceit
- an elaborate metaphor or other figure of speech that compares two things that are startlingly different
- connotation
- the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in action to its strict dictionary definition
- dialect
- a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.
- epistle
- A poem addressed to a patron, friend, or family member, thus a kind of "letter" in verse
- foil
- a character who acts as a contrasts to another character
- foot
- a metrical unit of poetry
- foreshadowing
- the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot
- free verse
- poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme
- hyperbole
- a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration, or overstatement for effect.
- iamb
- a metrical foot in poetry that has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word protect
- iambic pentameter
- a line of poetry that contains five iambic feet
- imagery
- the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience
- internal rhyme
- rhyme that occurs within a line of poetry or within consecutive lines
- inversion
- the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase
- irony
- in general, a discrepancy between appearances and reality
- lyric poem
- a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of a speaker
- metaphor
- a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles
- meter
- a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
- naturalism
- a nineteenth-century literary movement that was an extension of realism and that claimed to portray life exactly as it was.
- octave
- an eight line people, or the first eight lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet.
- parable
- a relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson, about how to lead a good life.
- paradox
- a statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth
- parallelism
- the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structure
- personification
- a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.
- plain style
- a way of writing that stresses simplicity and clarity of expression
- pun
- a "play on words" based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things
- quatrain
- a poem consisting of four lines or a four line poem that can be considered as a unit
- rationalism
- a literary movement that was based on reason and intuition rather than spiritual aspects
- realism
- a style of writing, developed in the nineteenth century, that attempts to depict life accurately without idealizing or romanticizing
- regionalism
- literature that emphasizes a specific geographic settings and that reproduces the speech, behavior, and attitudes of the people who live in that region
- rhetorical question
- a question asked for an effect, not actually requiring an answer
- romance
- in general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful
- romanticism
- a revolt against rationalism that affected literature and the other arts, beginning in the late eighteenth century and remaining strong through most of the nineteenth century
- satire
- a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or instructions in an attempt to bring about a change
- sestet
- six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian sonnet
- simile
- a figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles.
- symbol
- a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself
- transcendentalism
- a nineteenth-century movement in the Romantic tradition, which held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition, which transcends reason and sensory experience.
- understatement
- a statement that says less than what is meant