AP Literary terms

  AP LiteratureLiterary Terms you need to know

allegory

allusion

antagonist

anthropomorphism

antithesis

apology

apostrophe

archaism

archetype

aside

aubade

autobiographical novel

avant-garde

bildungsroman

black humor (define and list examples)

cacophony/euphony

canon

character

chivalric romance

climax 

comic relief

conflict

concordance

connotation

consonance

context

courtly love

creative license

denotation

denouement (“day-noo-mon”)

deux en Machina

dialogue

didactic literature

dirge

doggerel

dynamic/round character

dystopian novel

elegy

epic

epistle/epistolary novel

euphemism

exposition

fable

fabliau

fantasy novel

figurative language

flat character/static character

foil character

foreshadowing

frame story

Doppelganger

Genre

Gothic novel

historical  novel

Horatian satire

hyperbole

idiom

imagery

irony (situational, dramatic, verbal)

Juvenalian satire

juxtaposition

“King’s English”

lampoon

low comedy

lyric

malapropism

metaphor

monologue

mood

motif

multi-cultural novel

narrator

novella

novel of manners

Oedipus complex

onomatopoeia

oxymoron

paradox

parody

parallelism

persona

personification

plot

point of view

prequel

protagonist

pseudonym

pulp fiction

pun

refrain

repetition

rhyme

rhythm

Satire (Horatian/Juvenalian)

Sarcasm

sequel

setting

simile

stream of consciousness

structure

static character

symbol

synecdoche (metonymy)

Theatre of the absurd

theme

tone

tragedy

tragic hero/tragic figure

tragic flaw

understatement

unreliable narrator

vignette

Post-colonialism

Marxist criticism

Feminist criticism

Historical criticism (or “new historicism”)

Formalist criticism

Reader-response criticism

Psychoanalytic criticism

POETRY TERMS

accent

alliteration

anapest/anapestic

apostrophe

assonance

aubade

ballad

blank verse

caesura

conceit

consonance

convention

couplet

dactyl/dactylic

dimeter

doggerel

dramatic monologue

elegy

epic

foot

free verse

heptameter

heroic couplet

hexameter

iamb/iambic

iambic pentameter

limerick

metaphor

metaphysical poets

meter

mock epic

monometer

octave

ode

pastoral

pentameter

Petrarchan/Italian sonnet

quatrain

sestet

Shakespeare/Elizabethan sonnet

simile

slant rhyme

sonnet

speaker:  The “voice” of a poem-(not to be confused with the poet himself/herself. Analogous to the narrator in a prose fiction work)

tercet

terza rima

tetrameter

trimester

triple rhyme

trochee/trochaic

villanelle

PROSE TERMS

Stream of consciousness

First person narrator

Omniscient narrator

Unreliable narrator

TERMS FROM GREEK TRAGEDY

Pathos

Bathos

Hamartia

Hubris

Catharsis/katharsis

Oedipus complex

Electra complex

Deux ex Machina

Doppelganger

Denouement

Bildungsroman

Roman a clef (pronounced "roh MAHN ah CLAY")

Edwardian era

Graveyard Poets

Romantic period

Transcendentalists

Victorian period

Renaissance period

Metaphysical Poets

Modernism

Post-modernism

Expatriate writers