AP Literature Key Terms
Grade 12 · English · Flashcards
Master the essential literary devices, narrative techniques, and critical vocabulary required for AP Literature and Composition.
Flashcards
- Allusion
- An indirect reference to a well-known person, event, text, or cultural element. Example: calling someone a 'Romeo' alludes to Shakespeare.
- Ambiguity
- The quality of a text that allows for multiple interpretations, often intentionally used to create complexity or irony.
- Diction
- An author's deliberate word choice; formal/informal, denotative/connotative diction shapes tone and meaning.
- Dramatic Irony
- When the audience knows something a character does not, creating tension or suspense. Example: Oedipus unknowingly seeking his own crimes' perpetrator.
- Epiphany
- A sudden moment of profound realization or insight experienced by a character, often marking a turning point.
- Free Indirect Discourse
- A narrative technique blending third-person narration with a character's inner thoughts without quotation marks or attribution.
- Hubris
- Excessive pride or arrogance in a tragic hero, typically leading to their downfall. A central theme in Greek tragedy.
- In Medias Res
- Latin for 'in the middle of things.' A narrative that begins in the middle of the action rather than at the chronological beginning.
- Motif
- A recurring element — image, symbol, phrase, or theme — that develops or reinforces the work's central ideas.
- Peripeteia
- Aristotle's term for the reversal of fortune in tragedy — the moment the hero's situation turns from good to bad (or vice versa).
- Soliloquy
- A speech in which a character speaks their thoughts aloud to the audience while alone on stage, revealing inner conflict.
- Stream of Consciousness
- A narrative technique depicting the continuous flow of a character's thoughts and perceptions without conventional structure.
- Unreliable Narrator
- A narrator whose account is compromised by bias, limited knowledge, psychological instability, or deliberate deception.
- Verisimilitude
- The appearance of being true or real; the quality that makes a fictional work feel authentic and believable.
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