AP LIT

A passing reference to historical or fictional characters, places, or events, or to other
works that the writer assumes the reader will recognize

A comparison of similar things, often for the purpose of using something familiar to
explain something unfamiliar

A central character, or protagonist, who lacks traditional heroic qualities and virtues
(such as idealism, courage, and steadfastness)

A pattern or model of an action (such as lamenting the dead), a character type
(rebellious youth), or an image (paradise as a garden) that recurs consistently enough in life and
literature to be considered universal.

The pervasive mood or tone of a literary work— gloom, foreboding, joyful
expectation—often created and sustained by the author's treatment of landscape or setting and
use of symbolism.

A German word that, translated literally, means "development novel." The
term bildungsroman is applied to a novel that traces the early education of its hero from youth to
experience.

Descriptive writing that exaggerates specific features of appearance or
personality, usually for comic effect; also, a character developed in such a manner. C

During the falling action, the
final unwinding or resolving of the conflicts and complications in the plot of fiction or drama.

Word choice. There are two basic standards—not mutually exclusive—by which a
speaker's or writer's diction is usually judged: clarity and appropriateness

Involves the audience’s being aware of a character’s real situation before
the character is. A situation in a play or other fiction in which a character unwittingly makes a
remark that the audience is intended to understand as ironic, or in contradiction to the full truth

Rising action

Usually, a character who, by contrast, points out the qualities or characteristics of another
character. For example, a foolish character sets a wise character's wisdom in a stronger light

The organizing principle that shapes a work of literature. The nineteenth-century
romantic poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge distinguished two ways of thinking about form, a
distinction that continues to be useful: (1) Form may be viewed as a preexisting structure
imposed on and restricting the content of an individual work; (2) Form may be viewed as the
unique way content takes shape in a particular work.

a figure of speech in which there is a contrast between what is said
and what is actually meant.

the contrast between what is intended or expected and
what actually occurs.

the author’s attitude toward the subject or theme

a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation that
appears in various works or throughout the same work

Here the narrator, standing outside the story, assumes a
godlike persona, moving about freely in time and space, revealing the thoughts and motives of all
the characters, knowing the present, past, and future, and (sometimes) commenting on or
interpreting the actions of the characters

Focuses on the thoughts of a single character and
presents the other characters only externally

e restricted type of third-person limited omniscience
that prohibits any subjective commentary by the author. The story is told in a completely
objective manner, the author avoiding entering the minds of any characters.

The design or arrangement of the parts of a work of literature to form a unified
whole; the planned framework or “architecture” of a literary work

In literature, the central or dominating idea, the “message,” implicit in a work.

The reflection in a work of the author’s attitude toward his or her subject, characters, and
readers. Tone in writing is comparable to tone of voice in speech