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Literature and Rhetoric Terms

Literary devices, poetic forms and rhetorical terms used in AP English and college courses.

100 cardsGrades 9–12, College#ap#literature#rhetoric

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100 cards
  • AllegoryTerm
    A story whose characters and events stand for deeper ideas
  • AlliterationTerm
    Repeating beginning consonant sounds
  • AllusionTerm
    A brief reference to a known person, place or work
  • AmbiguityTerm
    Deliberate use of more than one possible meaning
  • AnachronismTerm
    Something placed in the wrong time period
  • AnalogyTerm
    A comparison to explain something by likeness
  • AnaphoraTerm
    Repeating a word or phrase at the start of successive lines or sentences
  • AntagonistTerm
    The character or force opposing the protagonist
  • AntithesisTerm
    Placing opposite ideas in balanced phrases
  • AphorismTerm
    A short statement of a general truth
  • ApostropheTerm
    Directly addressing an absent person or thing
  • AssonanceTerm
    Repetition of vowel sounds
  • BildungsromanTerm
    A novel about a character's growth to adulthood
  • Blank verseTerm
    Unrhymed iambic pentameter
  • CaesuraTerm
    A pause within a line of poetry
  • CharacterizationTerm
    How an author creates and develops a character
  • ClimaxTerm
    The turning point of highest tension
  • ColloquialismTerm
    Informal everyday expression
  • ConceitTerm
    An elaborate, extended metaphor
  • ConnotationTerm
    The feelings a word suggests beyond its literal meaning
  • DenotationTerm
    The literal dictionary meaning
  • ConsonanceTerm
    Repetition of consonant sounds within or at ends of words
  • CoupletTerm
    Two rhymed lines
  • Deus ex machinaTerm
    A sudden unexpected event that solves a plot problem
  • DictionTerm
    An author's word choice
  • DidacticTerm
    Intended to teach a lesson
  • Dramatic ironyTerm
    The audience knows something the characters do not
  • ElegyTerm
    A poem of mourning
  • EllipsisTerm
    The omission of words, or the three dots marking it
  • End-stopped lineTerm
    A line whose thought ends with the line
  • EnjambmentTerm
    A sentence continuing past the end of a line
  • EpicTerm
    A long narrative poem about heroic deeds
  • EpigraphTerm
    A quotation placed at the start of a work
  • Epistolary novelTerm
    A novel told through letters or documents
  • EuphemismTerm
    A mild word replacing a harsh one
  • ExpositionTerm
    Background information at a story's start
  • Extended metaphorTerm
    A metaphor developed over several lines
  • Falling actionTerm
    Events after the climax
  • Figurative languageTerm
    Language meant to be understood beyond its literal sense
  • First-person narratorTerm
    A narrator who tells the story as 'I'
  • FlashbackTerm
    A scene from an earlier time
  • FoilTerm
    A character who contrasts with another to highlight traits
  • ForeshadowingTerm
    Hints about what will happen later
  • Frame storyTerm
    A story that contains other stories
  • Free verseTerm
    Poetry without regular rhyme or meter
  • GenreTerm
    A category of literature
  • GothicTerm
    Fiction with gloomy settings and mystery
  • HyperboleTerm
    Deliberate exaggeration
  • Iambic pentameterTerm
    Ten-syllable line of five unstressed-stressed pairs
  • ImageryTerm
    Language appealing to the senses
  • In medias resTerm
    Beginning a story in the middle of the action
  • IronyTerm
    A contrast between expectation and reality
  • JuxtapositionTerm
    Placing contrasting things side by side
  • LitotesTerm
    Understatement using a negative, like 'not bad'
  • MetaphorTerm
    A direct comparison without 'like' or 'as'
  • MetonymyTerm
    Using a related thing to stand for something, like 'the crown' for a king
  • MoodTerm
    The feeling a work creates in the reader
  • MotifTerm
    A recurring element that supports a theme
  • Narrative arcTerm
    The shape of a story's development
  • OdeTerm
    A lyric poem praising a subject
  • OnomatopoeiaTerm
    A word that imitates a sound
  • OxymoronTerm
    Two contradictory words together
  • ParableTerm
    A short story teaching a moral lesson
  • ParadoxTerm
    A statement that seems contradictory but reveals truth
  • ParallelismTerm
    Repeating similar grammatical structure
  • ParodyTerm
    An imitation meant to mock or amuse
  • PathosTerm
    An appeal to emotion
  • EthosTerm
    An appeal based on credibility
  • LogosTerm
    An appeal based on logic
  • PersonificationTerm
    Giving human traits to non-human things
  • Point of viewTerm
    The perspective from which a story is told
  • Third-person omniscientTerm
    A narrator who knows all characters' thoughts
  • Third-person limitedTerm
    A narrator who knows one character's thoughts
  • ProtagonistTerm
    The main character
  • PunTerm
    A play on words
  • QuatrainTerm
    A four-line stanza
  • RefrainTerm
    A repeated line or phrase
  • Rhetorical questionTerm
    A question asked for effect, not an answer
  • Rhyme schemeTerm
    The pattern of rhymes at line ends
  • Rising actionTerm
    Events building toward the climax
  • SatireTerm
    Using humor and exaggeration to criticize
  • SettingTerm
    The time and place of a story
  • SimileTerm
    A comparison using 'like' or 'as'
  • SoliloquyTerm
    A speech in which a character speaks thoughts aloud alone
  • SonnetTerm
    A fourteen-line poem
  • StanzaTerm
    A group of lines in a poem
  • Stream of consciousnessTerm
    A narrative style following a character's flowing thoughts
  • SymbolTerm
    An object that stands for a larger idea
  • SynecdocheTerm
    A part standing for the whole, like 'hands' for workers
  • SyntaxTerm
    The arrangement of words in sentences
  • ThemeTerm
    A central idea of a work
  • ToneTerm
    The author's attitude toward the subject
  • TragedyTerm
    A drama of a hero's downfall
  • Tragic flawTerm
    A trait that leads to a hero's ruin
  • UnderstatementTerm
    Describing something as less than it is
  • Unreliable narratorTerm
    A narrator whose account cannot be fully trusted
  • UtopiaTerm
    An imagined perfect society
  • DystopiaTerm
    An imagined society marked by suffering or oppression
  • VoiceTerm
    The distinctive style of a writer or narrator
  • ZeugmaTerm
    One word applied to two others in different senses

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