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
LITERARY THEORIESPost-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
Foreign TermsDeux ex Machina
Doppelganger
Denouement
Bildungsroman
Roman a clef (pronounced "roh MAHN ah CLAY")
Time Periods and terms associated with themEdwardian era
Graveyard Poets
Romantic period
Transcendentalists
Victorian period
Renaissance period
Metaphysical Poets
Modernism
Post-modernism
Expatriate writers