AP Literature & Composition Master List of Terms
abstract
accent
act
allegory
allusion
alliteration
ambiguity
absurdism
anagnorisis
analogy
anaphora
anecdote
antagonist
antithesis
aphorism
apostrophe
archetypal
lens
aside
assonance
asyndeton
atmosphere
avant-garde
ballad
bildungsroman
blank verse
blocking
box-set
caesura
canon
catharsis
chronology
chiasmus
complex sentence
compound sentence
compound-complex sentence
conceit
concrete language
confidant/e
connotation
consonance
couplet
critical lens
denotation
dialogue
diction
double
elegy/elegiac
ellipses
Elizabethan
end-stop
enjambment
envoy
epigraph
epigram
epiphany
ethos
existentialism
euphemism
expressionism
feminist lens
figurative language
flashback
foil
foreshadowing
foot/feet
form/formalism
fourth wall
frame
narrative
Freudian lens
free verse
genre
gothic
haiku
hamartia
hubris
hyperbole
iamb/iambic
iambic pentameter
idiom
imagery
impressionism
inference
interior monologue
irony (tonal, dramatic, situational)
juxtaposition
literary present tense
litotes
logos
lyric poetry
malapropism
metaphor
Marxist lens
meter/metrical verse
metonymy
mise-en-scene
modernism
monologue
mood
motif
naturalism
neologism
nihilism
octave
ode
onomatopoeia
oxymoron
painterly
paradox
parody
pastoral
pathos
peripeteia
personification
persona
point of view
(including omniscient/limited omniscient, 1st person, 3rd-person, etc)
Petrarchan
paraphrase
plot
polysyndeton
post-modernism
proscenium
prose
protagonist
proverb
psychoanalytic lens
quatrain
realism
reader-response lens
refrain
repetition
revenge
tragedy
rhetoric
rhyme (half, true, end,
interior,
masculine,
feminine)
romanticism
idealism
sarcasm
satire
scene
scheme
sestet
sestina
shift
sibilance
simile
simple sentence
soliloquy
sound device
Italian sonnet
English sonnet
southern gothic
speaker
spoonerism
stanza
stream-of-
consciousness
style
suspension of disbelief
syllable
symbol/symbolism
synecdoche
synesthesia
syntax
tercet
theme
thesis
tone
tragic hero/heroine
tragicomedy
trope
understatement
unreliable narrator
villanelle
volta
voice
zeugma
accent
act
allegory
allusion
alliteration
ambiguity
absurdism
anagnorisis
analogy
anaphora
anecdote
antagonist
antithesis
aphorism
apostrophe
archetypal
lens
aside
assonance
asyndeton
atmosphere
avant-garde
ballad
bildungsroman
blank verse
blocking
box-set
caesura
canon
catharsis
chronology
chiasmus
complex sentence
compound sentence
compound-complex sentence
conceit
concrete language
confidant/e
connotation
consonance
couplet
critical lens
denotation
dialogue
diction
double
elegy/elegiac
ellipses
Elizabethan
end-stop
enjambment
envoy
epigraph
epigram
epiphany
ethos
existentialism
euphemism
expressionism
feminist lens
figurative language
flashback
foil
foreshadowing
foot/feet
form/formalism
fourth wall
frame
narrative
Freudian lens
free verse
genre
gothic
haiku
hamartia
hubris
hyperbole
iamb/iambic
iambic pentameter
idiom
imagery
impressionism
inference
interior monologue
irony (tonal, dramatic, situational)
juxtaposition
literary present tense
litotes
logos
lyric poetry
malapropism
metaphor
Marxist lens
meter/metrical verse
metonymy
mise-en-scene
modernism
monologue
mood
motif
naturalism
neologism
nihilism
octave
ode
onomatopoeia
oxymoron
painterly
paradox
parody
pastoral
pathos
peripeteia
personification
persona
point of view
(including omniscient/limited omniscient, 1st person, 3rd-person, etc)
Petrarchan
paraphrase
plot
polysyndeton
post-modernism
proscenium
prose
protagonist
proverb
psychoanalytic lens
quatrain
realism
reader-response lens
refrain
repetition
revenge
tragedy
rhetoric
rhyme (half, true, end,
interior,
masculine,
feminine)
romanticism
idealism
sarcasm
satire
scene
scheme
sestet
sestina
shift
sibilance
simile
simple sentence
soliloquy
sound device
Italian sonnet
English sonnet
southern gothic
speaker
spoonerism
stanza
stream-of-
consciousness
style
suspension of disbelief
syllable
symbol/symbolism
synecdoche
synesthesia
syntax
tercet
theme
thesis
tone
tragic hero/heroine
tragicomedy
trope
understatement
unreliable narrator
villanelle
volta
voice
zeugma