Emily Xie

Period 06
10.20.09

AP Literary Terms Part 1

1. Alliteration- repetition of an initial consonant sound

“Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips.
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all good words for the lips: especially
prunes and prism.”
(Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit)

2. Anaphora- repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses
or verses

“we shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend
our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the
landing grounds, we shall in the fields and in the streets, we shall in the hills; we shall
never surrender”
(Winston Churchill, speech to the House of Commons)

3. Antithesis- the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases

“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.” (Goethe)

4. Apostrophe- breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some
abstract quality, and inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.

“Milton! Thou should’st be living at this hour: England hath need thee...”
(William Wordsworth)

“Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art”

(John Keats)

5. Assonance- identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words

“Those images that yet

Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
(W.B. Yeats)
 Emily Xie
Period 06
10.20.09

6. Chiasmus- a verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against
the first but with the parts reversed.

“I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me.”

(Ovid)

7. Euphemism- the substitution of an inoffensive term for on considered offensively

explicit “Ground beef” or “hamburger” for ground flesh of a dead cow; “veal” for tender
dead flesh of a baby cow; “pre-owned” for used or second-hand; “undocumented worker”
for illegal alien; “wind” for a belch.

8. Hyperbole- an extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of
emphasis or heightened effect

“To be an Americans is, unquestionably, to be the noblest, the grandest, the proudest
mammals that ever hoofed the verdure of God’s green footstool.”
(H.L. Mencken, “The Man Within”)

9. Irony- the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or
situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

9a. Verbal irony (also called sarcasm) is a trope in which a writer makes a statement in
which the actual meaning differs from the meaning that the words appear to express.

9b. Situational Irony- is a trope in which accidental events occur had seem oddly
appropriate, such as the poetic justice of the TV weather presenter getting caught in a
surprise rainstorm.

9c. Dramatic Irony- involves a narrative in which the reader knows something about
present or future circumstances that a character in the story does not know.

10. Litotes- a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is

expressed by negating its opposite.
 Emily Xie
Period 06
10.20.09

“The grave’s a fine private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.”
(Andrew Marvel, “To His Coy Mistress”)

11. Metaphor- an implied comparison between two unlike things, that actually have
something important in common.

“Words are bullets, and should be used sparingly, aimed toward a target.”
(Army Colonel Dick Hallock)

12. Metonymy- a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another
with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something
indirectly by referring to things around it

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

(Edward Bulwer-Lytton)

13. Onomatopoeia- the formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the
objects or actions they refer to

“I’m getting married in the morning!

Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime.
Pull out the stopper! Let’s have a whopper!
But get me to the church on time!”
(Alan Jay Lerner, from the Music Man)

14. Oxymoron- a figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side
by side

“O miserable abundance O beggarly riches!”

(John Donne)
 Emily Xie
Period 06
10.20.09

15. Paradox- a statement that appears to contradict itself

“The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.”

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

16. Personification- a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is

endowed with human qualities or abilities

“And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes.”
(T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufro”)

17. Pun- a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on
the similar sense or sound of different words

“What food thee morsels be!”

(Advertising slogan for Heinz cucumbers and pickles, 1938)

18. Simile- a stated comparison (usually formed with “like” or “as) between two
fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common

“The harpsichord sounds like two skeletons copulating on a corrugated tin roof.”
(Sir Thomas Beecham)

19. Synecdoche- a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole
for the part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the
thing made from it

“All hands on deck.”

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floor of silent seas
 Emily Xie
Period 06
10.20.09

20. Understatement- a figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a

situation seem less important than it is
“The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.”