AP Literary Elements (Vocab) (R-Z)

Question 1

RHYTHM

Answer 1

a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language.

Question 2

RHETORIC

Answer 2

Art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.

Question 3

RHETORICAL QUESTION

Answer 3

a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer?

Question 4

ROMANCE

Answer 4

in general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful.

Question 5

SATIRE

Answer 5

a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change.

Question 6

SIMILE

Answer 6

a figure of speech that makes an explicitly comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as,
than, or resembles.

Question 7

SOLILOQUY

Answer 7

a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage.

Question 8

STEREOTYPE

Answer 8

a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often
based on religious, social, or racial prejudices.

Question 9

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Answer 9

a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s
mind.

Question 10

STYLE

Answer 10

the distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer’s distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax.

Question 11

SYMBOL

Answer 11

a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.

Question 12

SYNECDOCHE

Answer 12

a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. “If you don’t drive properly, you will lose your
wheels.” The wheels represent the entire car.

Question 13

THEME

Answer 13

the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.

Question 14

TONE

Answer 14

the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through
diction, figurative language, and organization.

Question 15

TRAGEDY

Answer 15

in general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end.

Question 16

UNDERSTATEMENT

Answer 16

a statement that says less than what is meant. Example: During the second war with Iraq,
American troops complained of a fierce sand storm that made even the night-vision equipment useless. A British
commando commented about the storm: “It’s a bit breezy.”

Question 17

VERNACULAR

Answer 17

the language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality.

Question 18

BALLAD

Answer 18

A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed
(abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. Folk (or traditional) ballads are anonymous and recount
tragic, comic, or heroic stories with emphasis on a central dramatic event (ex: “John Henry”). Ballads transitioned from
the oral tradition to a written form during the Renaissance. Famous literary ballads include “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan
Poe and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Question 19

BLANK VERSE

Answer 19

unrhymed iambic pentameter (a pattern of a stressed and unstressed syllables repeated 5 times in a line
of poetry). Blank verse is the meter most commonly used in Shakespeare’s plays.

Question 20

CAESURA

Answer 20

a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause.
(Ex. I’m nobody! // Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us // – don’t tell! (Emily Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?))

Question 21

COUPLET

Answer 21

two lines of verse, usually in the same meter, with the same end-rhymes.
“I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash and purple bumps.” (Shel Silverstein, “Sick”)

Question 22

ELEGY

Answer 22

a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A Eulogy is great praise or commendation, a
laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.

Question 23

END-STOPPED

Answer 23

A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash, comma, or closing
parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it
contains a complete phrase or a complete thought.

Question 24

ENJAMBMENT

Answer 24

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next.
Ex. The young woman says, “July is over, end-stop but you don’t have to go on and enjambment on about it. There’s always August.” caesura and end-stop

Question 25

FREE VERSE

Answer 25

poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical

Question 26

INTERNAL RHYME

Answer 26

rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping. . suddenly there came a tapping…

Question 27

LYRIC POEM

Answer 27

a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker.
SONNETS and ODES are lyric poems. A BALLAD tells a story.

Question 28

METER

Answer 28

the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the
musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter
is known as a foot.

Question 29

NARRATIVE POEM

Answer 29

a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or
complex, long or short. Epics and ballads are examples of narrative poems.

Question 30

ODE

Answer 30

a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied
or irregular meter, often an ode was meant to be sung. Examples include “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a
Nightingale” by John Keats or “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Question 31

QUATRAIN

Answer 31

a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit.

Question 32

REFRAIN

Answer 32

a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at
intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

Question 33

RHYME

Answer 33

close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions
in two or more lines of verse. For a true rhyme, the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by
different consonants, such as “fan” and “ran.” In an APPROXIMATE RHYME the vowel sounds match but
the following consonant sounds do not (ex. love and grudge). In a SLANT RHYME the vowel sounds are
different but the stressed consonant sound is the same (ex. shape and keep)

Question 34

SONNET

Answer 34

normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet is
rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

Question 35

STANZA

Answer 35

usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme.

Question 36

VILLANELLE

Answer 36

a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only
two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form
lines 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19; thus, eight of the nineteen lines are
refrain. Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is an example of a villanelle.