ENGLISH III AP VOCABULARY LIST
All assignments require that you look up the word, write down the definition and find one
example of the use of the term. Included in this list are words whose connotative
meanings are to be determined as well as their denotative meanings. Once a week that
will be an AP vocabulary quiz (Approx. 5 words a week).
Abstract
Absolute statement
Absurd as in the Theater of the Absurd
Acrostic
Aestheticism
Affective fallacy/intentional fallacy
Agrarian
Allegory
Alliteration
Allusion/illusion
Ambiguity
Amplification (rhetorical)
Anachronism/anachrony
Analepsis/prolepsis/ellipsis
Anagnorisis
Anaphora
Anecdote
Antagonist
Antihero
Antimasque
Antinovel
Antistrophe
Antithesis
Antithetical criticism
Antonomasia
Aphorism
Apocalypse
Apollonian
Aporia
Aposiopesis
Archetypical criticism/archetype
Assonance
Asyndeton
Aubade
Avant-garde
Baroque
Bathos/pathos/ethos
Bildungsroman
1
Black humor
Bombast
Burlesque
Cacophony
Caesura
Canon
Canto
Caricature
Catachresis
Catalexis
Catharsis
Classicism
Cliché
Comedy of humors/comedy of manners/comic relief/commedia dell’arte
Conceit (poetical meaning) metaphysical conceit/Petrarchan conceit
Concrete poetry
Confessional poetry
Consonance
Dead metaphor
Deconstruction (literary meaning in criticism)
Deicitic(s)
Dues ex machine
Diction
Didactic/didactic literature
Dionysian
Dirge
Discourse
Dissonance
Doggerel
Dystopia
Eclogue
Elision
Encomium
Epigram
Epiphany
Epistle/epistolary novel
Epitaph
Epithalamium
Epithet
Eschatology
Euphuism
Exegesis (explication)
Fallacy/intentional/unintentional
Fancy (literary definition)
Farce
Figurative language
2
Foil
Genre
Gothic novel
Harmatia
Hegemony
Hyperbation (anastrophe)
Hyperbole
Iconography
Idyll
Imagery
Impressionism
Incremental repetition
In media res
Intertextuality
Irony
Juvenalian satire
Kunstlerroman
Lampoon
Lexicon
Limerick
Linguistics
Litotes
Malapropism
Masque
Meiosis
Melodrama
Metaphor (trope)
Metonymy (trope)
Mimesis
Mock epic/mock heroic
Modernisim/modern period
Monody
Mood
Motif/leitmotif
Muses
Myth
Naturalism/naturalistic period (American literature)
Neoclassic/neoclassic period
Neologism
Neoplatonism
Noble savage/primitivism
Nom de plume
Novella
Objectivity
Ode
Oedipus complex
3
Onomatopoeia
Oxymoron
Palindrome
Palinode
Parable
Paradigm/episteme
Paradox
Paralipsis
Parallelism/parallel structure
Parody
Pastiche
Pastoral
Pathos
Periphrasis (pleonasm)
Persona
Personification
Philology
Phoneme
Picaresque novel/narrative
Poetic justice/poetic license
Point of view
Polyphonic
Portmanteau word
Positivism
Postmodern/postmodern period
Primitivism
Prolepsis
Prologue
Protagonist
Pun
Quest/quest novel
Realism
Rhetoric/rhetorical devices
Romanticism/romantic period
Sarcasm
Satire
Semantics
Senecan tragedy (revenge tragedy)
Setting
Sibilance
Simile (trope)
Stream of consciousness
Strophe
Structuralism
Sturm and drang (storm and stress)
Style (literary style)
4
Subjectivity
Sublime (the sublime)
Surrealism
Suspension of disbelief
Symbol/symbolism
Synecdoche (trope)
Syntax
Tenor (literary definition)
Tension
Texture (literary definition)
Tone
Tragedy (Aristotelian definition)/tragic flaw/tragic irony/tragicomedy
Transcendentalism
Travesty
Trope (metaphor/metonymy, personification, simile, synecdoche)
Utopia
Versification
Wit
5