ADVANCED PLACEMENT
LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION
VOCABULARY
Literary Terms
UNIT 1
ABSTRACT-CRITICISM
ABSTRACT

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Opposed to concrete, not quantifiable
Emotions, ideals, concepts, feelings, values…
Something pleasant or pleasing is abstract, while
calling something yellow or sour is concrete.
The word domesticity is abstract, but the word sweat
is concrete.
ALLEGORY



Prose or verse in which the objects, events or people are
presented symbolically, so that the story conveys a
meaning other than and deeper than the actual incident
or characters described. Often, the form is used to teach
a moral lesson.
John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678);the hero,
Christian, flees the City of Destruction and travels
through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair,
Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City.
The entire narrative is a representation of the human
soul's pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach
salvation in heaven.
ANECDOTE




A short narrative detailing the particulars of an
event.
The story usually consists of an interesting
biographical incident.
This is seen in The Canterbury Tales.
It is also seen in the beginning of Kurt Vonnegut's
Slaughterhouse-Five when the author is speaking of
how he came to write the succeeding story.
ANTITHESIS



Using opposite phrases in close conjunction.
"I burn and I freeze," or "Her character is white as
sunlight, black as midnight.“
The best antitheses express their contrary ideas in a
balanced sentence.
 It
can be a contrast of opposites: "Evil men fear
authority; good men cherish it."
 It can be a contrast of degree: "One small step for a
man, one giant leap for all mankind."
ARCHETYPE


An original model or pattern from which other later
copies are made, especially a character, an action,
or situation that seems to represent common patterns
of human life.
Includes a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character
that some critics think have a common meaning in an
entire culture, or even the entire human race.
 Recurring
symbolic situations, themes, characters,
symbolic colors
ATTITUDE



A judgment which an author, character or work
expresses. To be distinguished from tone (the
emotion with which views are expressed).
Tone is emotional, attitude intellectual.
Wilfred Owen’s poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”
expresses the attitude that efforts to glorify war in
the name of patriotism are lies that distort its ugly
reality. Often in good poetry the tone is mixed and
the attitude complex.
AUDIENCE


The particular group of readers or viewers that the
writer is addressing.
A writer considers his or her audience when
deciding on a subject, a purpose for writing and the
tone and style in which to write.
CONCRETE



Opposed to abstract; quantifiable
Language that describes qualities that can be
perceived with the five senses as opposed to using
abstract or generalized language.
Calling a fruit "pleasant" or "good" is abstract,
while calling a fruit "cool" or "sweet" is concrete.
CONFLICT
Protagonist/antagonist clash
 The tension or problem in the
story; a struggle between
opposing forces.

Three Types of Conflict
 central
conflict: the dominant or most
important conflict in the story.
 external conflict: the problem or struggle
that exists between the main character
and an outside force. (ex: person vs.
person, person vs. society, person vs.
nature, person vs. the supernatural, person
vs. technology, etc.)
 internal conflict: the problem or struggle
that takes place in the main character’s
mind (person vs. self).
CRITICISM



AKA: Critical reading
Careful analysis of an essay's structure and logic in
order to determine the validity of an argument.
Modern literary criticism is often informed by
literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion
of its methods and goals.
 Formalist,
feminist, Marxist, mythological, biographical,
psychoanalytic, historical, etc.
UNIT 2
DEDUCTIVE-SYNTAX
DEDUCTIVE

Reasoning from the general to the
specific.
Students
are bad drivers.
Aaron drives recklessly.
Aaron hits small animals daily.
INDUCTIVE

Reasoning from the specific to the
general.
Aaron
hits small animals daily.
Aaron, a student, drives recklessly.
Students are bad drivers.
DETAIL




Specifically described items placed in a work for effect
and meaning.
Elements the author chooses to be specific about.
In some cases, the elements the author chooses not to be
specific about.
In E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake,” he gives details
about:
the “tarred road” past & present
 The “camp on the lake”
 The boy “[sneaking] quietly out” past & present
 Omits details of anything negative

DICTION

Word choice of an author
 The
sound of a word
 Denotation: dictionary meaning
 Connotation: all the emotions the word elicits.
 plump
= obese
 plump
denotation is the same = FAT
= pleasantly fat is the connotation
 obese = medically fat is the connotation
ETHOS




CREDIBILITY
Ethical appeal, means convincing by the character
of the author.
We tend to believe people whom we respect.
One of the central problems of argumentation is to
project an impression to the reader that you are
someone worth listening to, in other words making
yourself as author into an authority on the subject of
the paper, as well as someone who is likable and
worthy of respect.
LOGOS

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
LOGICAL
Persuading by the use of reasoning.
This will be the most important technique, and
Aristotle's favorite.
Use deductive and inductive reasoning, and discuss
what makes an effective, persuasive reason to back
up claims.
Giving reasons is the heart of argumentation, and
cannot be emphasized enough.
PATHOS



EMOTIONAL
Persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions.
Language choice affects the audience's emotional
response, and emotional appeal can effectively be
used to enhance an argument.
IMAGERY



A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the
"mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of
literature.
It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem,
whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor.
Imagery is not limited to visual imagery; it also includes:

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auditory (sound),
tactile (touch),
thermal (heat and cold),
olfactory (smell),
gustatory (taste),
and kinesthetic sensation (movement).
LANGUAGE

The style of the sentence and vocabulary
used in conversation and written
communication.
 Slang
 Formal
 Parental
 Didactic
(lesson-like or “boring”)
 Common, etc.
SYNTAX





The physical arrangement of words in a sentence.
The function of a word, phrase, or clause within a
sentence.
The function of a word, phrase, or clause within a
sentence.
Standard English syntax prefers a Subject-VerbObject pattern.
Poets may tweak syntax to achieve rhetorical or
poetic effects.
UNIT 3
ASYNDETON-POLYSYNDETON
ASYNDETON

Consists of omitting conjunctions between words,
phrases, or clauses. In a list of items, asyndeton gives
the effect of unpremeditated multiplicity, of an
extemporaneous rather than a labored account:
On his return he received medals, honors, treasures, titles,
fame.
 If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are
frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this
implies that there is One to whom we are responsible,
before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we
fear. --John Henry Newman

ANALOGY


The comparison of two things alike in some respects.
Purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar
or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea
or object is similar to some familiar one.
 In
Thomas Paine’s “The Crisis, No. 1,” he uses the
analogy of the thief breaking into a person’s home to
compare with the King’s actions toward the Colonists.
ANALYSIS

To separate into parts for inspection and evaluation.
A
reader can examine the different literary devices
used in a text, infer information, interpret the meaning,
and then synthesize for overall tone, theme, etc.
ANTIHERO


A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a
traditional hero.
While the traditional hero may be dashing, strong,
brave, resourceful, or handsome, the antihero may be
incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish.
BYRONIC HERO

An antihero who is a romanticized but wicked
character. Conventionally, the figure is a
young and attractive male with a bad
reputation. He defies authority and
conventional morality, and becomes
paradoxically ennobled by his peculiar
rejection of virtue.

Byronic heroes are associated with destructive
passions, sometimes selfish brooding or
indulgence in personal pains, alienation from their
communities, persistent loneliness, intense
introspection, and fiery rebellion.
CHARACTER


Any representation of an individual being presented in
a dramatic or narrative work through extended
dramatic or verbal representation.
The reader can interpret characters as endowed with
moral and dispositional qualities expressed in what
they say (dialogue) and what they do (action).
Character Types
Flat: one-dimensional; built around a single
idea or quality
 Round: multi-dimensional; complex in
temperament and motivation
 Static: unchanging over the course of the
narrative
 Dynamic: capable of growth and change
during the course of the narrative
 Grotesque: induce both empathy and disgust.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
 The Phantom of the Opera
 Beauty and the Beast

CRISIS



The turning point of uncertainty and tension
resulting from earlier conflict in a plot.
At the moment of crisis in a story, it is unclear if the
protagonist will succeed or fail in his struggle.
The crisis usually leads to or overlaps with the
climax of a story, though some critics use the two
terms synonymously.
INFERENCE


A judgment based on reasoning rather than on direct
or explicit statement.
A conclusion based on facts or circumstances.
 For
example, advised not to travel alone in temperatures
exceeding fifty degrees below zero, the man in Jack
London's "To Build a Fire" sets out anyway. One may infer
arrogance from such an action.
IRONY

In irony of situation, the result of an action is the reverse of
what the actor expected.


In verbal irony, the contrast is between the literal meaning of
what is said and what is meant.


Macbeth murders his king hoping that in becoming king he will
achieve great happiness. Actually, Macbeth never knows another
moment of peace, and finally is beheaded for his murderous act.
A character may refer to a plan as brilliant, while actually meaning
that (s)he thinks the plan is foolish. Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony.
In dramatic irony, the audience knows something that the
characters in the drama do not.

For example, the identity of the murderer in a crime thriller may be
known to the audience long before the mystery is solved.
MICROCOSM


“Small world” representing an entire idea through a
small situation or conflict.
Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek
schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in
all levels of the cosmos:
the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the
way down to
 the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even
metaphysical-level).

MOOD/ATMOSPHERE


The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work,
partly by a description of the objects or by the style
of the descriptions.
A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery,
holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few,
depending on the author's treatment of the work.
MOTIF

A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of
incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula,
which appears frequently in works of literature.
 For
instance, the "loathly lady" who turns out to be a
beautiful princess is a common motif in folklore.
 The man fatally bewitched by a fairy lady is a common
folkloric motif appearing in Keats' "La Belle Dame sans
Merci."
 The motif of the "beheading game" is common in Celtic
myth—Sir Gawain & the Green Knight
POLYSYNDETON

The use of a conjunction between each word, phrase, or clause,
and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton. The
rhetorical effect of polysyndeton, however, often shares with
that of asyndeton a feeling of multiplicity, energetic
enumeration, and building up.


[He] pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
--John Milton
When it was announced that the vending machines were going to have
apples instead of Cheetos, and orange juice instead of Coke, the
students cried and bawled and sobbed and complained and whined
and protested.
UNIT 4
ANAPHORA-SYNTHESIS
ANAPHORA

The repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of
successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, commonly in
conjunction with climax and with parallelism.



In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things
to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth
the laws of peace. --Richard de Bury
Will he read the book? Will he learn what it has to teach him? Will he
live according to what he has learned?
They are masters who instruct us without rod or ferule, without angry
words, without clothes or money. --Richard de Bury
HYPOPHORA

Consists of raising one or more questions and then
proceeding to answer them, usually at some length. A
common usage is to ask the question at the beginning
of a paragraph and then use that paragraph to
answer it:
 What
behavior, then, is uniquely human? My theory is
this . . . . --H. J. Campbell
 But what was the result of this move on the steel
industry? The annual reports for that year clearly
indicate. . . .
PEDANTIC


Bookish and scholarly in tone, often boring and dull
due to little interest on the part of the listener.
Using “big” words just for the sake of showing off.
PLAGIARISM

Accidental or intentional intellectual theft in which a
writer, poet, artist, scholar, or student steals an
original idea, phrase, or section of writing from
someone else and presents this material as his or
her own work without indicating the source via
appropriate explanation or citation.
PLOT

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
The structure of a story.
The sequence in which the author arranges events in a
story.
The structure of a five-act play often includes the rising
action, the climax, the falling action, and the
resolution.
The plot may have a protagonist who is opposed by
antagonist, creating what is called, conflict.
A plot may include flashback or it may include a
subplot which is a mirror image of the main plot.

For example, in Shakespeare's, "King Lear," the relationship
between the Earl of Gloucester and his sons mirrors the
relationship between Lear and his daughters
POINT OF VIEW



The way a story gets told and who tells it.
It is the method of narration that determines the
position, or angle of vision, from which the story
unfolds.
Point of view governs the reader's access to the story.
Points of View
First person: the narrator speaks as "I" and
the narrator is a character in the story who
may or may not influence events within it.
 Third-person narrative: the narrator seems to
be someone standing outside the story who
refers to all the characters by name or as he,
she, they, and so on.
 Dramatic third person point of view or
objective: the narrator reports speech and
action, but never comments on the thoughts of
other characters.

Points of View



Limited: a narrator who is confined to what is
experienced, thought, or felt by a single
character, or at most a limited number of
characters.
Omniscient: a narrator who knows everything
that needs to be known about the agents and
events in the story, and is free to move at will in
time and place, and who has privileged access to
a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives.
Unreliable narrator: a narrator who describes
events in the story, but seems to make obvious
mistakes or misinterpretations that may be
apparent to a careful reader. Unreliable
narration often serves to characterize the
narrator as someone foolish or unobservant.
REPETITION



Word, sound, phrase, or idea used for emphasis
An excellent technique in persuasive speeches.
Always pay attention to repetition in writing—the
author has a point to make!
RHETORIC


The art of persuasive argument through writing or
speech--the art of eloquence and charismatic
language.
The earliest known studies of rhetoric come from the
Golden Age, when philosophers of ancient Greece
discussed logos, ethos, and pathos.
“The Flowers of Rhetoric”
 Inventio:
the techniques for
thinking up the points to discuss.
 Schemes: rhetorical devices that
involve artful patterns in sentence
structure.
 Tropes: rhetorical devices involving
shifts in the meaning or use of
words.
RHETORICAL QUESTION
A question used for emphasis, not to gain
information.
 The question “Do snakes have ears?” is
literal, but “Hath not a Jew eyes?” (spoken
by Shylock in The Merchant of Venice) is a
rhetorical way of saying, “Jews are human
beings with feelings, just like Christians.”

SATIRE



A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of
the work.
While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but
to arouse contempt.
When people viewed the satire and saw their faults
magnified in a distorted reflection, they could see how
ridiculous their behavior was and then correct that
tendency in themselves.
Types of Satire
 Popular
cartoons such as The Simpsons and
televised comedies like The Daily Show
make use of it in modern media.
 Formal satire involves a direct, firstperson-address, either to the audience or
to a listener mentioned within the work.
 Alexander
Pope's Moral Essays
 Indirect
satire conventionally employs the
form of a fictional narrative.
 Jonathan
Swift's Gulliver's Travels and A
Modest Proposal.
SYMBOL
A word, place, character, or object that
means something beyond what it is on a
literal level.
 Consider the stop sign:

 Literally:
a metal octagon painted red with white
streaks
 Represents the act of coming to a complete stop.
Types of Symbols
Universal Symbol: conventionally
accepted symbols that transcend
space & time
 Cultural Symbol:

the cross as a symbol of Christianity
 the American flag as a symbol of America
 the gold ring as a symbol of marital
commitment

Types of Symbols

Contextual Symbol: A unique or original
symbol an author creates within the context of
an individual work or an author's collected
works.



The Snopes family in Faulkner's collected works, who together
function as a symbol of the South's moral decay.
The town of Castle Rock, Maine, which in Stephen King's
works functions as a microcosmic symbol of human society.
Personal Symbol: one that an individual artist
arbitrarily assigns a personal meaning to.
They may only be discernable in the context
of one specific story or poem.

Yeats' use of a gyre to symbolize the cycles of history and
the sphinx as an emblem of the Antichrist in "The Second
Coming."
SYNTHESIS




Involves combining two or more summaries.
Combining must be done in a meaningful way and
the final essay must generally be thesis-driven.
Commonly refers to writing about printed texts,
drawing together particular themes or traits that
are observed in those texts and organizing the
material from each text according to those themes
or traits.
Students may be asked to synthesize their own
ideas, theory, or research with those of the texts
they have been assigned.
Synthesis in Every Day Life


Whenever you report to a friend the
things several other friends have said
about a film or CD you engage in
synthesis.
People synthesize information naturally
to help others see the connections
between things they learn.
The Background Synthesis


The background synthesis requires that
the writer/speaker bring together
background information on a topic and
organize it by topic rather than by
source.
Instructors often assign background
syntheses at the early stages of the
research process, before students have
developed a thesis
A Thesis-driven Synthesis


Sometimes there is very little obvious
difference between a background
synthesis and a thesis-driven synthesis.
The difference will be most visible in the
topic sentences to each paragraph
because instead of simply introducing
the material for the paragraph that will
follow, they will also link back to the
thesis and assert that this information is
essential because...
UNIT 5
ALLITERATION-EUPHEMISM
ALLITERATION


Used for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial
sounds of several words in a group.
The following line from Robert Frost's poem
“Acquainted with the Night” provides an example
of alliteration:
 "I
have stood still and stopped the sound of feet."
 The repetition of the s sound creates a sense of quiet,
reinforcing the meaning of the line.
AMBIGUITY


A statement which can contain two or more
meanings.
Intentional ambiguity in literature leaves something
undetermined in order to open up multiple possible
meanings.
 When
the oracle at Delphi told Croesus that if he
waged war on Cyrus he would destroy a great empire,
Croesus thought the oracle meant his enemy's empire.
 In fact, the empire Croesus destroyed by going to war
was his own.
ANACHRONISM
Placing an event, person, item, or verbal
expression in the wrong historical period.
 In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
Shakespeare writes the following lines:

 Brutus:
Peace! Count the clock.
Cassius: The clock has stricken three (Act II,
scene i, lines 193-94).
ANTAGONIST
A person or force which opposes the
protagonist in a literary work.
 The cold, in Jack London's "To Build a
Fire" is the antagonist that defeats
the man on the trail.

APHORISM
A brief statement which expresses an
observation on life, usually intended as a wise
observation.
 Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac"
contains numerous examples:

 “Drive
thy business; let it not drive thee.”
 This means that one should not allow the demands
of business to take control of one's moral or worldly
commitments.
CATHARSIS



An emotional discharge that brings about a moral
or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension
and anxiety.
According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking
feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work.
He writes in his Poetics (c. 350 BCE):
 "Tragedy
is an imitation of an action that is serious,
complete, and of a certain magnitude; . . . through pity
[eleos] and fear [phobos] effecting the proper
purgation [catharsis] of these emotions" (Book 6.2).
CONCEIT

A far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit
occurs when the speaker compares two highly
dissimilar things.
 One
of the most famous conceits is John Donne's "A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem in which
Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a
compass.

Shakespeare also uses conceits regularly in his
poetry.
 In
Richard II, Shakespeare compares two kings
competing for power to two buckets in a well.
DYSTOPIA



A utopia presents readers with a place where all the
citizens are happy and ruled by a virtuous, efficient,
rational government, whereas a dystopia presents
readers with a world where all citizens are universally
unhappy, manipulated, and repressed by a sinister,
sadistic totalitarian state.
This government exists at best to further its own power
and at worst seeks actively to destroy its own citizens'
creativity, health, and happiness.
Examples of fictional dystopias include Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World, George Orwell's 1984, and
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
EPIPHANY



Christian thinkers used this term to signify a
manifestation of God's presence in the world.
In literature, the epiphany is a revelation of such
power and insight that it alters the entire worldview of the thinker who experiences it.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night takes place on the
Feast of the Epiphany, and the theme of revelation
is prevalent in the work.
EUPHEMISM




Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt,
embarrassing, or painful one.
For instance, saying "Grandfather has gone to a
better place" is a euphemism for "Grandfather has
died."
The idea is to put something bad, disturbing, or
embarrassing in an inoffensive or neutral light.
Frequently, words referring directly to death,
unpopular politics, blasphemy, crime, and sexual or
excremental activities are replaced by euphemisms.
UNIT 6
METAPHOR-TENOR & VEHICLE
METAPHOR


A figure of speech in which a thing is described as
something else.
A metaphor often suggests something symbolic in its
imagery.
 Martin
Luther wrote, "A mighty fortress is our God, / A
bulwark never failing."
 When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply
that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a
higher and better position.
METONYMY





A figure of speech in which a word represents
something else which it suggests.
For example in a herd of fifty cows, the herd might be
referred to as fifty head of cattle.
The word "head" is the word representing the herd.
In “The pen is mightier than the sword,” pen and sword
represent the printed word and military force.
Journalists use metonymy to refer to the collective
decisions of the United States government as
"Washington" or when they use the term "the White
House" as a shorthand reference for the executive
bureaucracy in American government.
OXYMORON

A combination of contradictory terms, such as used by
Romeo in Act 1, scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Romeo and
Juliet:“


Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity;
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
The richest literary oxymora seem to reveal a deeper
truth through their contradictions.
"without laws, we can have no freedom."
 Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: "Cowards die many times
before their deaths" (2.2.32).

PARALLELISM

The use of similar grammatical constructions to express
related ideas.


If the writer uses two parallel structures, the result is
isocolon parallelism:


For instance, "King Alfred tried to make the law clear,
precise, and equitable." The previous sentence has parallel
structure in use of adjectives.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall."
If there are three structures, it is tricolon parallelism:

"That government of the people, by the people, and for the
people shall not perish from the earth."
PARODY


A literary work that imitates the style of another
literary work.
A parody can be simply amusing, or it can be
mocking in tone.
 Aristophanes
makes use of parody in The Frogs (in
which he mocks the style of Euripides and Aeschylus).
 Cervantes creates a parody of medieval romance in
Don Quixote.
 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (spoof).
PERSONIFICATION

Abstractions, animals, ideas, and
inanimate objects are given human
character, traits, abilities, or reactions.
 Sylvia
Plath's "The Moon and the Yew Tree,"
in which the moon "is a face in its own right, /
White as a knuckle and terribly upset. / It
drags the sea after it like a dark crime."
PROTAGONIST


The hero or central character of a literary work.
In accomplishing his or her objective, the protagonist is
hindered by some opposing force either:
human (one of Batman's antagonists is The Joker),
 animal (Moby Dick is Captain Ahab's antagonist in Herman
Melville's "Moby Dick"), or
 natural (the sea is the antagonist which must be overcome
by Captain Bligh in Nordhoff and Hall's "Men Against the
Sea.“


If a single secondary character aids the protagonist
throughout the narrative, that character is the
deuteragonist (the hero's "side-kick").
SIMILE


A metaphor using an explicit connective such as like or as.
A poetic example from John Milton's Paradise Lost:


Anon out of the earth a Fabrick huge
Rose like an Exhalation, with the sound
Of Dulcet Symphony and voices sweet. (I. 710-12)
The epic simile appears in the genre of the epic, and it may
be developed at great length, often up to fifty or a
hundred lines.


Virgil's comparison between the city of Carthage and a bee-hive
from The Aeneid
Homer's comparison between Odysseus clinging to the rocks and
an octopus with pebbles stuck in its tentacles from The Odyssey
TENOR & VEHICLE



Terms used when referring to a symbol.
The vehicle is the physical thing or person.
The tenor is the abstraction.
 vehicle
= American Flag
tenor = freedom
 vehicle = The Usher house (“The Fall of the House of Usher”)
tenor = the ugliness & evil of the decaying family
 vehicle = the black veil (“The Minister’s Black Veil”)
tenor = sin that covers the heart
UNIT 7
AESTHETIC-DIGRESSION
AESTHETIC



An effect of tone, diction, and presentation in poetry
creating a sense of an experience removed from
irrelevant or accidental events.
The degree of emotional involvement in a work of art.
Fiction, drama, and poetry involve the reader
emotionally to different degrees.
Some writers pull the reader into their work; the reader
identifies closely with the characters and is fully involved
with the happenings.
 Some, on the other hand, maintain a greater distance from
the reader.

APOLOGY


A defense and justification for some belief, doctrine,
piece of writing, cause, or action without any
admission of blame with which we contemporarily
associate the word.
The term comes from the Greek apologia, meaning
defense.
 Plato
recorded Socrates’ Apologia in the Fourth Century
B.C.
 At the end of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,
there is a retraction or apology for his work; in this
case, apology means both an explanation and an
expression of regret.
ARTIFICIAL SETTING
In literature, setting means the scenery within
which the characters in a work exist and the
story takes place.
 Such scenery is both natural and artificial.
 Artificial setting refers to those elements that
are man-made (buildings & furniture).
 Also includes the clothing in which an author
chooses to dress his/her characters.

BILDUNGSROMAN



AKA: coming-of-age story.
A novel in which an adolescent protagonist comes to
adulthood by a process of experience and
disillusionment.
This character loses his or her innocence, discovers
that previous preconceptions are false, or has the
security of childhood torn away, but usually matures
and strengthens by this process.
 Ray
Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
 Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
 Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
CARPE DIEM
Literally, the phrase is Latin for "seize the day."
 The term refers to a common moral or theme in
classical literature that the reader should make
the most out of life and should enjoy it before
it ends.

 Marvell's
"To His Coy Mistress"
 Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"
CONFIDANT(E)


A minor or secondary character in a play (or other
literary work), in whom the protagonist confides,
revealing his or her state of mind in dialogue rather
than in soliloquies.
Commonly the trusted servant of the leading lady in
drama has the role of confidante:
 Charmian,
for example, in Shakespeare's Antony and
Cleopatra.
 Will to Grace in Will & Grace
 Insectosaurus to The Missing Link in Monsters vs Aliens
CONTROLLING IMAGE


An image a poet uses to carry forward the sense of the
poem.
It shapes the nature and form of the work as well.

In "The Flea" John Donne uses the tiny creature to make a point to
the loved one he is courting.





He asks the woman to look at the flea and see that they now share
blood because this flea has bitten them both (fleas were common in
English castles and houses during the 1600s).
The poem continues with references to the flea until the very end.
American poet Emily Dickinson uses the controlling image of death
as a coach drive in "Because I could not stop for Death."
Not every image is a controlling one; a writer may use many
images to convey an idea.
However, if only one image is used, then you may be sure
you have discovered a controlling image.
DEUS EX MACHINA






An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonist or
resolve the story's conflict.
The term means "The god out of the machine," and it refers to stage
machinery.
A classical Greek actor, portraying one of the Greek gods in a play,
might be lowered out of the sky onto the stage and then use his divine
powers to solve all the mortals' problems.
The term is a negative one, and it often implies a lack of skill on the part
of the writer.
A writer might reach a climactic moment in which a band of pioneers
were attacked by bandits. A cavalry brigade's unexpected arrival to
drive away the marauding bandits at the conclusion, with no previous
hint of the cavalry's existence, would be a deus ex machina conclusion.
Such endings mean that heroes are unable to solve their own problems in
a pleasing manner, and they must be "rescued" by the writer himself
through improbable means.
DIDACTIC




Writing that is "preachy" or seeks overtly to
convince a reader of a particular point or lesson.
Medieval homilies and Victorian moral essays are
often held up as examples of didactic literature.
Sometimes, the lesson is overtly religious, as in the
case of sermons or in literature like Milton's Paradise
Lost, which seeks to "justify God's ways to men."
In a more subtle way, much of Romantic literature
hints at a critique of urbanized and mechanized life
in 19th-century London.
DIGRESSION


A section of a composition or speech that is an intentional
change of subject.
In Classical rhetoric the digression was a regular part of any
oration or composition.



An oratorical discourse should have five sections: prelude,
narration, argumentation, digression and conclusion.
After setting out the topic of a work and establishing the
need for attention to be given, the speaker or author would
digress to a seemingly disconnected subject before returning
to a development of the composition's theme, a proof of its
validity, and a conclusion.
In literature, the digression was a substantial part of satiric
works of the 18th century.
UNIT 8
DOPPELGÄNGER-SYLLOGISM
DOPPELGÄNGER





Literally means a “double goer.”
The word is also used to describe the sensation of
having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a
position where there is no chance that it could have
been a reflection.
They are generally regarded as harbingers of bad
luck.
Dark doubles of individual identities.
Doppelgängers are typically, but not always, evil in
some way.
Examples in literature



In Edgar Allan Poe's short story William
Wilson, the protagonist of questionable
morality is dogged by his doppelgänger
most tenaciously when his morals fail.
Another variant, usually seen in science
fiction, involves clones, which creates a
genetically identical new being without the
memories and experiences of the original.
Doubles are also seen in fiction involving
time travel and parallel universes, as in the
motion picture Back to the Future Part II.
HYPERBOLE



A figure of speech in which an overstatement or
exaggeration occurs.
In Act 2, scene 2 of Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Macbeth has
murdered King Duncan.
Horrified at the blood on his hands, he asks:



Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No. This my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Literally, it does not require an ocean to wash blood from
one's hand. Nor can the blood on one's hand turn the green
ocean red.
The hyperbole works to illustrate the guilt Macbeth feels at
the brutal murder of his king and kinsman.
IN MEDIAS RES



refers to a literary and artistic technique where the
narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from
its beginning.
The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced
through a series of flashbacks or through characters
relating past events to each other.
Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique
is a convention of epic poetry.
Homer's Odyssey and Iliad
 The Indian Mahabharata
 Germany's Nibelungenlied
 "Inferno" from Dante's Divine Comedy
 George Lucas's Star Wars saga

KITSCH
“Gaudy trash;” shallow, flashy art
designed to have a mass appeal.
 The term is considered derogatory,
denoting works executed to pander to
popular demand alone and purely for
commercial purposes rather than works
created as self-expression by an artist.

NATURAL SETTING
In literature, setting means the scenery
within which the characters in a work exist
and the story takes place.
 Such scenery is both natural and
artificial.
 Natural refers to those elements of
setting that exist in the natural world
(mountains, streams, forests, weather, etc).

PARADOX


Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes
sense on a deeper level (more elaborate than an
oxymoron).
This line from John Donne's "Holy Sonnet 14"
provides an example:
 That


I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me,
The poet paradoxically asks God to knock him
down so that he may stand.
What he means by this is for God to destroy his
present self and remake him as a holier person.
RHETORICAL SHIFT



Changing from one tone, attitude, or distance to
another.
Words like “but,” “however,” “although,” “even
though,” “yet,”etc., are good markers of rhetorical
shifts.
Also refers to a change or movement in a piece
resulting from an epiphany, realization, or insight
gained by the speaker, a character, or the reader.
RHETORICAL STRUCTURE




In order to analyze, study, evaluate rhetorical structure,
one must examine images, details, and arguments.
One influential figure in the rebirth of interest in
classical rhetoric was Erasmus, 1466-1536.
His 1512 work, De Duplici Copia Verborum et Rerum
(also known as Copia: Foundations of the Abundant
Style), was widely published and became one of the
basic school texts on the subject.
It provides a traditional treatment of res-verba (matter
and form): its first book treats the subject of elocutio,
showing the student how to use schemes and tropes.
SARCASM
A bitter expression of
disapproval, sometimes intended
to be harsh and hurtful.
 Different levels of intensity exist.
 aka: verbal irony

SYLLOGISM

A formula for presenting a logical argument




A categorical syllogism consists of three parts:




assertion
proof
commentary
the major premise,
the minor premise, and
the conclusion.
Aristotle says there are two types of syllogisms, perfect and
imperfect.


A syllogism is perfect "if it needs nothing other than what is
stated to make evident what necessarily follows.“
A syllogism is imperfect when what necessarily follows is not
immediately evident.
UNIT 9
BEGGING THE QUESTION-NARRATIVE DEVICES
BEGGING THE QUESTION

Occurs when a writer simply restates the claim in a
different way; such an argument is circular.



Example: His lies are evident from the untruthful nature of
his statements.
Among the most common. We beg the question when
we use one unproven assertion to "prove" another.
For example:

Boss: "Jean, Mark says you're bullying him. I want it
stopped."
Jean: "I certainly am not bullying anyone."
Boss: "Then why does Mark say so? Stop it, or I'll have to
take action."
CANON
An approved or traditional collection of works.
 Refers to those works in anthologies that have
come to be considered standard or
traditionally included in the classroom and
published textbooks.
 Refers to the writings of an author that
generally are accepted as genuine, such as the
"Chaucer canon" or the "Shakespeare canon."

CHRONOLOGICAL
Greek: "logic of time"
 The order in which events happen,
especially when emphasizing a
cause-effect relationship in history
or in a narrative.

COLLOQUIAL



The use of slang or informalities in speech or
writing.
Not generally acceptable for formal writing,
colloquialisms give a work a conversational, familiar
tone.
Colloquial expressions in writing include local or
regional dialects.
 Formal:
"Greetings. How are my people doing?"
 Colloquialism: "Yo. Whassup!"
DILEMMA




Greek: "double proposition"
It is a problem offering at least two solutions or
possibilities, of which none are practically
acceptable.
One in this position has been traditionally described
as "being between a rock and a hard place.“
The dilemma is sometimes used as a rhetorical
device, in the form "you must accept either A or B;"
here A and B would be propositions each leading to
some further conclusion. Applied in this way, it may
be a fallacy, a false dichotomy.
EXPOSITORY
A type of writing in which the purpose is to
inform, explain, describe, or define the author's
subject to the reader.
 A well-written exposition remains focused on its
topic and lists events in chronological order.
 Examples of this type of writing are cooking
instructions, driving directions, and instructions
on performing a task.

FANTASY



Any literature that is removed from reality.
Poems, books, or short narratives set in nonexistent
worlds, such as an elvish kingdom, on the moon, in
Pellucidar (the hollow center of the earth), or in
alternative versions of the historical world--such as
a version of London where vampires or sorcerers
have seized control of parliament.
The characters are often something other than
humans, or human characters may interact with
nonhuman characters.
GENERIC CONVENTIONS





This term describes traditions for each genre.
These conventions help to define each genre; for
example, they differentiate an essay and journalistic
writing or an autobiography and political writing.
Each type of writing—editorial, biography, narrative,
persuasive, etc.---uses particular conventions.
The persuasive mode of writing uses the technique of
syllogism to prove a point.
On the AP language exam, try to distinguish the unique
features of a writer’s work from those dictated by
convention.
INVECTIVE
Speech or writing that attacks, insults, or
denounces a person, topic, or institution, usually
involving negative emotional language.
 For example, in Henry IV, Part I, Prince Hal
calls the large character of Falstaff “this
sanguine coward, this bedpresser, this
horseback breaker, this huge
hill of flesh.”

NARRATIVE DEVICES



This term describes the tools of the story teller (also
used in non fiction).
Ordering events so that they build to a climatic
moment or withholding information until a crucial or
appropriate moment when revealing it creates a
desired effect.
On the essay exam this term may also apply to
biographical and autobiographical writing.
 Foreshadowing,
Personification, Plot twist, Suspense
or tension, Dialogue
UNIT 10
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE-SUBPLOT
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE


The style of telling the "story."
Concentrate on the order of events and on their detail
in evaluating a writer's technique.
Flashback, general term for altering time sequences, taking
characters back to the beginning of the tale, for instance.
 Panoramic Technique: author can get necessary exposition
out of the way and concentrate on the story's dramatic
events.


In Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, Dickens and Bronte have
similar narrative techniques. Both describe events from the point of
view of a narrator remembering the past, and in both works, the
narrator's present ideas concerning past events surface.
OBJECTIVE
A tone of fairness and even discussion
of a subject.
 It usually suggests that there is
distance between the author and the
subject being discussed.
 This tone can be cold and impersonal.

PERSUASIVE DEVICES
Term
Devices used
in the writing
mode of
persuasion.

Strong
connotations,
order of
intensity from
lesser to
greater, the
logic of the
argument.

bandwagon appeal
testimonial
faulty cause and effect
facts and statistics
hasty generalization
loaded words
glittering generality
Definition
ad that implies that everyone is
doing it, so you should too
well-known people to endorse a
product
Use of product is falsely credited
for a result
using facts to promote the product
the sample is too small to support
an inductive generalization about a
population
phrases chosen to appeal to your
emotions
Name Calling in reverse; using
positive words to talk about an
issue
REALISM




As a term in literary history, realism refers to fiction
and drama of the late nineteenth century.
Depicted ordinary middle-class existence and its
daily concerns like money, society, and marriage.
Characters are bankers, farmers and housekeepers,
not swashbuckling pirates, gallant knights, or
supernatural beings.
In a more general sense, realistic refers to a manner
of representing life as close to reality as possible.
RESOURCES OF LANGUAGE

A general phrase for the linguistic devices
or techniques that a writer can use to
produce an effect.
 Style
 Rhetoric
 Diction
 Imagery
 Syntax
 Figurative
language
RHETORICAL FEATURES

All the parts of tone:
Diction
Imagery
Details
Language
Syntax
SPATIAL

The distance between characters,
ideas, and things within a story.
A
character can be close physically to
another but emotionally distant.

Language (in movies and theater:
body language) explains the
distance.
STYLISTIC DEVICES


The author's words and the characteristic way that
writer uses language to achieve certain effects.
An important part of interpreting and understanding
fiction is being attentive to the way the author uses
words.
What effects, for instance, do word choice and sentence
structure have on a story and its meaning?
 How does the author use imagery, figurative devices,
repetition, or allusion?
 In what ways does the style seem appropriate or discordant
with the work's subject and theme?
 Some common styles might be labeled ornate, plain,
emotive, scientific, etc.

SUBJECTIVE
Refers to a person's perspective or opinion,
particular feelings, beliefs, and desires.
 It is often used casually to refer to
unsubstantiated personal opinions, in
contrast to knowledge and fact-based
beliefs.
 In philosophy, the term is often contrasted
with objective.

SUBPLOT
A minor or subordinate secondary plot, often
involving a deuteragonist's struggles, which
takes place simultaneously with a larger plot,
usually involving the protagonist.
 The subplot often echoes or comments upon the
direct plot either directly or obliquely.
 Sometimes two opening subplots merge into a
single storyline later in a play or narrative.

UNIT 11
ANADIPLOSIS-ZEUGMA
ANADIPLOSIS

Repetition of the last word of one clause
at the beginning of the next clause:
 "The
crime was common, common be the
pain." --Alexander Pope
CHIASMUS

Figure of speech by which the order
of the terms in the first of parallel
clauses is reversed in the second.
“Has
the Church failed mankind, or has
mankind failed the Church?”-- T.S. Eliot
CUMULATIVE (LOOSE) SENTENCE

If you put your main point at the beginning of
a long sentence, you are writing a loose
sentence.


I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes for the privilege of
living in Canada, considering the free health care, the
cheap tuition fees, the low crime rate, the comprehensive
social programs, and the wonderful winters.
If you use a loose sentence with hostile readers,
the readers will probably close their minds
before considering any of your evidence.
PERIODIC SENTENCE

If your main point is at the end of a long sentence,
you are writing a periodic sentence


Considering the free health care, the cheap tuition fees, the
low crime rate, the comprehensive social programs, and the
wonderful winters, I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes
for the privilege of living in Canada.
An occasional periodic sentence is not only dramatic
but persuasive: even if the readers do not agree with
your conclusion, they will read your evidence first with
open minds.
EPISTROPHE (ANTISTROPHE)

Forms the counterpart to anaphora, because the
repetition of the same word or words comes at the
end of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences:
 Where
affections bear rule, there reason is subdued,
honesty is subdued, good will is subdued, and all things
else that withstand evil, for ever are subdued. --Wilson
 And all the night he did nothing but weep Philoclea,
sigh Philoclea, and cry out Philoclea. --Philip Sidney
EXEMPLUM

Citing an example; using an illustrative story,
either true or fictitious:
 Let
me give you an example. In the early 1920's in
Germany, the government let the printing presses
turn out endless quantities of paper money, and
soon, instead of 50-pfennige postage stamps,
denominations up to 50 billion marks were being
issued.
PARATAXIS

Writing successive independent clauses, with
coordinating conjunctions, or no conjunctions:
 In
the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters. --Genesis 1:1-2 (KJV)
 I came, I saw, I conquered (Veni, vidi, vici). --Julius
Caesar
PROCATALEPSIS

By anticipating an objection and answering it, permits an
argument to continue moving forward while taking into account
points or reasons opposing either the train of thought or its
final conclusions.


It is usually argued at this point that if the government gets out of the
mail delivery business, small towns like Podunk will not have any mail
service. The answer to this can be found in the history of the Pony
Express . . . .
Note that procatalepsis can be combined with hypophora, so
that the objection is presented in the form of a question:

But you might object that, if what I say is actually true, why would
people buy products advertised illogically? The answer to that lies in
human psychology . . . .
SCESIS ONOMATON

Emphasizes an idea by expressing it in a string of
generally synonymous phrases or statements. While it
should be used carefully, this deliberate and obvious
restatement can be quite effective.
May God arise, may his enemies be scattered, may his foes
flee before him. --Psalm 68:1 (NIV)
 But there is one thing these glassy-eyed idealists forget: such
a scheme would be extremely costly, horrendously
expensive, and require a ton of money.

SENTENTIA

Quoting a maxim or wise saying to apply a
general truth to the situation; concluding or
summing foregoing material by offering a
single, pithy statement of general wisdom:
 But,
of course, to understand all is to forgive all.
 As the saying is, art is long and life is short.
 For as Pascal reminds us, "It is not good to have all
your wants satisfied."
ZEUGMA

Grammatically correct linkage of one subject with two
or more verbs or a verb with two or more direct
objects. The linking shows a relationship between
ideas more clearly.
Pride opresseth humility; hatred love; cruelty compassion.
–Peacham
 Fred excelled at sports; Harvey at eating; Tom with girls.
 He grabbed his hat from the rack by the stairs and a kiss
from the lips of his wife.
