ap literature final prep. rhetorical terminology
Post on 04-Jan-2016
218 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
AP LITERATUREFINAL PREP
RHETORICAL TERMINOLOGY
I told you a million times to clean your
room!
Hyperbole/Overstatement: A
figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or
effect; an extravagant statement.
My love is a red rose.
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which an
implied comparison is made between two
unlike things that actually have
something important in common.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within
us.
Epistrophe: The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.
Romeo tells Mercutio he can’t dance because
he has a “soul of lead”.
Pun: A humorous play on words, using
similar-sounding or identical words to suggest different
meanings.
The wind stood up and gave a shout.
Anthropomorphism/Personification: The attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.
Francine’s love of sweets was her Achilles heel.
Allusion: A brief, usually indirect
reference to a person, place, or event that
can be real or fictional.
Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
Simile: A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by
"like" or "as."
Chicken for dinner? Dinner will be ruined!
Anadiplosis: the repetition of the final words of a
sentence or line at the beginning of the
next.
Instead of saying that you feel sad, you say
“I feel blue”.
Idiom: An expression that, while an odd or incorrect use of the
language, has a meaning that is
understood even though it is not clearly
derived from the words that form it.
Appointing a Wall Street insider to
direct the Securities and Exchange
commission is like telling Rush Limbaugh to make sure no one
eats all the Halloween candy.
Analogy: A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship
between them.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
I've come to talk with you again.
Apostrophe: The direct address of an absent
or imaginary person or of a personified
abstraction, especially as a
digression in the course of a speech or
composition.
The doctor turned to the nurse and said “Get me his vitals,
STAT!”
Jargon: The specialized language of a professional,
occupational, or other group, often
meaningless to outsiders.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all
Extended Metaphor: A comparison between two
unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines
in a poem.
The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock in
The Great Gatsby.
Symbol: A person, place, action, or thing that (by association,
resemblance, or convention) represents something other than
itself.
She was upstairs, and her children downstairs.
Zeugma (zoog-mah): The use of a word to
modify or govern two or more words although
its use may be grammatically or
logically correct with only one.
If he cuts off your leg, it might hurt a
little.
Understatement: A figure of speech in
which a writer deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious
than it is.
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,
characters refer to clocks, which did not exist in ancient Rome.
Anachronism: A person, scene, event, or other element in a work of literature that fails to correspond with the time or era in which
the work is set.
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of
men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick
on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his
comrades home.
Invocation: A prayer or statement that
calls for help from a god or goddess.
One thousand sails pursued Paris as he fled Troy with Helen
by his side.
Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a
part is used to represent the whole or the whole for a part.
He’s not unfriendly.
Litotes (lie-toe-tez): A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in
which an affirmative is expressed by
negating its opposite.
A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats;
a base, proud, shallow, beggarly,
three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-
stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-
taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave!
Invective: Denunciatory or
abusive language; discourse that casts blame on somebody or
something.
The only thing I know is that I know
nothing.
Paradox: A statement that appears to
contradict itself.
We saw her duck.
Ambiguity: Multiple meanings, intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence
or passage.
If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against
me?
Double Entendre: A corruption of a French phrase meaning "double meaning,” the term is used to indicate a
word or phrase that is deliberately
ambiguous, especially when one of the
meanings is risqué or improper.
Oh, you are a real genius, that’s what
you are!
Melodramatic Redundancy: An
unnecessary repetition that is exaggerated,
sensational and overly dramatic.
I am not young enough to know everything.
Epigram: A concise, witty, and thoughtful statement meant to
both amuse and provoke further thought.
The good guys wear white hats, the bad
guys wear black hats.
Archetype: A theme, motif, symbol, or
stock character that holds a familiar place
in a culture’s consciousness.
The critics had a tremendous thirst to
view his latest paintings.
Synesthesia: A psychological process whereby one kind of sensory stimulus
evokes the subjective experience of another.
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a
pleasure.
Chiasmus: A figure of speech in which the
order of the terms in the first of two
parallel clauses is reversed in the second
I knew enough to realize that the
alligators were in the swamp and that it was time to circle the
wagons.
Mixed Metaphor: A figure of speech
combining inconsistent or incongruous metaphors.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we
shall fight in the hills.
Anaphora: The repetition of the same word or phrase at the
beginning of successive clauses or
verses.
Saying “big boned” instead of “fat”
Euphemism: The substitution of an
inoffensive term for one considered
offensively explicit.
Save me a sniff of that sweet scented
stuff.
Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant
sound.
The crown carries many responsibilities.
Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for
another with which it is closely associated.
Jumbo shrimp
Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which incongruous or
contradictory terms appear side by side.
Next time, there won’t be a next time.
Epanalepsis: The repetition at the end of a clause of the
word that occurred at the beginning of the clause; it tends to make the sentence or clause in which it occurs stand apart
from its surroundings.
In The Scarlet Letter, characters, objects
and events often serve as references to the conflict between the world of man and the
world of God.
Allegory: Extending a metaphor so that
objects, persons, and actions in a text are equated with meanings that lie outside the
text.
A cruel wind blew through the town.
Pathetic Fallacy: Ascribes human
feelings to nature or nonhuman objects.
Live and learn.
Cliché: A phrase, idea, or image that
has been used so much that it has lost much
of its original meaning, impact, and
freshness.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man
healthy, wealthy and wise.
Aphorism: A terse statement which
expresses a general truth or moral principle.
TYPES OF SENTENCES/WRITING
STYLES
Come up to my desk, please.
Imperative Sentence: A sentence that gives a command or makes a
request. Usually ends with a period.
He pulled the plastic tarp off the chairs and folded it and
carried it out to the garage and put it in
his car.
Polysyndeton: The repetition of
conjunctions in close succession for
rhetorical effect.
It is not that today’s artists cannot paint, it is that today’s
critics cannot see..
Balanced Sentence: Characterized by
parallel structure, two or more parts of the sentence have the same form, emphasizing
similarities or differences.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Antithesis: The juxtaposition of
contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a
look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the
foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt,
tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was
neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care
who knew it.
Running Style: A type of sentence that
appears to follow the inner working of the mind by mimicking the rambling, associative syntax of thought.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Asyndeton: The omission of
conjunctions between words, phrases, or
clauses.
Romeo loves Juliet and Juliet, Romeo.
Elliptical Construction: A
sentence containing a deliberate omission of
words.
At the risk of being redundant and repetitive and
redundant, let me say that hearing the same thing over and over
and over again is the last thing children
need from their parents.
Tautology: The repetition, within the immediate context, of
the same word or phrase or the same
meaning in different words; usually as a
fault of style.
Another possible adjustment relates to the
age at which Social Security and Medicare
benefits will be provided. Under current law, and even with the so-called
normal retirement age for Social Security slated to move up to 67 over the next two decades, the ratio of the number of years that the typical worker will spend in
retirement to the number of years he or she works will rise in the long
term.
Circumlocution: To write evasively; to
discuss a topic without saying
anything concrete about it.
Do you want me to hit you?
Rhetorical Question: A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women,
French to men, and German to my horse.
Isocolon/Parallel Structure: A
succession of phrases of approximately equal
length and corresponding structure.
Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi.
Anastrophe: Inversion of the normal
syntactical structure of a sentence.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true
place for a just man is also a prison.
Periodic Sentence: A type of sentence in
which the main idea is expressed at the end.
The cat sat on the mat, purring softly
and licking his paws.
Loose Sentence: The most common sentence
in modern usage, begins with the main point (an independent clause), followed by
one or more subordinate clauses.
SOUNDS
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though.
End Rhyme: Rhyme of the terminal syllables of lines of poetry.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Euphony: A pleasing arrangement of sounds.
Bam! Boom! Crash!
Onomatopoeia: The formation or use of
words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions to which they refer.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered weak and weary.
Internal Rhyme: Rhyme that occurs within a
line of verse
I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and
restless.
Assonance: Repetition of vowels without
repetition of consonants used as an alternative to rhyme
in verse.
First and last, odds and ends, short and
sweet
Consonance: Recurrence or repetition of
consonants especially at the end of stressed syllables without the similar correspondence
of vowels
The claws that catch and kick and crash against the crammed
cabin.
Cacophony: Harsh or discordant sounds within a literary
work.
POETRY - TYPES OF METER
U /a DORE
iambic
/ UNEV er
trochaic
U U /ob vi OUS
anapestic
/ U UWHIS per ing
dactylic
POETRY - MEASURES OF METER
Thus I
monometer
Move over, Ham
dimeter
In this contracted star
trimeter
If on my theme I rightly think
tetrameter
My name is Ozmandias, King of Kings
pentameter
While the world sought light by night and
sought not thy light
hexameter
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
heptameter
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary,
octameter
POETRY - NAME THAT METRICAL LINE
Tell me not in mournful numbers
Trochaic tetrameter
Take to the wounded the needed and much longed for medicine
Dactylic pentameter
When I consider how my life is spent
Iambic pentameter
On the shores of the sea where the eagles
fly near rocky shoals.
Anapestic pentameter
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December
Trochaic octameter
And today the great Yertle, that marvelous
he
Anapestic tetrameter
top related