AP Literature Midterm Review Close Reading the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text.

. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read. Diction Denotation The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing. The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. An idea or feeling that a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning. Language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Opposite of Formal Diction Word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity, or freshness. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman. A comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification. Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. The presentation of something as being smaller or less good or important than it actually is. A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

Connotation

Formal Diction Informal Diction Figurative Language

Metaphor

Extended Metaphor

Personification

Analogy

Overstatement (Hyperbole) Understatement

Paradox

Irony

Imagery Syntax Cumulative Sentence

Visually descriptive or figurative language. The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. Complete the main idea at the beginning of the sentence, as in the following example: Education has no equal in opening minds, instilling values, and creating opportunities. A complex sentence in which the main clause comes last and is preceded by the subordinate clause. A subject is placed before the verb A verb is placed before the subject Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience. Inducing or suggestive of a particular feeling or state of mind. The events in a story particularly rendered toward the achievement of something. A person, especially with reference to a personality. The leading character or a major character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text. A person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. A novel dealing with a person's development or spiritual education. a character in fiction whose personality, background, motives, and other features are fully delineated by the author. an easily recognized character type in fiction who may not be fully delineated but is useful in carrying out some narrative purpose of the author. character who contrasts with another character The process of conveying information about characters by the use of descriptive adjectives, phrases, or epithets. Process by which the personality of a fictitious character is revealed through the character's speech, actions, appearance, etc.

Periodic Sentence

Traditional Word Order Inverted Word Order Tone

Mood

Plot Character Protagonist

Antagonist Bildungsroman Round Character

Flat Character

Foil Direct Characterization

Indirect Characterization

Setting Historical Context

Cultural Environment Point of View First Person Point of View Third Person Point of View Stream of Consciousness

Layered Point of View Narrative Frame

Symbol

Theme

the locale or period in which the action of a novel, play, film, etc., takes place the political, social, cultural, and economic environment related to historical moments, events, and trends The social environment of an individual, also called social context or milieu The narrator's position in relation to the story being told. Narration from the perspective of "I" or "We. narrator is removed from the story (he, she, they, him, her...). A literary style in which one's thoughts and feelings are depicted in a continuous and uninterrupted flow. The use of many different points of view in a story Serves as a companion piece to a story within a story whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories A thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract. The subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person's thoughts, or an exhibition.

4. Reading Poetry y Reading poetry well means responding to it: if you respond emotionally, you are like to read more accurately, with deeper understanding, and with greater pleasure, if you read poetry accurately and with attention to detail, you will almost certainly respond to itor learn how to respondon an emotional level. y Three General Tips: Take a poem on its own terms. Assume there is a reason for everything. Remember that poems exist in time, and times change. y Eight Concrete Steps: 1. Articulate your expectations, starting with the title; 2. Read the syntax literally (identify sentences, reorder sentences, translate sentences into modern prose, defining unfamiliar or ambiguous words, note any ambiguities in the original language that might be ignored in your translation); 3. Use your dictionary, other reference books, and reliable Web Sites; 4. Figure out who, where, when, and what happens; 5. Formulate tentative answers to the questions, Why does it matter? What does it all mean?; 6. Consider how the poems form contributes to its effect and meaning; 7. Investigate and consider the ways the poem

draws on and departs from poetic tradition, especially in terms of its formal features; 8. Argue. 5. Stories/Poems y A&P- Sammy, Queenie and her posse, Stokesie; Sammy leaves the A&P after mistreatment of girls; standing up for what is right y A Rose for Emily Emily, Homer; Emily is crazy; Tradition vs Change/Southern Life y How to Tell a True War Story Tim OBrien, Curt Lemon, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders; the reality of war; complex relationship between war and storytelling y Battle Royal young, black narrator; succumbing to white supremacy y Soldiers Home Krebs, his little sister, his parents; the psychological effects of war y The Great Gatbsy Nick, Gatbsy, Daisy, Tom, Jordan, George, Myrtle; roaring 20s, Jazz Age, disillusionment, love, American Dream, upper class wealth y Frankenstein Captain Walton, Victor Frankenstein, the monster, Elizabeth (sister of Frankenstein), Frankensteins parents; the danger of knowledge, the danger of altering nature, monstrosity, the power of secrets; Romanticism y The Metamorphosis Gregor Samsa, his family; the absurdity of life, psychologically human yet disconnected from body, limits of sympathy 6. Literary Movements y American Modernism - American Modernism covered a wide variety of topics including race relations, gender roles, and sexuality. It reached its peak in America in the 1920s up to the 1940s. Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner; Loss of self and need for selfdefinition is a main characteristic of the era; "buid a self" - a theme well illustrated by the classic modernist work The Great Gatsby y American Realism Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, William Dean Howells, Horation Alger, Jr., Upton Sinclair; Golden Age; depicted a contemporary view of what was happening; an attempt at defining what was real y American Revolutionary colonial and revolutionary time period; mostly documents, letters, speeches, etc.; (177583), American writers had ventured beyond the Puritan literary style and its religious themes and had developed styles of writing that grew from distinctly American; experiences; Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine; Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin; Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis y American Romanticism 19th century; demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good, while human society was filled with corruption; transcendentalism; magazines; Hawthorne, Whitman, Twain, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper y Harlem Renaissance 1920s-30s; explosion of black art/music/literature/jazz (New Negro); Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston

British Modernism - grew out of a general sense of disillusionment with Victorian era attitudes of certainty, conservatism, and objective truth. The movement was greatly influenced by the ideas of Romanticism, Karl Marx's political writings, and the psychoanalytic theories of subconscious Sigmund Freud; Joyce's Ulysses, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, H.D., Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, W. H. Auden, Vladimir Nabokov, William Carlos Williams, Ralph Ellison British Restoration/Enlightenment - refers to the restoration of the monarchy when Charles II was restored to the throne; age of satire; Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope; intellectuals in 18th-century Europe, that sought to mobilize the power of reason, in order to reform society and advance knowledge British Romanticism - intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution; revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment; William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott Victorian Era - period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901; It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century; dealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are suitably punished; Charles Dickens, Bront, George Eliot, Alfred Lord Tennyson