Terms from Past AP Literature Poetry and Prose Essay Prompts

Poetry not written in traditional meter or rhyme

• heroic couplet

• free verse

• blank verse

• terza rhyma

a strong pause within a line of verse (usually marked by punctuation)

• apostrophe

• couplet

• enjambment

• caesura

a run-on line of poetry where it carries over into the next line because there is no punctuation

• enjambment

• end-stopped line

• caesura

• couplet

I’m nobody! || Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us || – don’t tell!

They’d banish || – you know!

• caesura

• enjambment

“April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain."

• caesura

• enjambment

change in focus, point of view, time, or tone in a poem

• shift or turn

• stanza

• rhythm

• caesura

stanza

• a group of words or a phrase in a poem

• a group of lines in a poem, similar to a paragraph in poetry

• a pattern of rhyme in a poem

• repeating words, phrases, or lines for emphasis

emotional or figurative value of words that goes beyond dictionary definition

• connotation

• meter

• speaker

• denotation

the author places a person, concept, place, idea, or theme parallel to another to highlight the contrast between the two and compare them

• pace
• paradox
• syntax
• juxtaposition

a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature

• metaphor
• diction
• allusion
• symbolism