1. PRE-AP Lit. Terms Packet #1

2. Rhetorical Devices The skilled use of language as an art.

3. Analogy Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike.

4. Emotional Appeal Tap a reader’s emotions, such as fear, sympathy, or anger.

5. Euphemism Substitution of an inoffensive term (such as "passed away") for one considered offensively explicit ("died"). From the Greek, "use of good words" Examples: Pre-ownedfor used or second-hand; enhanced interrogation for torture; wind for belch or fart; convenience fee for surcharge

6. Juxtaposition of Ideas Putting ideas or concepts side by side

7. Polysyndeton A sentence style that employs many conjunctions From the Greek, "bound together“ Examples: "We lived and laughed and loved and left."(James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 1939) "Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly--mostly--let them have their whiteness."(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969)

8. Colloquial diction A level of language in a work that seeks the effect of the way that ordinary people speak. Example: "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next."(Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884)

9. Understatement A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. Example: "It's just a flesh wound."(Black Knight, after having both of his arms cut off, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

10. Synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special Example: The sputtering economy could make the difference if you're trying to get a deal on a new set of wheels."(Al Vaughters, WIVB.com, Nov. 21, 2008)

11. Antecedent The noun or noun phrase that a pronoun refers to; From the Latin, "to go before“ Example: "When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them."(G.K. Chesterton)

12. Style The way in which something is spoken, written, or performed "Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work."(Gustave Flaubert)