AP English Literature and Composition

## Learning Outcomes

- Distinguish clearly between **literal language** and **figurative language** in poetry
- Explain how **diction**, **denotation**, and **connotation** shape meaning
- Identify major figurative devices such as **metaphor**, **simile**, **personification**, **symbol**, and **paradox**
- Analyse how specific words and phrases develop **tone**, **speaker attitude**, and **theme**
- Avoid common AP Lit errors such as device-spotting, vague commentary, and unsupported symbolism
- Build stronger poetry analysis paragraphs for multiple-choice and FRQ responses

## AP English Literature and Composition Syllabus

For the AP English Literature and Composition, you are expected to understand literal and figurative language in poetry, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know the difference between **literal meaning** and **figurative meaning** in words and phrases
- Identify how **diction** works through both **denotation** and **connotation**
- Explain the function of specific poetic devices, especially **metaphor**, **simile**, **personification**, **symbol**, and **paradox**
- Understand that **imagery** is not identical to figurative language and may be literal or figurative
- Distinguish between **symbol** and **metaphor**, and between **paradox** and **oxymoron**
- Analyse how language choices contribute to **tone**, **speaker perspective**, and **theme**
- Use textual evidence to explain what a device does, not just what it is

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What is the difference between literal language and figurative language in poetry?
2. How are denotation and connotation different, and why does that difference matter in analysis?
3. What is the difference between a symbol and a metaphor?
4. Why is it weak to write only “the poet uses imagery” or “the poet uses metaphor” in an AP Lit essay?
5. How does Emily Dickinson’s “There Is No Frigate Like a Book” move from concrete transport imagery to larger meaning?

## Introduction

In AP English Literature, students often lose marks not because they miss a device, but because they stop too early. They identify a metaphor, a symbol, or a striking image, then move on. The exam, however, rewards explanation. You need to show what the language means literally, what it suggests figuratively, and why that matters for the poem as a whole.

Poetry works through a kind of double meaning. Words can describe something directly, but they can also imply emotion, comparison, value, tension, or theme. The strongest readers keep both levels in view at once. They ask not just “What device is this?” but “What is happening here, and how does this wording deepen it?”

> **Key Term: literal language**
> Words used in their direct, ordinary sense.

## Introduction to the core distinction

### Literal meaning, figurative meaning, and why AP readers care

A poem must first make sense on the surface. If you do not know what is happening literally, figurative analysis will usually become vague or incorrect. Start with the plain situation: who is speaking, what is being described, and what action or thought is taking placeing.

> **Key Term: figurative language**
> Language that departs from strict literal meaning in order to create comparison, emphasis, imagery, or layered significance.

For example, if a speaker says a road is “a ribbon of moonlight,” the road is not literally a ribbon. The literal object is the road. The figurative phrase compares its appearance to something delicate, narrow, and luminous. That extra layer affects tone: the scene may seem dreamlike, quiet, or enchanted.

Students often skip the literal step and jump straight to abstraction. That causes thin commentary. Suppose you write, “The road being a ribbon suggests life is fragile.” Maybe. But unless the poem supports that leap, the claim feels forced. A better sequence is:

- Literal: the speaker sees a road shining in moonlight
- Figurative: the road resembles a ribbon, so it seems narrow, soft, and carefully laid out
- Effect: the comparison turns an ordinary scene into something graceful and slightly unreal, shaping a reflective tone

That is the sort of movement AP commentary needs.

> **Test Tip:** In poetry FRQs, begin each body paragraph by grounding yourself in the literal scene. If you cannot say what is happening plainly, your figurative reading will likely drift.

### Diction, denotation, and connotation

Poets do not just choose ideas; they choose words. A synonym is rarely a perfect replacement because each word carries its own texture and associations.

> **Key Term: diction**
> A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words.
>
> **Key Term: denotation**
> A word’s direct, dictionary-level meaning.
>
> **Key Term: connotation**
> The implied associations or emotional colouring a word carries.

The distinction matters because poems often gain force from connotation more than denotation. A word may denote one thing but suggest much more.

Take a simple example. A poet could describe a house as “old,” “ancient,” “worn,” “ruined,” or “weathered.” Each word points to age, but the connotations differ:

- **old** is neutral
- **ancient** suggests great age, perhaps dignity
- **worn** suggests use and fatigue
- **ruined** suggests collapse or loss
- **weathered** suggests endurance

On an AP question, saying “the poet uses diction” is not enough. You must explain the effect of the specific word. Why **weathered** instead of **broken**? Why **frugal** instead of **cheap**?

Dickinson’s “There Is No Frigate Like a Book” is useful here. On the most direct level, the poem compares reading to travel. But the diction intensifies that idea. **Frigate**, **coursers**, and **chariot** are more elevated than plain terms like ship, horse, and cart. Their connotations suggest energy, romance, and grandeur. Then the poem shifts to money-related words such as **poorest**, **toll**, and **frugal**. That diction broadens the poem’s claim: reading is not only exciting but widely available. Finally, **human soul** lifts the meaning further, suggesting that books change inner life, not just imagination.

The point is not to label the words as “good diction.” The point is to track what each choice adds.

> **Key Term: imagery**
> Language that appeals to the senses.

A common mistake is treating imagery and figurative language as the same thing. They overlap, but they are not identical. “The sour smell of smoke” is imagery and fully literal. “The sun stabbed at his skin” is imagery and figurative at the same time.

## Major figurative devices and how they work

### Metaphor, simile, and extended metaphor

> **Key Term: metaphor**
> A direct comparison between unlike things without using “like” or “as.”
>
> **Key Term: simile**
> A comparison between unlike things using “like” or “as.”

A metaphor does more than decorate. It organizes thought. When Shakespeare writes, “All the world’s a stage,” the line does not merely produce a clever image. It invites readers to think of life in terms of entrances, exits, roles, performance, and audience. A strong metaphor opens a network of implications.

A simile tends to be more explicit. “Like” or “as” marks the comparison clearly, which can make the relation easier to see at first. But the work of analysis remains the same: what does the comparison reveal?

Consider a startling simile such as an evening spread out “like a patient etherized upon a table.” The power does not come from shock alone. The comparison can suggest paralysis, discomfort, lifelessness, even spiritual numbness. If the surrounding poem presents an anxious or stalled speaker, the simile helps define that inner condition.

> **Key Term: extended metaphor**
> A comparison sustained across several lines or throughout a poem.

Extended metaphor is especially important in AP poetry analysis because it often shapes the poem’s whole line of reasoning. Dickinson’s “There Is No Frigate Like a Book” sustains transport imagery throughout the poem. Books are not just briefly like vehicles; the comparison governs the poem’s movement. A **book** becomes a **frigate**, a **page** becomes **coursers**, and imaginative reading becomes a **chariot** bearing the **human soul**.

Notice how the extended metaphor works in stages:

1. It begins concretely with transport.
2. It widens into access through the reference to cost.
3. It ends in spiritual reach through the soul.

That progression gives you an essay structure. A strong paragraph might trace how the metaphor moves from physical travel to social access to inner change.

> **Test Tip:** If a poem repeats or develops one comparison across multiple lines, ask whether it is just a repeated image or an extended metaphor shaping the poem’s entire claim.

### Personification, symbol, and paradox

> **Key Term: personification**
> Giving human qualities, actions, or attitudes to nonhuman things or abstractions.

Personification matters because it changes the relationship between speaker and subject. If the wind “whispers,” death “waits,” or confusion “makes his masterpiece,” abstract or natural forces begin to feel intentional. That can make a scene more intimate, threatening, playful, or uncanny.

But do not stop at naming it. Ask what the human trait does. If a storm “pounds” the house, the weather feels aggressive. If dawn “stretches,” the scene feels gentle and slow. The exact verb matters.

> **Key Term: symbol**
> A concrete object, image, or action that signifies both itself and a larger idea in context.

A symbol is not just any object that appears in a poem. Context gives it symbolic force. A rose can be just a flower in one poem and a sign of love, beauty, or fragility in another. Do not assume symbolism just because an object seems meaningful.

This is one of the most common weak moves in AP essays: “The bird symbolizes freedom” with no support. Better questions are:

- Does the poem return to the bird?
- Does the bird connect to the speaker’s conflict?
- Does the surrounding language push the object beyond itself?

That helps distinguish **symbol** from **metaphor**. A metaphor compares one thing to another. A symbol remains itself while also pointing outward.

> **Key Term: paradox**
> An apparently self-contradictory statement that reveals a deeper truth.

Paradox often appears when poetry tries to express emotional complexity. A statement may look impossible on the surface but become revealing under pressure. If a speaker suggests that silence speaks, loss teaches, or captivity frees, the contradiction may express a truth that ordinary statement cannot.

Students also confuse paradox with oxymoron. An **oxymoron** is usually a short phrase with contradiction built into a few words, such as “deafening silence.” A paradox is usually a fuller idea or statement. On multiple-choice, that distinction matters.

## How to analyse language on the exam

### From device-spotting to commentary

AP readers reward commentary, not taxonomies. You do not earn much by producing a list: metaphor, imagery, personification, symbol. A list is not an interpretation.

A better method is:

- identify the word or phrase
- explain the literal meaning
- explain the figurative suggestion
- connect it to tone, speaker attitude, or theme

For example:

Weak:
“The poet uses personification and imagery.”

Stronger:
“By describing the dawn as ‘stretching’ over the hills, the poet personifies morning as slow and bodily, which softens the setting and creates a calm, waking tone.”

That sentence does four things: identifies evidence, names the device, explains the effect, and links to tone.

Here is a model analytical paragraph shape for poetry:

1. Claim about the poem’s meaning or tone
2. Specific quoted evidence
3. Explanation of the language choice
4. Connection to the larger pattern in the poem

Example model:
“The speaker’s admiration for reading deepens because the poem’s transport imagery becomes increasingly elevated. Dickinson first compares a book to a ‘frigate,’ making reading feel swift and adventurous, but she later describes it as a ‘chariot / That bears the human soul,’ shifting from physical travel to inner change. This widening metaphor suggests that literature does not merely entertain; it carries the self into broader states of feeling and thought.”

That is what AP commentary looks like.

### Common mistakes students make

Several errors appear again and again.

First, students paraphrase instead of analyse. They restate the poem in simpler words but never explain why the language matters.

Second, students identify a device without function. “This is a metaphor” is the start, not the finish.

Third, students confuse **tone** with **mood**. Tone is the speaker’s attitude. Mood is the feeling created for the reader.

Fourth, students assume every image is symbolic. Many images are simply concrete details that ground the poem.

Fifth, students separate form and language too sharply. In poetry, repeated figurative language may also shape structure. An extended metaphor can guide the whole poem. A paradox can mark a turn. A symbol can gather force by repetition.

Finally, students make commentary too broad. Saying “this shows life” or “this suggests sadness” is often too vague. Be exact. What kind of sadness? Resignation? Nostalgia? Grief? Self-pity? Wonder mixed with loss?

A strong AP Lit sentence often sounds like this:
“Through [device], the poet presents [effect], which suggests [meaning].”

That frame is simple, but it keeps you analytical.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Literal language states meaning directly, while figurative language adds comparison, implication, or layered significance
- Strong poetry analysis begins with the literal situation before moving to figurative meaning
- Diction matters because each word carries both denotation and connotation
- Imagery appeals to the senses and may be literal or figurative
- A metaphor makes a direct comparison; a simile makes a comparison using “like” or “as”
- An extended metaphor develops one comparison across multiple lines or the whole poem
- Personification gives human qualities to nonhuman things or abstractions
- A symbol represents both itself and a larger idea in context
- A paradox presents apparent contradiction in order to reveal a deeper truth
- Symbol is not the same as metaphor, and paradox is not the same as oxymoron
- AP essays score better when they explain function and effect, not just name devices
- Dickinson’s “There Is No Frigate Like a Book” shows how figurative language can move from concrete image to larger thematic meaning

## Key Terms and Concepts

- literal language
- figurative language
- diction
- denotation
- connotation
- imagery
- metaphor
- simile
- extended metaphor
- personification
- symbol
- paradox


Poetry II - Literal and figurative language