AP Literature Exam Review

Semester Examination Review: AP Literature
Fall 2005/Jennifer Hilley

We will review the following elements in class over the next couple of days, to ameliorate any problems with comprehension or understanding. Moihahahahahahahahahaha.

Format: You will have an essay to construct on an AP FRQ related to any of the major works you have read thus far. Furthermore, you will have a comprehensive multiple-choice objective test featuring recall, analysis, and synthesis questions. You have will two hours to complete both sections of the test.

Subject matter:
Ø The Great Gatsby
Ø Oedipus Rex
Ø Heart of Darkness
Ø Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Ø Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Ø Macbeth
Ø Literary Terms and Figurative Language (please focus on the asterisked terms, in addition to others I provide for you in class)
Ø Literary Criticism
Ø “Prufrock”
Ø Sonnets

Specifically. . .
The Great Gatsby
Ø Jay Gatz/Gatsby
Ø Daisy Buchanan
Ø Jordan Baker
Ø Meyer Wolfsheim
Ø F. Scott Fitzgerald and the 1920’s
Ø Color Imagery and Ocular Imagery
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now!
Ø Marlow/Willard
Ø Kurtz/Colonel Kurtz
Ø Harlequin/Photojournalist
Ø District Manager/Kilgore
Ø The Accountant
Ø The Intended
Ø Symbolism of the jungle: fog, shadows, women knitting, the scent of rotting hippo meat. . .
Oedipus Rex
Characters
Ø Polybus and Merope
Ø Oedipus
Ø Jocasta
Ø Laius
Ø Creon
Ø Oracle
Ø Fate/prophecy
Ø The concept of sin
Ø Greek tragedy
Ø Hubris
Ø Incest


Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Characters
Ø Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Ø Hamlet the Elder (ghost)
Ø Claudius
Ø Gertrude
Ø Polonius
Ø Laertes
Ø Ophelia
Ø Players and Player King
Ø Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Ø Horatio
Ø Osric
Ø Reynaldo
Ø Gravedigger
Ø Yorick
Themes
Ø Denmark as a garden
Ø The play-within-the-play motif
Ø Rottenness
Ø The role of the supernatural
Ø The role of philosophy
Ø The significance of three sons mourning three dead fathers
Ø Graveyard imagery
Ø Action v. intellect
Ø Sexual imagery
R and G Are Dead
Ø Existential thought
Ø Tom Stoppard
Ø Theatre of the Absurd
Characters
Ø Title characters
Ø Player (in studied contrast to the minimal role in Hamlet. . .)
Ø Cast of Hamlet
Themes
Ø Mortality
Ø Ambiguity
Ø The interpolation of narrative
Macbeth (or this one. . .)

Ø Macbeth
Ø Macduff
Ø James I
Ø Lady Macbeth
Ø Fleance
Ø Lady Macduff
Ø Banquo
Ø Siward
Ø Duncan
Ø Edward the Confessor
Ø Malcolm and Donalbain
Ø the witches
Ø Hecate
Ø Seyton
Ø Ross, Lennox, etc.

Recurring Images
Ø Blood
Ø Clothing
Ø Sleeplessness/sleep
Ø Garden
Themes
Ø Appearance v. reality
Ø Ambition
Ø Guilt
Ø Relationships between men and women
Ø Fate v. free will

Ancillary Works:
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
-dramatic monologue
-critical commentary
-Biblical and mythic allusions throughout
-Prufrock as an unreliable narrator
-the role of the speaker and his choices (“Do I dare/Disturb the universe?”)
Sonnets
-scansion and rhyme scheme
-diction
-figurative terms

Additional Things I Tell You at the Last Minute: