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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP American Literature
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
literature
Instructions:
Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can
study here
.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.
This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
American Adam
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edgar Allen Poe
Transcendentalism
2. Won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize - Works focused on the South - Wrote 'As I Lay Dying -' 'Sanctuary -' and 'The sound and the Fury.' Experimented with Stream of Consciousness writing. Considered the most innovative novelist of his time.
Jonathan Edwards
Herman Melville
Rhyme Scheme
William Faulkner
3. Wrote gold-rush stories like 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat'; never matched up to his previous fame local colorist
Bret Harte
Henry James
Melting Pot
Harriet Beecher Stowe
4. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Ballad
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Maya Angelou
Determinism
5. Produced a number of sketches - poems - and a one-act pay titled 'Cane.'
Jean Toomer
Maya Angelou
Imagist Poetry
Wonders of the Invisible World
6. (Colonial Period) Stands in direct opposition to the principles - personalities and literary styles of William Bradford and John Winthrop. Did not come to settle the land and establish God's Kingdom - but to trade beaver pelts and live pleasantly. Es
James Fenimore Cooper
Determinism
Thomas Morton
Carl Sandburg
7. The Bard of Harlem; most successful black writer in America during the Harlem Renaissance. Wanted to capture the dominant oral traditions of black culture in written form. Best known for his poetry: 'The Weary Blues -' 'Fields of Wonder -' and 'The D
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Frederick Douglass
Langston Hughes
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
8. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
William Bradford
Dorthy Parker
Melting Pot
Richard Wright
9. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Jonathan Edwards
Sylvia Plath
Ballad
Stephen Crane
10. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.
The 3 primary literary genres
Samuel Sewall
Prose
Mary Wilkins Freeman
11. (Colonial Period) Wrote Of Plymouth Plantation (First Thanksgiving) - Chronicled the Pilgrim experience from the religious considerations that caused them to leave England for Holland and then for America.Style is dignified and Grave - and events are
Mary Wilkins Freeman
William Bradford
Sylvia Plath
Transcendentalism
12. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Scientism
Calvinism
Frank Norris
Anne Sexton
13. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Edith Wharton
Beat Writers
Henry David Thoreau
Modernism
14. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Free Verse
Sylvia Plath
Transcendental Club
Epic Story
15. A stanza.
Imagist Poetry
Edward Teller
Bret Harte
Verse
16. Ben Franklin paid his passage to America. First Pamphlet was Common Sense : credited with getting the colonists to see the 'advantage - necessity - and obligation' of breaking with Britain. Followed by a series of pamphlets - collectively called 'An
Thomas Paine
The 3 primary literary genres
Ralph Ellison
American Adam
17. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Prose
Lyres
William Bradford
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
18. (Colonial Period) One of the most brilliant of American thinkers. Theologian and philosopher; vigorous defender of Calvinistic orthodoxy at the end of the Puritan era. Influenced major nineteenth century writers such as Emerson - Hawthorne - Melville
Jonathan Edwards
Benjamin Franklin
Genteel Tradition
Washington Irving
19. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Persona
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Melting Pot
20. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
T.S Eliot
John Adams
Blank Verse
John Winthrop
21. American novelist - essayist - social critic - painter and spoken performer. Most of his works are autobiographical. Frequently experimented with drugs. He wrote the 'Naked Lunch' and the 'Cities of Red Night'
Sylvia Plath
William S. Burroughs
Willa Cather
Racialism
22. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Foot
Genteel Tradition
James Baldwin
Rhyme Scheme
23. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'
John Steinbeck
Thomas Paine
Countee Cullen
Stephen Crane
24. Wrote 'The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.' Escaped slave that became one o f the most effective orators of his day - an influential newspaper writer - a militant abolitionist - and a famous diplomat.
Erica Jong
Frederick Douglass
The Day of Doom
Frank Norris
25. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Broadside
Zora Neal Hurston
Refrain
Mayflower Compact
26. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Free Verse
Henry David Thoreau
Robert Frost
Loss of Traditional Values
27. Local Colorist Wrote 'The Awakening' Writing is memorable for its : Vivid and economical style - Rich Local Dialect - and Penetrating view of the culture of South Louisiana.
Persona
Kate Chopin
Zora Neal Hurston
Transcendental Club
28. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Jack Kerouac
Darwinism
Robert Frost
Vachel Lindsay
29. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
Drama
Sonnet
Scientism
Rhyme Scheme
30. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Edgar Allen Poe
The 3 primary literary genres
Darwinism
Washington Irving
31. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Jack London
Racialism
John Adams
Lyres
32. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Polemic
Booker T. Washington
Frederick Douglass
33. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
J.D Salinger
Flannery O'Connor
Jean Toomer
Saul Bellow
34. Pilgrim's constitution. Shaped the politics - religion - and social behavior of the first settlers. Eventually influenced the shape - style and content of the U.S Constitution. William Bradford was famous for being one of the authors and signers.
Mayflower Compact
Allen Ginsberg
William Bradford
Nathaniel Hawthorne
35. Characterized by: Ordinary Language - Free Verse - Concentrated Word Pictures - Very specific words and phrases - Advanced by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell; also utilized by Robert Frost
Toni Morrison
Gwendolyn Brooks
John Smith
Imagist Poetry
36. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
Rhythm
Refrain
James Weldon Johnson
e.e cummings
37. The reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some distant ancestor that have not been present in intervening generations - such as hand like a hairy paw.
Edgar Allen Poe
Sylvia Plath
Atavism
Stephen Crane
38. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
Wonders of the Invisible World
Robert Lowell
Lyres
Transcendental Club
39. Written by Michael Wigglesworth - the most famous poem of 17th Century - proceeds from judgement day to hell and then to paradise. First American Best Seller.
John Winthrop
The Day of Doom
Saul Bellow
Blank Verse
40. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Epic Story
Loaded Words
Nativism
Thomas Morton
41. Considered the greatest humorist of 19th century American Literature. Wrote 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' Master of 'Local Color' writing. Used vernacular - exaggeration and deadpan narrator to create humor.
Prose
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Thomas Jefferson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
42. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
T.S Eliot
Mary Wilkins Freeman
James Fenimore Cooper
John Smith
43. Wrote 'Songs of Jamaica' - Poetry and 'Harlem Shadows' (first great literary achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. Much of his poetry evokes the rich heritage of Jamaica.
Claude McKay
Edgar Allen Poe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Verse
44. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Benjamin Franklin
Henry David Thoreau
Gothic
Kate Chopin
45. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Drama
Carl Sandburg
Booker T. Washington
Sylvia Plath
46. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
The 3 primary literary genres
Modernism
Allegory
Blank Verse
47. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Polemic
Jean Toomer
Henry James
Racialism
48. Key intellectual and philosophical voice of 19th-century America. Key player in the transcendentalist movement. First to define what made American poetry American - it is verse that celebrates ordinary experience rather than the epic themes of the pa
Edgar Allen Poe
Henry James
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Meter
49. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
Abigail Adams
Claude McKay
Ezra Pound
Meter
50. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Vachel Lindsay
Beat Writers
Naturalism
John Smith