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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. 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.
Edith Wharton
Edgar Lee Masters
Rhyme
Mayflower Compact
2. She holds a unique place in American history as both the wife of one president and the mother of another. In her own right - she was an ardent American patriot. Her perseverance during the American Revolution kept her family together and enabled her
Imagist Poetry
Robert Lowell
Abigail Adams
William S. Burroughs
3. First Black woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Novel focus on black cultural identity in contemporary America. Wrote 'The Bluest Eye -' 'Tar Baby -' and 'Beloved'
Free Verse
Persona
Scientism
Toni Morrison
4. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
The Day of Doom
Ernest Hemmingway
Phillip Roth
Sarah Orne Jewett
5. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Toni Morrison
Saul Bellow
Modernism
Maya Angelou
6. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Jonathan Edwards
Alice Walker
Willa Cather
The 3 primary literary genres
7. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Puritan Poetry
Henry David Thoreau
James Baldwin
Mary Wilkins Freeman
8. (Colonial Period) Began 'The History of New England' aboard the Arbella in 1630. Lead 2 -000 English emigrant to Massachusetts Bay. Made daily journal-style entries until his death. Intended it to be an account of his long governorship. Style is pla
e.e cummings
Gothic
John Winthrop
Alice Walker
9. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Broadside
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Walt Whitman
Robert Lowell
10. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Beat Writers
Walt Whitman
Drama
Saul Bellow
11. Clever - memorable sayings.
Aphorisms
Verse
Maya Angelou
Refrain
12. A stanza.
Alice Walker
John Steinbeck
Sylvia Plath
Verse
13. A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's - in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature - and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter - intuiti
Racialism
Imagist Poetry
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Transcendentalism
14. (Colonial Period) 1. God is King and Ruler. 2. Our duty in this world is to see that God's will prevails.3. Man is depraved from birth. 4. Few will be saved. Damned are damned despite their best efforts. Belief in Covenant Theology : God's covenant w
Drama
Beat Writers
John Steinbeck
Calvinism
15. Recluse - agoraphobic - Didn't title her poems. All are designated by numbers. Paved the way for the Imagist movement of the 1920s. Considered on of the founders of Modern American Poetry. Concrete imagery - forceful language - and unique style usher
William Byrd
Monologue
Emily Dickinson
Scientism
16. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Loaded Words
Loss of Traditional Values
Naturalism
17. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
J.D Salinger
Theodore Dreiser
Puritan Poetry
Nathaniel Hawthorne
18. 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
Calvinism
Thomas Paine
Prose
19. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Sarah Orne Jewett
Three main colonial era poets
Gothic
Beat Writers
20. (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
William Bradford
The Declaration of Independence
Robert Frost
Booker T. Washington
21. Chicago School : Verses often concern ordinary - everyday people; realistic poems and dramatic emphasis attract a large audience. Wrote 'Chicago -' and a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Poems describe everyday Americans - have a positive tone - use sim
Nativism
Carl Sandburg
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edith Wharton
22. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Bret Harte
W.E.B Du Bois
Loaded Words
Richard Wright
23. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Mayflower Compact
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Darwinism
Polemic
24. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Scientism
Loss of Traditional Values
Nietzscheism
25. An organization of the leading transcendentalists living around Boston. They were interested in new developments in theology - philosophy - and literature. Major writers: Ripley - Emerson - Alcott - Fuller - Hawthorne - Thoreau - Channing - Hedge - P
Determinism
Edgar Lee Masters
Kate Chopin
Transcendental Club
26. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Walt Whitman
Kate Chopin
Jack London
Flannery O'Connor
27. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
William S. Burroughs
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Drama
28. Wished to return to more primitive principles - to simplicity - sobriety - religious earnestness - and personal self-control. Aim was to purify church of England from 'Popery' - Persecuted harshly by Charles I and Archbishop of Canterbury William Lau
The Day of Doom
Prose
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Ralph Ellison
29. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Erica Jong
Free Verse
Ralph Ellison
William Byrd
30. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Determinism
Foot
Aphorisms
Kate Chopin
31. Local Colorist Wrote 'The Country of the Pointed Firs' Famous for use of idiomatic language - conservative values and imagery and vivid descriptions of rural New England.
John Steinbeck
Cotton Mather
Ezra Pound
Sarah Orne Jewett
32. Wrote 'since feeling is first -' 'somewhere i have never traveled - gladly beyond -' and 'The Enormous Room' - Experimented with : form - punctuation - spelling - typography - grammar - imagery - rhythm - and syntax.
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
e.e cummings
Scan
Transcendental Club
33. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Darwinism
Imagist Poetry
Anne Sexton
Kate Chopin
34. (Colonial Period) Primarily written to set forth orthodox Calvinist Christianity. Not considered the best representation of poetry during the whole period. Rarely approached excellence of English models. Too much of an emphasis on heavenly values and
Prose
John Smith
Blank Verse
Puritan Poetry
35. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Ralph Ellison
Nietzscheism
James Thurbur
Robert Frost
36. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Broadside
Stephen Crane
Edgar Lee Masters
Scan
37. Wrote 'Grapes of Wrath -' 'Of Mice and Men -' and 'East of Eden -' and 'Winter of Our Discontent.' Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature - Pulitzer and and the National Book Award.
Bret Harte
John Steinbeck
Imagist Poetry
Rhythm
38. Ranked as top American novelist - even though few of his contemporaries recognized his genius. Moby Dick is considered to be America's greatest prose epic. It is also top contender for best American novel. Wrote the first great romance about the Sout
Nativism
Narrative Poem
Herman Melville
James Baldwin
39. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
The Declaration of Independence
Edgar Lee Masters
Transcendental Club
Beat Movement
40. 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.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Thomas Paine
Emily Dickinson
Free Verse
41. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Broadside
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Rhythm
Iambic Pentameter
42. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.
Gothic
Realism
Prose
Scan
43. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Rhyme
Puritan Poetry
Imagist Poetry
Melting Pot
44. Wrote 'The Red Badge of Courage' and 'Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -' and 'The Open Boat.' Red Badge of Courage is considered the first modern war novel. Work is celebrated for its images and symbolism. Work is often described as impressionist due t
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Nativism
Stephen Crane
Foot
45. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Monologue
Realism
Transcendental Club
Modernism
46. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Lyres
Edward Teller
Jack Kerouac
Henry David Thoreau
47. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
Robert Frost
Stephen Crane
Genteel Tradition
Blank Verse
48. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Robert Lowell
James Weldon Johnson
Vachel Lindsay
Stanza
49. 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'
Beat Writers
Maya Angelou
William S. Burroughs
Walt Whitman
50. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
Gwendolyn Brooks
James Baldwin
Benjamin Franklin
Edward Teller