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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. 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
John Adams
Allegory
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Herman Melville
2. Southern Gothic writer. Creates stories that simultaneously shock readers and reflect her strong Catholic faith.
3. 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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Blank Verse
Kate Chopin
Mary Wilkins Freeman
4. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Anne Sexton
Edgar Allen Poe
Herman Melville
William Faulkner
5. 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.
Frederick Douglass
John Winthrop
Emily Dickinson
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
6. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
Sylvia Plath
Meter
Scientism
Harriet Beecher Stowe
7. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
J.D Salinger
Stanza
Emile Zola
William Bradford
8. 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.
William Byrd
William Faulkner
Atavism
Jean Toomer
9. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Flannery O'Connor
Thomas Paine
Lyres
Persona
10. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
Polemic
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Blank Verse
Mary Wilkins Freeman
11. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Thomas Jefferson
Melting Pot
Loaded Words
Ballad
12. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Social Darwinism
Melting Pot
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Jack Kerouac
13. A 14-line poem with a set rhythm and rhyme scheme.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Stanza
Transcendental Club
Sonnet
14. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Thomas Paine
Polemic
Iambic Pentameter
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
15. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Lyres
Racialism
Scientism
Benjamin Franklin
16. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Refrain
Polemic
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Nietzscheism
17. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Romanticism
Alice Walker
Edith Wharton
Norman Mailer
18. Literary movement of the 19th century Presented the details of ordinary life in art. Realists rejected the heroic and adventurous and concentrated on pessimistic views of poverty - prostitution and pain. Reaction to Romanticism.
e.e cummings
Emily Dickinson
Realism
Lyric Poem
19. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Edward Teller
James Thurbur
Booker T. Washington
Imagist Poetry
20. 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.
Thomas Paine
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Claude McKay
American Adam
21. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
W.E.B Du Bois
Henry James
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Willa Cather
22. 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
Robert Lowell
Alice Walker
Bret Harte
Vachel Lindsay
23. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
James Thurbur
James Weldon Johnson
Saul Bellow
Lyric Poem
24. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Erica Jong
Thomas Jefferson
Epic Story
Emile Zola
25. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
Drama
Erica Jong
Monologue
Kate Chopin
26. 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.
Claude McKay
John Steinbeck
Erica Jong
Romanticism
27. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
Walt Whitman
Anne Sexton
Langston Hughes
Allegory
28. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Jack Kerouac
Booker T. Washington
Calvinism
Lyric Poem
29. 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
Poetry
Realism
John Steinbeck
Emily Dickinson
30. Clever - memorable sayings.
Free Verse
Kate Chopin
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Aphorisms
31. 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'
Drama
Frederick Douglass
William S. Burroughs
Vachel Lindsay
32. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
Iambic Pentameter
Rhyme Scheme
Transcendentalism
John Smith
33. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
Prose
John Adams
Jonathan Edwards
T.S Eliot
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
T.S Eliot
Norman Mailer
Robert Lowell
35. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Erica Jong
Beat Writers
Washington Irving
Verse
36. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Social Darwinism
Iambic Pentameter
The Declaration of Independence
37. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Monologue
Beat Writers
Herman Melville
38. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Ralph Ellison
Ballad
Monologue
e.e cummings
39. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
Carl Sandburg
Gwendolyn Brooks
Bret Harte
Mary Wilkins Freeman
40. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Iambic Pentameter
Lyric Poem
Robert Frost
Mayflower Compact
41. 'The Old Man and the Sea -' 'The Sun Also Rises -' 'A Farewell to Arms -' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Writing style emphasizes: Short sentences - brief paragraphs - active verbs - authenticity - compression - clarity - and immediacy. Produced some
Ernest Hemmingway
Washington Irving
Stephen Crane
Melting Pot
42. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Scientism
Erica Jong
Imagist Poetry
Ballad
43. 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.
Naturalism
Atavism
Persona
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
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
Prose
Thomas Morton
Stephen Crane
John Winthrop
45. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Richard Wright
Free Verse
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Frederick Douglass
46. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Epic Story
James Thurbur
Aphorisms
Broadside
47. Wrote 'Richard Cory' - Created poems dealing with historic myths and characters. Known primarily for short - ironic characteristics of ordinary individuals. Won 3 Pulitzers : 'Collected Poems -' 'The Man Who Died Twice -' and 'Tristram'
Gothic
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Sylvia Plath
Nietzscheism
48. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
John Winthrop
Jack Kerouac
T.S Eliot
Samuel Sewall
49. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Robert Lowell
Benjamin Franklin
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Sarah Orne Jewett
50. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Jack London
Lyric Poem
Imagist Poetry
Benjamin Franklin