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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. Typically referred to as the greatest American novelist (next to Mark Twain) of the second half of the 19th century. Main theme of his work was the innocence and exuberance of America compared to the corruption and wisdom of Europe. Wrote 'The Portra
Ralph Ellison
Henry James
Booker T. Washington
Saul Bellow
2. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Epic Story
Edward Teller
Phillip Roth
Henry David Thoreau
3. 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.
Epic Story
Lyric Poem
Atavism
James Fenimore Cooper
4. Well-known humorists.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Jack London
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Saul Bellow
5. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Edith Wharton
Henry James
John Winthrop
Booker T. Washington
6. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Rhyme Scheme
Walt Whitman
Benjamin Franklin
Sarah Orne Jewett
7. Resisted materialism and chose a life of simplicity - close to nature. Walden is a guidebook for life - showing the reader how to live wisely in a world designed to make wise living impossible. 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' has become a primer
Sarah Orne Jewett
Phillip Roth
The Day of Doom
Henry David Thoreau
8. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Vachel Lindsay
Beat Writers
Zora Neal Hurston
The Declaration of Independence
9. 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.
Edgar Lee Masters
Monologue
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Kate Chopin
10. 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)
Claude McKay
Modernism
Sylvia Plath
11. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
Lyric Poem
W.E.B Du Bois
Jean Toomer
John Winthrop
12. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
John Winthrop
Allen Ginsberg
Meter
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
13. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Edith Wharton
Scan
Sarah Orne Jewett
William Byrd
14. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Thomas Paine
Calvinism
Robert Frost
Willa Cather
15. (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
Calvinism
Stephen Crane
Puritan Poetry
Verse
16. 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
Abigail Adams
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Aphorisms
Samuel Sewall
17. 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
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Social Darwinism
William S. Burroughs
Transcendental Club
18. 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
T.S Eliot
Countee Cullen
Loaded Words
Transcendentalism
19. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
Theodore Dreiser
Saul Bellow
American Adam
J.D Salinger
20. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Sylvia Plath
Foot
Sarah Orne Jewett
Booker T. Washington
21. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Allen Ginsberg
Nietzscheism
Modernism
Emile Zola
22. Chicago School - Wrote 'Lucinda Matlock' - Created 'Spoon River Anthology' - Spoon River poems are characterized by: An unpoetic - colloquial style - frank descriptions of sex - a very critical view of small town life - and a description of he inner
Edgar Lee Masters
James Weldon Johnson
W.E.B Du Bois
Frederick Douglass
23. 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.
John Adams
Langston Hughes
e.e cummings
Free Verse
24. 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.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Imagist Poetry
Maya Angelou
25. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Maya Angelou
John Winthrop
Foot
Robert Lowell
26. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
James Weldon Johnson
Washington Irving
Gwendolyn Brooks
Herman Melville
27. (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
Bret Harte
Atavism
William Bradford
Lyres
28. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Sylvia Plath
Narrative Poem
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Darwinism
29. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Jean Toomer
Erica Jong
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Dorthy Parker
30. Credited with creating: the modern short story and the detective novel - and the entire genre of mystery. Wrote 'The Philosophy of Composition' - 'The Raven' - 'Tell-Tale Heart -' 'The Cask of Amontillado -' and 'The Gold Bug.' (The first detective
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Meter
Beat Movement
Edgar Allen Poe
31. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Carl Sandburg
Frederick Douglass
Allen Ginsberg
Jack London
32. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Rhyme
The 3 primary literary genres
Frank Norris
33. In the 1920s - became the symbol of the liberated woman for her wit and independence. Known for her caustic and clever poems and short stories.
Imagist Poetry
Edgar Allen Poe
Dorthy Parker
Nathaniel Hawthorne
34. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Poetry
Jack London
Narrative Poem
Rhyme Scheme
35. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.
Allegory
Free Verse
Prose
William S. Burroughs
36. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Modernism
Mayflower Compact
William S. Burroughs
Robert Lowell
37. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Foot
Determinism
Sylvia Plath
Ralph Waldo Emerson
38. Applying the evolutionary 'survival of the fittest' concept to a world marked by struggle and competition. (Promulgated by Herbert Spencer - a best-selling sociologist of the late 19th Century.
Phillip Roth
Ernest Hemmingway
Social Darwinism
Iambic Pentameter
39. Created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetic expression. Rejected conventional themes - traditional literary references - allusions - and rhymes. Used long lines to capture rhythms of natural speech - free ver
Frank Norris
James Baldwin
Walt Whitman
Emile Zola
40. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Stephen Crane
Melting Pot
Genteel Tradition
Ernest Hemmingway
41. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Nietzscheism
Transcendentalism
Social Darwinism
Stephen Crane
42. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Thomas Jefferson
Frank Norris
William Bradford
Carl Sandburg
43. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Loss of Traditional Values
Prose
Edward Teller
Persona
44. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
John Winthrop
Gothic
Persona
Norman Mailer
45. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Frederick Douglass
Refrain
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Imagist Poetry
46. 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
Sarah Orne Jewett
Social Darwinism
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Loss of Traditional Values
47. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Nietzscheism
Rhyme
John Smith
Norman Mailer
48. 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
Vachel Lindsay
W.E.B Du Bois
Modernism
Imagist Poetry
49. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Saul Bellow
Carl Sandburg
Genteel Tradition
Scientism
50. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Henry David Thoreau
Nietzscheism
Claude McKay
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century