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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. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Darwinism
Benjamin Franklin
Wonders of the Invisible World
Atavism
2. '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
Jack London
Romanticism
Ernest Hemmingway
Henry James
3. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
Kate Chopin
Saul Bellow
Booker T. Washington
Maya Angelou
4. 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
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Frederick Douglass
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Allen Ginsberg
5. 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
Blank Verse
Bret Harte
Vachel Lindsay
Samuel Sewall
6. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Saul Bellow
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jack Kerouac
Henry James
7. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Drama
Rhyme
Rhyme Scheme
Epic Story
8. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Thomas Jefferson
James Baldwin
Beat Movement
James Fenimore Cooper
9. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Emile Zola
Atavism
Allen Ginsberg
Bret Harte
10. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
Thomas Paine
Benjamin Franklin
F. Scott Fitzgerald
American Adam
11. The belief that 'true' Americans were those of earlier Anglo-Saxon descent - and that this 'race' was under threat from the growing influx of Central European and Asian immigrants.
Cotton Mather
Lyres
Nativism
Rhyme Scheme
12. A stanza.
Transcendental Club
Stanza
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Verse
13. Use of medieval - wild - or mysterious elements in literature. Features gloomy settings and horrifying events. Edgar Allen Poe is regarded as the American Master of Gothic writing.
Willa Cather
Polemic
Henry David Thoreau
Gothic
14. Created the first American adventure story. First successful American novelist. 'Father of the American novel.' Very litigious - cranky and vain. Most famous for the 'Leatherstocking Tales': A series of five novels about the frontiersman - Natty Bump
Vachel Lindsay
Booker T. Washington
James Fenimore Cooper
Determinism
15. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Naturalism
Poetry
American Adam
Allen Ginsberg
16. 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
T.S Eliot
Beat Writers
Stephen Crane
Free Verse
17. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Henry David Thoreau
Genteel Tradition
Iambic Pentameter
F. Scott Fitzgerald
18. End : occurs when words at the ends of lines of poetry rhyme. Internal: occurs when words within a sentences share the same sound - such as 'Each narrow cell in which we dwell.'
Rhyme
Romanticism
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Calvinism
19. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Richard Wright
Jack London
John Winthrop
Erica Jong
20. 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 Sewall
Robert Frost
Phillip Roth
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
21. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Erica Jong
Scientism
American Adam
Epic Story
22. 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'
Transcendental Club
Edwin Arlington Robinson
e.e cummings
Flannery O'Connor
23. A type of literature win which words are selected and strung together for their beauty - sound - and power to express feelings.
Henry David Thoreau
Poetry
Kate Chopin
Refrain
24. Father of American Literature - First American writer to achieve an international reputation. Rip Van Winkle (antihero). Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Devil and Tom Walker. Was 50 years old before his real name appeared on any of his books. Used alias
Ralph Ellison
Alice Walker
Washington Irving
Imagist Poetry
25. 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
Abigail Adams
James Baldwin
William Bradford
26. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Blank Verse
James Weldon Johnson
Loss of Traditional Values
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
27. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Anne Sexton
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Zora Neal Hurston
William Faulkner
28. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Darwinism
Monologue
Ernest Hemmingway
29. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Ralph Ellison
Beat Movement
Polemic
Stanza
30. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Edward Teller
The 3 primary literary genres
Edwin Arlington Robinson
William Faulkner
31. (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
Stanza
Calvinism
Edgar Allen Poe
Jonathan Edwards
32. 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
Herman Melville
Loss of Traditional Values
Booker T. Washington
Refrain
33. 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
Kate Chopin
Phillip Roth
Thomas Paine
Monologue
34. (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
Herman Melville
Nathaniel Hawthorne
William Bradford
James Fenimore Cooper
35. 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.
Realism
Maya Angelou
Robert Frost
John Adams
36. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Racialism
Samuel Sewall
Modernism
Naturalism
37. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
Henry James
Romanticism
Lyric Poem
Jack Kerouac
38. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Willa Cather
Claude McKay
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Edgar Allen Poe
39. (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
Bret Harte
Erica Jong
Puritan Poetry
William Faulkner
40. 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.
Mayflower Compact
Carl Sandburg
Calvinism
Kate Chopin
41. All events follow natural laws.
Sylvia Plath
Determinism
Langston Hughes
Free Verse
42. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Jack Kerouac
Free Verse
Maya Angelou
Richard Wright
43. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
John Winthrop
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Puritan Poetry
Lyres
44. 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.
Vachel Lindsay
Social Darwinism
Thomas Morton
Cotton Mather
45. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
Rhyme Scheme
Gwendolyn Brooks
James Weldon Johnson
Calvinism
46. 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
Nativism
Thomas Morton
Edgar Allen Poe
Abigail Adams
47. 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
Verse
Alice Walker
Henry James
Sarah Orne Jewett
48. (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
Thomas Morton
Ralph Ellison
Bret Harte
Stanza
49. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Ballad
Polemic
Kate Chopin
Zora Neal Hurston
50. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Alice Walker
Beat Movement
Beat Writers
Cotton Mather