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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. All events follow natural laws.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Determinism
James Baldwin
J.D Salinger
2. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
Henry James
Saul Bellow
Broadside
Sylvia Plath
3. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
Norman Mailer
Walt Whitman
Transcendental Club
Drama
4. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Nathaniel Hawthorne
William Bradford
Broadside
Iambic Pentameter
5. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
John Smith
Nietzscheism
Kate Chopin
Rhyme
6. 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'
William S. Burroughs
Scientism
Mayflower Compact
J.D Salinger
7. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Sylvia Plath
The 3 primary literary genres
Flannery O'Connor
William Faulkner
8. 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.'
Edith Wharton
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Nativism
Edwin Arlington Robinson
9. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Narrative Poem
Three main colonial era poets
Langston Hughes
Scan
10. 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.
Sylvia Plath
Kate Chopin
Ballad
Gothic
11. (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
Sarah Orne Jewett
Sylvia Plath
Calvinism
Harriet Beecher Stowe
12. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'
Ernest Hemmingway
Countee Cullen
Thomas Jefferson
Naturalism
13. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
Genteel Tradition
Meter
Alice Walker
W.E.B Du Bois
14. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Jonathan Edwards
Epic Story
Modernism
Toni Morrison
15. A stanza.
Verse
Nietzscheism
Edgar Lee Masters
Naturalism
16. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
John Steinbeck
Samuel Sewall
Henry James
Prose
17. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Lyric Poem
Gwendolyn Brooks
Iambic Pentameter
18. 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
Norman Mailer
Rhyme Scheme
Scan
Bret Harte
19. 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
Samuel Sewall
Thomas Jefferson
Henry David Thoreau
Social Darwinism
20. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Broadside
Walt Whitman
The Declaration of Independence
21. 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.
John Steinbeck
Jonathan Edwards
Persona
Bret Harte
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'
Wonders of the Invisible World
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Transcendental Club
Erica Jong
23. 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
Claude McKay
Abigail Adams
Toni Morrison
Richard Wright
24. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Narrative Poem
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Maya Angelou
Atavism
25. (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
Foot
Erica Jong
Three main colonial era poets
Puritan Poetry
26. 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.
Three main colonial era poets
Mayflower Compact
Countee Cullen
Social Darwinism
27. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Romanticism
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Racialism
Booker T. Washington
28. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Samuel Sewall
Allegory
The Declaration of Independence
Ballad
29. '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
James Baldwin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Edith Wharton
30. 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
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Broadside
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emily Dickinson
31. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Zora Neal Hurston
Vachel Lindsay
Foot
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
32. 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
Thomas Paine
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Edgar Allen Poe
Henry David Thoreau
33. 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
The 3 primary literary genres
Loaded Words
Stephen Crane
Booker T. Washington
34. 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
Toni Morrison
Walt Whitman
Richard Wright
Kate Chopin
35. Well-known humorists.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
William Faulkner
Broadside
J.D Salinger
36. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Richard Wright
American Adam
John Smith
William S. Burroughs
37. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
Edward Teller
Alice Walker
Free Verse
William Byrd
38. 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
Transcendentalism
Edgar Lee Masters
Frederick Douglass
39. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
W.E.B Du Bois
Transcendentalism
Erica Jong
Thomas Paine
40. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Lyres
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stanza
Transcendental Club
41. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
James Baldwin
J.D Salinger
Sarah Orne Jewett
Toni Morrison
42. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Monologue
Ezra Pound
Three main colonial era poets
Jack Kerouac
43. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Richard Wright
Jonathan Edwards
Ezra Pound
Persona
44. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
James Baldwin
Erica Jong
Jack London
Edwin Arlington Robinson
45. 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
Zora Neal Hurston
Washington Irving
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Herman Melville
46. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Calvinism
Ezra Pound
Rhyme Scheme
Phillip Roth
47. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'
Thomas Morton
Darwinism
John Adams
Edward Teller
48. An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th Century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature - emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination - departure from the attitudes and forms of
Romanticism
Sarah Orne Jewett
Ballad
Drama
49. 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.
Walt Whitman
Kate Chopin
Claude McKay
Social Darwinism
50. 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.
Loaded Words
Mayflower Compact
e.e cummings
Walt Whitman