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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.
Racialism
Determinism
Robert Lowell
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
2. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Lyres
Nietzscheism
Free Verse
Harriet Beecher Stowe
3. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
Carl Sandburg
Edgar Lee Masters
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
William Byrd
4. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Claude McKay
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Steinbeck
James Baldwin
5. 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
Frank Norris
Abigail Adams
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Gwendolyn Brooks
6. 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
Jack London
Nativism
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
7. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Broadside
Phillip Roth
Thomas Morton
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
8. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
Epic Story
John Adams
Social Darwinism
Ernest Hemmingway
9. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Scientism
Beat Writers
Persona
Frank Norris
10. 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
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Imagist Poetry
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Walt Whitman
11. 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'
Walt Whitman
Herman Melville
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Refrain
12. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
James Thurbur
Gwendolyn Brooks
Rhyme Scheme
Stephen Crane
13. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Polemic
Sonnet
Anne Sexton
14. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Persona
Modernism
Genteel Tradition
Harriet Beecher Stowe
15. 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.
Poetry
Dorthy Parker
Transcendental Club
Edgar Lee Masters
16. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Epic Story
Monologue
Frank Norris
Flannery O'Connor
17. 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
Henry James
Langston Hughes
Flannery O'Connor
John Steinbeck
18. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
The Day of Doom
William Faulkner
Iambic Pentameter
Edwin Arlington Robinson
19. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
James Weldon Johnson
Modernism
Three main colonial era poets
Broadside
20. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Thomas Morton
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Jack London
Three main colonial era poets
21. 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
James Fenimore Cooper
Jonathan Edwards
Robert Lowell
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
22. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Jack London
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Loaded Words
23. 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.
Lyric Poem
Claude McKay
Drama
Meter
24. 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 Byrd
Jack London
William S. Burroughs
Norman Mailer
25. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Sylvia Plath
Kate Chopin
Robert Frost
Romanticism
26. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Ralph Ellison
W.E.B Du Bois
John Steinbeck
The Declaration of Independence
27. Wrote 'The House of Mirth -' and 'The Age of Innocence' most famous for 'Ethan Frome' Noted use of indirection and allusion. First women to win a Pulitzer for 'The Age of Innocence' Main themes were upper-class life and the constraints it placed on b
Gothic
Bret Harte
Edith Wharton
Toni Morrison
28. Wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' - first American novel to sell a million copies. The most influential book of the 19th century. Credited with starting the Civil War. Most famous American woman of her day.
Scientism
Loss of Traditional Values
John Steinbeck
Harriet Beecher Stowe
29. 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
Carl Sandburg
Nietzscheism
Lyric Poem
Dorthy Parker
30. 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
Emily Dickinson
Willa Cather
Washington Irving
Sarah Orne Jewett
31. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Scan
Saul Bellow
Calvinism
Epic Story
32. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Kate Chopin
Cotton Mather
Drama
American Adam
33. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Racialism
Imagist Poetry
Loss of Traditional Values
Rhyme Scheme
34. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Sylvia Plath
Rhyme
Gothic
Ralph Ellison
35. 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.
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Thomas Paine
Social Darwinism
36. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Allen Ginsberg
Walt Whitman
Vachel Lindsay
Scan
37. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
Zora Neal Hurston
Loaded Words
Drama
Genteel Tradition
38. Book of feline poems - 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats -' formed the basis of the Broadway hit 'Cats.' Wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Published 'The Waste-Land' which became the most famous poem of the first half of the 20th Centur
Robert Lowell
T.S Eliot
Edith Wharton
The 3 primary literary genres
39. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'
Norman Mailer
Rhyme Scheme
Edward Teller
Gwendolyn Brooks
40. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
Bret Harte
Drama
Claude McKay
Thomas Jefferson
41. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Samuel Sewall
Dorthy Parker
Naturalism
Cotton Mather
42. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
Robert Lowell
Darwinism
Stanza
Realism
43. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Rhyme Scheme
Transcendentalism
John Adams
Melting Pot
44. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Rhythm
Nietzscheism
American Adam
Sylvia Plath
45. 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.
Countee Cullen
Atavism
Edgar Lee Masters
T.S Eliot
46. 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
Calvinism
e.e cummings
Transcendentalism
James Thurbur
47. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Narrative Poem
Meter
Benjamin Franklin
Nativism
48. Imagist Poet - Wrote 'In a Station of the Metro -' ' The Pisan Cantos -' 'Hugh Selwyn Mauberly -' and 'Mauberly.' Modeled 'Cantos' after Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' - Infamous traitor; Staunch supporter of Mussolini during WWII. Didn't speak for the
Ezra Pound
Sonnet
Allegory
Social Darwinism
49. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
American Adam
Imagist Poetry
Melting Pot
Toni Morrison
50. 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
John Winthrop
Washington Irving
Free Verse
Loss of Traditional Values