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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. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Beat Movement
W.E.B Du Bois
Racialism
Darwinism
2. 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.
John Adams
Claude McKay
Countee Cullen
Maya Angelou
3. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
John Smith
Wonders of the Invisible World
Poetry
Emily Dickinson
4. 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.
e.e cummings
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Benjamin Franklin
Walt Whitman
5. A 14-line poem with a set rhythm and rhyme scheme.
Drama
Sonnet
Samuel Sewall
Maya Angelou
6. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Modernism
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Iambic Pentameter
Jack Kerouac
7. First Black woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Novel focus on black cultural identity in contemporary America. Wrote 'The Bluest Eye -' 'Tar Baby -' and 'Beloved'
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Toni Morrison
Foot
Walt Whitman
8. (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
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Frederick Douglass
Jonathan Edwards
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
9. (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
John Adams
John Smith
Romanticism
Thomas Morton
10. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Gwendolyn Brooks
Three main colonial era poets
Maya Angelou
Beat Writers
11. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'
Beat Writers
Rhyme Scheme
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Norman Mailer
12. Clever - memorable sayings.
Willa Cather
Mayflower Compact
Aphorisms
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
13. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Meter
Langston Hughes
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jack London
14. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
James Thurbur
Langston Hughes
Three main colonial era poets
The Declaration of Independence
15. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Puritan Poetry
Broadside
Nietzscheism
Rhyme
16. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Theodore Dreiser
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
17. 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
James Baldwin
Henry David Thoreau
William Bradford
18. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Sylvia Plath
Henry David Thoreau
Puritan Poetry
Polemic
19. Local Colorist Great Niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
Robert Frost
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Benjamin Franklin
Transcendentalism
20. A type of literature win which words are selected and strung together for their beauty - sound - and power to express feelings.
Poetry
Alice Walker
Ernest Hemmingway
Mayflower Compact
21. 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
Edgar Allen Poe
Jonathan Edwards
J.D Salinger
Naturalism
22. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Theodore Dreiser
Atavism
Blank Verse
Alice Walker
23. 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
William Bradford
Ezra Pound
Sarah Orne Jewett
Melting Pot
24. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Samuel Sewall
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Thomas Jefferson
Persona
25. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Vachel Lindsay
Foot
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Refrain
26. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Stephen Crane
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Aphorisms
Free Verse
27. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'
Zora Neal Hurston
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Countee Cullen
Modernism
28. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Allen Ginsberg
Henry David Thoreau
Modernism
Refrain
29. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Erica Jong
Washington Irving
Henry James
Richard Wright
30. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Ralph Ellison
Nietzscheism
Genteel Tradition
J.D Salinger
31. 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
Darwinism
Henry James
Abigail Adams
32. A stanza.
Transcendental Club
Wonders of the Invisible World
Zora Neal Hurston
Verse
33. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Racialism
Anne Sexton
Gwendolyn Brooks
34. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Allegory
Sarah Orne Jewett
Richard Wright
Ballad
35. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Vachel Lindsay
W.E.B Du Bois
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Toni Morrison
36. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Epic Story
Beat Writers
The 3 primary literary genres
Saul Bellow
37. (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
Calvinism
Langston Hughes
The Day of Doom
Frederick Douglass
38. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Scan
Claude McKay
Lyric Poem
John Smith
39. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Social Darwinism
Saul Bellow
Bret Harte
Persona
40. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
Genteel Tradition
Blank Verse
Norman Mailer
Robert Lowell
41. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Loaded Words
Edith Wharton
Herman Melville
Theodore Dreiser
42. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Jean Toomer
Allegory
Blank Verse
Lyres
43. Leader of naturalism in American writing. Wrote 'An American Tragedy'
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Stanza
Atavism
Theodore Dreiser
44. 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
William Faulkner
Imagist Poetry
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry David Thoreau
45. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Loss of Traditional Values
Phillip Roth
Cotton Mather
Claude McKay
46. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture
Beat Movement
Calvinism
William S. Burroughs
Scientism
47. '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
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Walt Whitman
John Steinbeck
48. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Frank Norris
Wonders of the Invisible World
Countee Cullen
Epic Story
49. Well-known humorists.
Darwinism
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Persona
Allen Ginsberg
50. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
The Day of Doom
Jack Kerouac
Booker T. Washington
Phillip Roth