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CLEP American Literature

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. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.






2. Unrhymed poetry Captures natural rhythm of speech.






3. 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






4. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP






5. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.






6. 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






7. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'






8. Major theme of 20th Century literature.






9. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'






10. 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






11. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac






12. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)






13. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.






14. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'






15. 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






16. (Colonial Period) Began 'The History of New England' aboard the Arbella in 1630. Lead 2 -000 English emigrant to Massachusetts Bay. Made daily journal-style entries until his death. Intended it to be an account of his long governorship. Style is pla






17. (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






18. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.






19. 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






20. 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.






21. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.






22. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture






23. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.






24. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet






25. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'






26. 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.






27. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical






28. All events follow natural laws.






29. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'






30. '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






31. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'






32. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.






33. 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






34. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.






35. Won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize - Works focused on the South - Wrote 'As I Lay Dying -' 'Sanctuary -' and 'The sound and the Fury.' Experimented with Stream of Consciousness writing. Considered the most innovative novelist of his time.






36. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.






37. Wrote Catcher in the Rye






38. Prose - Poetry - Drama






39. Leader of naturalism in American writing. Wrote 'An American Tragedy'






40. 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.'






41. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.






42. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.






43. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.






44. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.






45. Written by Michael Wigglesworth - the most famous poem of 17th Century - proceeds from judgement day to hell and then to paradise. First American Best Seller.






46. 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.






47. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.






48. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.






49. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'






50. 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.