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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. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
William Byrd
Emile Zola
Abigail Adams
Loss of Traditional Values
2. (Colonial Period) One of colonial New England's most eminent clergyman. Greatest achievement was as an historian of the Puritan experience. 'Diary of Cotton Mather' - Account of Mather wrestling with sexual temptation to marry a much younger women di
Epic Story
Atavism
Cotton Mather
Ezra Pound
3. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Foot
Vachel Lindsay
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Erica Jong
4. 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.
Frederick Douglass
Ernest Hemmingway
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Allen Ginsberg
5. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Alice Walker
Refrain
Dorthy Parker
Jean Toomer
6. 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
Allegory
Imagist Poetry
Gothic
Henry David Thoreau
7. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Refrain
Thomas Jefferson
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Epic Story
8. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
William Faulkner
Rhythm
Polemic
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
9. Work did not have a political agenda. Wrote 'Their Eyes Were Watching God -' 'Mules and Men -' and 'Jonahs Gourd Vine.' Considered one of the key black writers of the 20th Century.
Alice Walker
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Edgar Lee Masters
Zora Neal Hurston
10. 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
Thomas Morton
Naturalism
Poetry
Washington Irving
11. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Vachel Lindsay
Sarah Orne Jewett
The 3 primary literary genres
Robert Lowell
12. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Herman Melville
American Adam
J.D Salinger
13. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Loaded Words
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Meter
Three main colonial era poets
14. 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.
Booker T. Washington
William Faulkner
Rhyme
Wonders of the Invisible World
15. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Cotton Mather
American Adam
Stephen Crane
Langston Hughes
16. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Rhyme
Blank Verse
Thomas Jefferson
17. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Realism
Vachel Lindsay
Sarah Orne Jewett
William Faulkner
18. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Gothic
Atavism
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Free Verse
19. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
Polemic
Verse
John Smith
Blank Verse
20. 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.
Henry James
Phillip Roth
John Steinbeck
Anne Sexton
21. 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.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Beat Movement
Epic Story
Kate Chopin
22. 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.
Wonders of the Invisible World
Gwendolyn Brooks
Loss of Traditional Values
Realism
23. 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
Edgar Lee Masters
Thomas Paine
Lyres
Transcendentalism
24. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
W.E.B Du Bois
Emily Dickinson
Vachel Lindsay
Alice Walker
25. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
Stephen Crane
Booker T. Washington
Genteel Tradition
Foot
26. Clever - memorable sayings.
Theodore Dreiser
Aphorisms
Emile Zola
Calvinism
27. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Samuel Sewall
Jack London
Walt Whitman
The Declaration of Independence
28. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.
Wonders of the Invisible World
Cotton Mather
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Ralph Ellison
29. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
Scan
Flannery O'Connor
The Declaration of Independence
Gwendolyn Brooks
30. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Refrain
Drama
Willa Cather
Zora Neal Hurston
31. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Abigail Adams
Mayflower Compact
Lyres
Samuel Sewall
32. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Aphorisms
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thomas Jefferson
Ezra Pound
33. 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.
Langston Hughes
Social Darwinism
Vachel Lindsay
Richard Wright
34. 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.
Broadside
Sonnet
Alice Walker
Sarah Orne Jewett
35. (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
Dorthy Parker
Jonathan Edwards
Transcendental Club
Edwin Arlington Robinson
36. 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
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Naturalism
Transcendentalism
Realism
37. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Aphorisms
Refrain
e.e cummings
Washington Irving
38. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'
William Faulkner
Jack Kerouac
Lyric Poem
Countee Cullen
39. 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
William S. Burroughs
Social Darwinism
Romanticism
Puritan Poetry
40. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Rhyme Scheme
Robert Frost
Frank Norris
Racialism
41. 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
Edith Wharton
Mary Wilkins Freeman
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Monologue
42. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
Allegory
Genteel Tradition
Emile Zola
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
43. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Refrain
Melting Pot
Ralph Ellison
Drama
44. (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
Puritan Poetry
Claude McKay
W.E.B Du Bois
Three main colonial era poets
45. (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
Ralph Ellison
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thomas Morton
Gothic
46. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
Dorthy Parker
Sonnet
Stanza
Scientism
47. 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.
Stephen Crane
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Robert Frost
Nathaniel Hawthorne
48. Well-known humorists.
Emile Zola
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Theodore Dreiser
W.E.B Du Bois
49. 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.'
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
William S. Burroughs
Samuel Sewall
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
50. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
Lyres
Saul Bellow
Stanza
Nathaniel Hawthorne