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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

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.
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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. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.






2. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.






3. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.






4. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.






5. Works that express a preference for the natural over the artificial in human culture - and a belief that the life of primitive cultures is preferable to modern lifestyles.






6. A genre of fiction that presents an imagined future society that purports to be perfect and utopian but that the author presents to the reader as horrifyingly inhuman.






7. Any composition not written in verse.






8. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.






9. A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.






10. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.






11. A story about the origins of a culture's beliefs and practices - or of supernatural phenomena - usually derived from oral tradition and set in an imagined supernatural past.






12. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






13. A succinct - witty statement - often in verse. For example - William Wordsworth's observation 'The child is the father of the man.'






14. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.






15. A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s.






16. A German term - meaning 'formation novel -' for a novel about a child or adolescent's development into maturity - with special focus on the protagonist's quest for identity. James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a notable example.






17. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.






18. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.






19. A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.






20. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.






21. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.






22. A lengthy narrative that describes the deeds of a heroic figure - often of national or cultural importance - in elevated language. Strictly - the term applies only to verse narratives like Beowulf or Virgil's Aeneid - but it is used to describe prose






23. The nonfictional story of a person's life - told by that person.






24. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.






25. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






26. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.






27. A narrative work that reports true events.






28. A romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.






29. An autobiographical work. Rather than focus exclusively on the author's life - it pays significant attention to the author's involvement in historical events and the characterization of individuals other than the author.






30. A novel that tells a nonfictional - autobiographical story but uses novelistic techniques - such as fictionalized dialogue or anecdotes - to add color - immediacy - or thematic unity.






31. Disturbing or absurd material presented in a humorous manner - usually with the intention to confront uncomfortable truths. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is a notable example.






32. A work that exposes to ridicule the shortcomings of individuals - institutions - or society - often to make a political point. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is one of the most well known examples in English.






33. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.






34. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.






35. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.






36. Traditionally - a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language - often with a refrain.






37. Originally - a realistic novel detailing a scoundrel's exploits. The term grew to refer more generally to any novel with a loosely structured - episodic plot that revolves around the adventures of a central character.






38. A narrative in which literal meaning corresponds clearly and directly to symbolic meaning. For example - the literal story in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress






39. A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter.






40. A poem that contains words that a fictional or historical character speaks to a particular audience. Alfred - Lord Tennyson's 'Ulysses' is a famous example.






41. A story meant to be performed in a theater before an audience. Most are written in dialogue form and are divided into several acts. Many include stage directions and instructions for sets and costumes.






42. A concise expression of insight or wisdom: 'The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity' (Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil).






43. The brief narration of a single event or incident.






44. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.






45. A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.






46. A work of prose fiction that is much shorter than a novel (rarely more than forty pages) and focused more tightly on a single event.






47. A novel - such as Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea - that the author uses as a platform for discussing ideas. Character and plot are of secondary importance.






48. A formal poem that laments the death of a friend or public figure - or - occasionally - a meditation on death itself. In Greek and Latin poetry - the term applies to a specific type of meter (alternating hexameters and pentameters) regardless of cont






49. A work that imitates the style of a previous author - work - or literary genre. Alternatively - the term may refer to a work that contains a hodgepodge of elements or fragments from different sources or influences. It differs from parody in that its






50. A short poetic expression of grief. It differs from an elegy in that it often is embedded within a larger work - is less highly structured - and is meant to be sung.