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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

Subjects : clep, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • 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 poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.






2. 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






3. 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.






4. 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






5. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.






6. 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).






7. A short play based on a biblical story.






8. 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.






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






10. 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.






11. 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






12. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






13. 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.






14. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.






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






16. 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.






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






18. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.






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






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






21. A speech - often in verse - by a lone character. The most famous example being the 'To be or not to be' speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet.






22. 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.






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






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






25. 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.






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






27. 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.






28. Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example - Virgil's Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.






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






30. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.






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






32. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






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






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






36. 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.






37. A full-length fictional work that is novelistic in nature but written in verse rather than prose. Examples include Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate.






38. A novel that focuses on the social customs of a certain class of people - often with a sharp eye for irony. Jane Austen's novels are prime examples of this genre.






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






40. 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.






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






42. A particularly compressed and truncated short story. They are rarely longer than 1 -000 words.






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






44. 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.






45. A novel written in the form of letters exchanged by characters in the story - such as Samuel Richardson's Clarissa or Alice Walker's The Color Purple. This form was especially popular in the 1700s.






46. 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.






47. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.






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






49. A novel in which the author's aim is to tell a story that illuminates and draws attention to contemporary social problems with the goal of inciting change for the better. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin - which exposed the horrors of Africa






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







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