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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. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






2. A narrative work that reports true events.






3. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






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






7. 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.






8. 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.






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






10. 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.






11. 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.






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






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






14. 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






15. Any composition not written in verse.






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






17. A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.






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






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






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






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






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






23. 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.






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






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






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






27. 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






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






29. 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.






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






31. 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.






32. 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.






33. 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.






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






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






36. 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






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






38. 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.






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






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






41. 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






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






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






44. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






46. 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.






47. 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.






48. 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).






49. A celebration of the simple - rustic life of shepherds and shepherdesses - usually written by a sophisticated - urban writer.






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