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






2. 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.






3. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.






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






6. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






8. 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).






9. 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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






17. A humorous imitation of a serious work of literature. The humor often arises from the incongruity between the imitation and the work being imitated. For example - Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock uses the high diction of epic poetry to talk abou






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






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






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






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






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






23. 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.






24. 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.






25. 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.






26. 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.






27. 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.






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






29. 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.






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






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






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






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






34. 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.






35. 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






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






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






38. Any composition not written in verse.






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






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






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






42. 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.






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






44. A narrative work that reports true events.






45. 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.






46. 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.






47. A short play based on a biblical story.






48. 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.






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






50. 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