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






2. 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.






3. 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






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






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






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






7. 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






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






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






10. 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.






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






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






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






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






15. 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






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






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






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






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






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






21. 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.






22. 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






23. 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.






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






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






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






27. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






33. 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.






34. 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.






35. Any composition not written in verse.






36. 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.






37. 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.






38. 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.






39. 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.






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






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






42. 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






43. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






45. 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.






46. 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






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






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






49. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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







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