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






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 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.






4. 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.






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






6. 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






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






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. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






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






13. 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.






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






15. 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.






16. 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






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






18. 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.






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






20. 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






21. 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.






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






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






24. 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






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






26. 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.






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 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.






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






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






31. 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.






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






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






34. Any composition not written in verse.






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






36. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






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






39. 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.






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






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






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






43. 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.






44. 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.






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






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






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






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






49. 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.






50. 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.