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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 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






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






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






4. 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.






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






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






7. A narrative work that reports true events.






8. 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.






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






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






11. 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






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






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






15. 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.






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






17. 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.






18. 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






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






20. 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.






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






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






23. Any composition not written in verse.






24. 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.






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






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. 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.






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






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






30. 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).






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






32. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






34. 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.






35. 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






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






37. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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 serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.






47. 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






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






49. 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.






50. 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.