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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres
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clep
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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. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.
Eclogue
Biography
Didactic literature
Prose poem
2. 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
Social protest novel
One-act play
Memoir
Essay
3. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.
Comedy
Propaganda
Novel of manners
Noir
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
Autobiography
Allegory
Epic
Chivalric romance
5. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.
Epic
Comedy
Satire
Myth
6. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.
Romance
Parody
Nonfiction
Tragicomedy
7. 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.
Nonfiction
Pastoral
Dirge
Parable
8. 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.
Dirge
Elegy
Allegory
Picaresque novel
9. 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).
Historical novel
Dramatic monologue
Memoir
Aphorism
10. Any composition not written in verse.
Farce
Chivalric romance
Verse novel
Prose
11. 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.
Play
Soliloquy
Tragicomedy
Miracle play
12. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.
Novel of manners
Prose poem
Dirge
Elegy
13. 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.
Memoir
Dystopic literature
Epistolary novel
Historical novel
14. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.
Noh drama
Tragedy
Dramatic monologue
Short story
15. The brief narration of a single event or incident.
Anecdote
Miracle play
Aphorism
Picaresque novel
16. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.
Fiction
Parable
Verse novel
Mystery play
17. 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.
Drama
Dramatic monologue
Noh drama
Biography
18. A narrative work that reports true events.
Nonfiction
Allegory
Fiction
Black comedy
19. A succinct - witty statement - often in verse. For example - William Wordsworth's observation 'The child is the father of the man.'
Biography
Dramatic monologue
Epigram
Problem play
20. A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.
Chivalric romance
Lyric
Miracle play
Fiction
21. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.
Primitivist literature
Elegy
Morality play
Legend
22. 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.
Metafiction
Primitivist literature
Dirge
Autobiographical novel
23. 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.
Novella
Epic theater
Novel of ideas
Autobiography
24. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.
Picaresque novel
One-act play
Prose
Historical novel
25. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.
Pastoral
Elegy
Eclogue
Ode
26. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality
Dystopic literature
Black comedy
Drama
Science fiction
27. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.
Romance
Dirge
Epistolary novel
Pastiche
28. 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.
Fable
Soliloquy
Science fiction
Short-short story
29. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.
Burlesque
Bildungsroman
One-act play
Farce
30. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.
Aphorism
Drama
Novella
Comedy
31. A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter.
Primitivist literature
Propaganda
Problem play
Prose
32. A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.
Ode
Epistolary novel
Memoir
Drama
33. 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
Aphorism
Ode
Pastiche
Tragicomedy
34. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.
Metafiction
Novella
Epic theater
Ode
35. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.
Miracle play
Romance
Pastiche
Legend
36. 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.
Satire
Tragedy
Epic
Parody
37. 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.
Noir
Ballad
Autobiographical novel
Aphorism
38. A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.
Verse novel
Black comedy
Parody
Eclogue
39. 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.
Morality play
Short story
Ballad
Mystery play
40. Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example - Virgil's Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.
Didactic literature
Lyric
Ode
Allegory
41. Traditionally - a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language - often with a refrain.
Ballad
Noh drama
Epistolary novel
Soliloquy
42. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.
Short-short story
Confessional poetry
Memoir
Lyric
43. 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.
Verse novel
Comedy
Fiction
Pastoral
44. 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
Tragedy
Autobiographical novel
Burlesque
Verse novel
45. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.
Fable
Pastiche
Dystopic literature
Historical novel
46. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.
Metafiction
Comedy
Novel
Epic theater
47. 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.
Ode
Social protest novel
Bildungsroman
Aphorism
48. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.
Picaresque novel
Elegy
Legend
Epic theater
49. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.
Historical novel
Epic
Dystopic literature
One-act play
50. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.
Burlesque
Elegy
Autobiography
Confessional poetry
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