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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP American Literature
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
literature
Instructions:
Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can
study here
.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.
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. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Three main colonial era poets
Henry David Thoreau
Prose
Broadside
2. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
Prose
Robert Lowell
Lyres
Verse
3. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Stephen Crane
Jean Toomer
Stanza
Emile Zola
4. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Wonders of the Invisible World
John Steinbeck
Foot
5. Father of American Literature - First American writer to achieve an international reputation. Rip Van Winkle (antihero). Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Devil and Tom Walker. Was 50 years old before his real name appeared on any of his books. Used alias
Maya Angelou
Washington Irving
Iambic Pentameter
The Declaration of Independence
6. Wrote gold-rush stories like 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat'; never matched up to his previous fame local colorist
Bret Harte
Rhyme
William Byrd
Allen Ginsberg
7. Wrote 'Richard Cory' - Created poems dealing with historic myths and characters. Known primarily for short - ironic characteristics of ordinary individuals. Won 3 Pulitzers : 'Collected Poems -' 'The Man Who Died Twice -' and 'Tristram'
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Dorthy Parker
Richard Wright
Transcendental Club
8. Ben Franklin paid his passage to America. First Pamphlet was Common Sense : credited with getting the colonists to see the 'advantage - necessity - and obligation' of breaking with Britain. Followed by a series of pamphlets - collectively called 'An
Edith Wharton
Darwinism
Thomas Paine
Claude McKay
9. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Toni Morrison
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jack London
The Day of Doom
10. Applying the evolutionary 'survival of the fittest' concept to a world marked by struggle and competition. (Promulgated by Herbert Spencer - a best-selling sociologist of the late 19th Century.
Edward Teller
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
The 3 primary literary genres
Social Darwinism
11. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
The 3 primary literary genres
Ezra Pound
Robert Frost
American Adam
12. Wrote 'The House of Mirth -' and 'The Age of Innocence' most famous for 'Ethan Frome' Noted use of indirection and allusion. First women to win a Pulitzer for 'The Age of Innocence' Main themes were upper-class life and the constraints it placed on b
Racialism
Edith Wharton
Willa Cather
Thomas Jefferson
13. She holds a unique place in American history as both the wife of one president and the mother of another. In her own right - she was an ardent American patriot. Her perseverance during the American Revolution kept her family together and enabled her
Determinism
Polemic
Abigail Adams
Ernest Hemmingway
14. A stanza.
Robert Lowell
Harriet Beecher Stowe
John Adams
Verse
15. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Frank Norris
Edward Teller
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Beat Movement
16. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Persona
Jean Toomer
Melting Pot
Racialism
17. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Benjamin Franklin
Henry James
Emily Dickinson
Racialism
18. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Allen Ginsberg
John Winthrop
Broadside
William Bradford
19. Book of feline poems - 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats -' formed the basis of the Broadway hit 'Cats.' Wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Published 'The Waste-Land' which became the most famous poem of the first half of the 20th Centur
Darwinism
Kate Chopin
T.S Eliot
Rhythm
20. First great writer of psychological fiction; obsessed with sin and guilt. 'The Scarlet Letter' - 'Young Goodman Brown' - Claimed his work was romance and therefore not required to be realistic.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Realism
The 3 primary literary genres
Theodore Dreiser
21. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Prose
W.E.B Du Bois
Samuel Sewall
James Weldon Johnson
22. In the 1920s - became the symbol of the liberated woman for her wit and independence. Known for her caustic and clever poems and short stories.
Thomas Paine
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Dorthy Parker
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
23. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Thomas Jefferson
Darwinism
Melting Pot
24. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Iambic Pentameter
Sonnet
T.S Eliot
Determinism
25. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
John Adams
Iambic Pentameter
Loaded Words
Beat Movement
26. Well-known humorists.
Claude McKay
Gothic
Ralph Ellison
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
27. Literary movement of the 19th century Presented the details of ordinary life in art. Realists rejected the heroic and adventurous and concentrated on pessimistic views of poverty - prostitution and pain. Reaction to Romanticism.
Epic Story
e.e cummings
Free Verse
Realism
28. Created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetic expression. Rejected conventional themes - traditional literary references - allusions - and rhymes. Used long lines to capture rhythms of natural speech - free ver
Lyres
Jack Kerouac
T.S Eliot
Walt Whitman
29. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Willa Cather
Phillip Roth
Abigail Adams
Refrain
30. Wrote 'Grapes of Wrath -' 'Of Mice and Men -' and 'East of Eden -' and 'Winter of Our Discontent.' Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature - Pulitzer and and the National Book Award.
Meter
Henry James
John Steinbeck
Persona
31. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
James Baldwin
Romanticism
Phillip Roth
Three main colonial era poets
32. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Darwinism
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Emily Dickinson
Lyres
33. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
James Thurbur
Lyres
Henry James
Stephen Crane
34. Wrote 'The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.' Escaped slave that became one o f the most effective orators of his day - an influential newspaper writer - a militant abolitionist - and a famous diplomat.
Lyres
Frederick Douglass
Langston Hughes
James Fenimore Cooper
35. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Nietzscheism
Prose
The 3 primary literary genres
Poetry
36. The belief that 'true' Americans were those of earlier Anglo-Saxon descent - and that this 'race' was under threat from the growing influx of Central European and Asian immigrants.
Nativism
Three main colonial era poets
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Alice Walker
37. An organization of the leading transcendentalists living around Boston. They were interested in new developments in theology - philosophy - and literature. Major writers: Ripley - Emerson - Alcott - Fuller - Hawthorne - Thoreau - Channing - Hedge - P
Transcendental Club
The Declaration of Independence
Drama
Ralph Waldo Emerson
38. 'The Old Man and the Sea -' 'The Sun Also Rises -' 'A Farewell to Arms -' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Writing style emphasizes: Short sentences - brief paragraphs - active verbs - authenticity - compression - clarity - and immediacy. Produced some
Ernest Hemmingway
Genteel Tradition
Calvinism
T.S Eliot
39. Created the first American adventure story. First successful American novelist. 'Father of the American novel.' Very litigious - cranky and vain. Most famous for the 'Leatherstocking Tales': A series of five novels about the frontiersman - Natty Bump
Harriet Beecher Stowe
James Fenimore Cooper
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ballad
40. First Black woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Novel focus on black cultural identity in contemporary America. Wrote 'The Bluest Eye -' 'Tar Baby -' and 'Beloved'
Toni Morrison
Alice Walker
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Langston Hughes
41. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Edgar Lee Masters
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
James Baldwin
Sonnet
42. Chicago School - Wrote 'Lucinda Matlock' - Created 'Spoon River Anthology' - Spoon River poems are characterized by: An unpoetic - colloquial style - frank descriptions of sex - a very critical view of small town life - and a description of he inner
Ezra Pound
Polemic
Edgar Lee Masters
Washington Irving
43. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
John Adams
Stanza
Vachel Lindsay
Jack Kerouac
44. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Sylvia Plath
Sarah Orne Jewett
Kate Chopin
Epic Story
45. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Booker T. Washington
Blank Verse
Rhyme
Nietzscheism
46. (Colonial Period) Stands in direct opposition to the principles - personalities and literary styles of William Bradford and John Winthrop. Did not come to settle the land and establish God's Kingdom - but to trade beaver pelts and live pleasantly. Es
John Steinbeck
Jack Kerouac
Thomas Morton
Robert Frost
47. Clever - memorable sayings.
Theodore Dreiser
Aphorisms
Samuel Sewall
Henry James
48. Considered the greatest humorist of 19th century American Literature. Wrote 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' Master of 'Local Color' writing. Used vernacular - exaggeration and deadpan narrator to create humor.
Nietzscheism
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Polemic
Sarah Orne Jewett
49. Local Colorist Great Niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
Jean Toomer
Edgar Allen Poe
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
James Fenimore Cooper
50. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Meter
Ernest Hemmingway
John Adams
Monologue