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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. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Samuel Sewall
Jack London
Refrain
Ballad
2. Literary movement of the 19th century that traced the effects of heredity and environment on people who ere helpless to change their situations. Also called Determinism for its belief in the effects of environment - heredity - and chance on human fat
Edith Wharton
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Smith
Naturalism
3. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
Mary Wilkins Freeman
William Faulkner
Edward Teller
Ernest Hemmingway
4. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Iambic Pentameter
Erica Jong
Edward Teller
Three main colonial era poets
5. 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.
James Weldon Johnson
Abigail Adams
Nativism
Edward Teller
6. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Lyres
Loss of Traditional Values
Stanza
Jack Kerouac
7. 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.
Romanticism
Refrain
Washington Irving
John Steinbeck
8. Well-known humorists.
Verse
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Imagist Poetry
Washington Irving
9. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Atavism
Phillip Roth
Three main colonial era poets
10. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
W.E.B Du Bois
William S. Burroughs
Benjamin Franklin
Mary Wilkins Freeman
11. 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.
Samuel Sewall
William S. Burroughs
Frederick Douglass
Romanticism
12. Chicago School : Verses often concern ordinary - everyday people; realistic poems and dramatic emphasis attract a large audience. Wrote 'Chicago -' and a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Poems describe everyday Americans - have a positive tone - use sim
Stanza
Carl Sandburg
T.S Eliot
Allen Ginsberg
13. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
J.D Salinger
John Smith
Theodore Dreiser
Darwinism
14. Wished to return to more primitive principles - to simplicity - sobriety - religious earnestness - and personal self-control. Aim was to purify church of England from 'Popery' - Persecuted harshly by Charles I and Archbishop of Canterbury William Lau
Ralph Ellison
Nietzscheism
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Drama
15. 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
Racialism
Dorthy Parker
Free Verse
16. Local Colorist Wrote 'The Country of the Pointed Firs' Famous for use of idiomatic language - conservative values and imagery and vivid descriptions of rural New England.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Thomas Jefferson
Claude McKay
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
17. 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.
Dorthy Parker
Richard Wright
Poetry
Imagist Poetry
18. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
James Weldon Johnson
Ballad
Refrain
Phillip Roth
19. The Bard of Harlem; most successful black writer in America during the Harlem Renaissance. Wanted to capture the dominant oral traditions of black culture in written form. Best known for his poetry: 'The Weary Blues -' 'Fields of Wonder -' and 'The D
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Jean Toomer
Langston Hughes
Imagist Poetry
20. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Rhythm
Broadside
Racialism
Benjamin Franklin
21. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Walt Whitman
Thomas Jefferson
Allen Ginsberg
Ralph Waldo Emerson
22. 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
James Fenimore Cooper
J.D Salinger
Allegory
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
23. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Broadside
Rhyme Scheme
Ballad
Frederick Douglass
24. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Loss of Traditional Values
Robert Lowell
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
Countee Cullen
Langston Hughes
John Smith
Beat Writers
26. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Edward Teller
The 3 primary literary genres
Lyres
John Adams
27. Resisted materialism and chose a life of simplicity - close to nature. Walden is a guidebook for life - showing the reader how to live wisely in a world designed to make wise living impossible. 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' has become a primer
Edith Wharton
Henry David Thoreau
Edward Teller
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
28. (Colonial Period) Primarily written to set forth orthodox Calvinist Christianity. Not considered the best representation of poetry during the whole period. Rarely approached excellence of English models. Too much of an emphasis on heavenly values and
Melting Pot
Puritan Poetry
Poetry
Booker T. Washington
29. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Iambic Pentameter
Free Verse
Aphorisms
Robert Lowell
30. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Herman Melville
Mayflower Compact
Samuel Sewall
Melting Pot
31. 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
Flannery O'Connor
Frank Norris
Washington Irving
Samuel Sewall
32. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Willa Cather
Romanticism
Imagist Poetry
Countee Cullen
33. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Allen Ginsberg
Loaded Words
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Nietzscheism
34. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Walt Whitman
Melting Pot
John Winthrop
T.S Eliot
35. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Henry David Thoreau
Vachel Lindsay
John Smith
Realism
36. (Colonial Period) One of colonial New England's most eminent clergyman. Greatest achievement was as an historian of the Puritan experience. 'Diary of Cotton Mather' - Account of Mather wrestling with sexual temptation to marry a much younger women di
Genteel Tradition
Cotton Mather
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Edwin Arlington Robinson
37. Imagist Poet - Wrote 'In a Station of the Metro -' ' The Pisan Cantos -' 'Hugh Selwyn Mauberly -' and 'Mauberly.' Modeled 'Cantos' after Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' - Infamous traitor; Staunch supporter of Mussolini during WWII. Didn't speak for the
Epic Story
Ezra Pound
Social Darwinism
Narrative Poem
38. Clever - memorable sayings.
Iambic Pentameter
Refrain
Thomas Jefferson
Aphorisms
39. 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
Edgar Lee Masters
J.D Salinger
Iambic Pentameter
Frank Norris
40. A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's - in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature - and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter - intuiti
Kate Chopin
e.e cummings
Transcendentalism
Loss of Traditional Values
41. (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
Blank Verse
Thomas Morton
Anne Sexton
Langston Hughes
42. An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th Century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature - emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination - departure from the attitudes and forms of
Romanticism
Calvinism
Henry James
T.S Eliot
43. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Maya Angelou
Wonders of the Invisible World
Alice Walker
James Weldon Johnson
44. 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
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Nativism
Meter
45. Produced a number of sketches - poems - and a one-act pay titled 'Cane.'
William Faulkner
Aphorisms
Edith Wharton
Jean Toomer
46. 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.
Saul Bellow
Imagist Poetry
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Thomas Morton
47. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Norman Mailer
Wonders of the Invisible World
Ralph Ellison
Thomas Paine
48. Pilgrim's constitution. Shaped the politics - religion - and social behavior of the first settlers. Eventually influenced the shape - style and content of the U.S Constitution. William Bradford was famous for being one of the authors and signers.
Vachel Lindsay
Mayflower Compact
William Faulkner
John Winthrop
49. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Prose
Walt Whitman
Loss of Traditional Values
Sylvia Plath
50. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Emily Dickinson
The Day of Doom
Darwinism
William S. Burroughs