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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 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Scan
James Fenimore Cooper
Thomas Paine
Sylvia Plath
2. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Polemic
Erica Jong
Langston Hughes
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
3. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Monologue
Stephen Crane
Aphorisms
William Faulkner
4. Key intellectual and philosophical voice of 19th-century America. Key player in the transcendentalist movement. First to define what made American poetry American - it is verse that celebrates ordinary experience rather than the epic themes of the pa
Langston Hughes
Edward Teller
John Adams
Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Norman Mailer
Foot
Broadside
Robert Frost
6. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Genteel Tradition
The 3 primary literary genres
Jack Kerouac
John Steinbeck
7. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
Edgar Allen Poe
Allegory
Rhythm
Emile Zola
8. 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
Verse
Erica Jong
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Naturalism
9. 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'
Willa Cather
Toni Morrison
Stanza
Edward Teller
10. Unrhymed poetry Captures natural rhythm of speech.
Blank Verse
Rhyme
John Adams
Stephen Crane
11. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Thomas Paine
The Declaration of Independence
Beat Writers
Saul Bellow
12. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
Stanza
Rhyme
Beat Writers
Social Darwinism
13. 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
Racialism
Loaded Words
Allen Ginsberg
Walt Whitman
14. 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
Theodore Dreiser
Edith Wharton
Wonders of the Invisible World
Romanticism
15. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Wonders of the Invisible World
John Steinbeck
Anne Sexton
Three main colonial era poets
16. Prose - Poetry - Drama
The 3 primary literary genres
The Declaration of Independence
Abigail Adams
Jean Toomer
17. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
The Declaration of Independence
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Jonathan Edwards
Ballad
18. 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
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Transcendental Club
Robert Lowell
Edgar Allen Poe
19. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Willa Cather
Modernism
Edgar Lee Masters
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
20. (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
Washington Irving
Phillip Roth
Thomas Morton
Benjamin Franklin
21. 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.
American Adam
Realism
Foot
Erica Jong
22. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
American Adam
Scientism
James Weldon Johnson
Naturalism
23. 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.
Free Verse
Calvinism
Melting Pot
John Steinbeck
24. 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
Rhythm
Walt Whitman
Loss of Traditional Values
Thomas Paine
25. 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.
Frederick Douglass
Narrative Poem
Racialism
Lyric Poem
26. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Robert Frost
James Baldwin
Vachel Lindsay
Langston Hughes
27. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Anne Sexton
Frederick Douglass
Thomas Jefferson
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
Atavism
James Fenimore Cooper
Puritan Poetry
Maya Angelou
29. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Beat Writers
James Thurbur
Toni Morrison
Thomas Morton
30. Won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize - Works focused on the South - Wrote 'As I Lay Dying -' 'Sanctuary -' and 'The sound and the Fury.' Experimented with Stream of Consciousness writing. Considered the most innovative novelist of his time.
Free Verse
William Faulkner
Edgar Lee Masters
James Thurbur
31. 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
Edgar Lee Masters
Transcendental Club
Richard Wright
T.S Eliot
32. A pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that create a beat - as in music.
John Steinbeck
Rhythm
James Thurbur
Meter
33. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Three main colonial era poets
Mayflower Compact
Maya Angelou
Thomas Paine
34. (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
Booker T. Washington
The Declaration of Independence
Lyres
Cotton Mather
35. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Erica Jong
Toni Morrison
Henry James
Three main colonial era poets
36. Wrote 'The Red Badge of Courage' and 'Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -' and 'The Open Boat.' Red Badge of Courage is considered the first modern war novel. Work is celebrated for its images and symbolism. Work is often described as impressionist due t
Abigail Adams
Stephen Crane
James Weldon Johnson
Refrain
37. 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
Edith Wharton
Herman Melville
William Byrd
Walt Whitman
38. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Theodore Dreiser
Free Verse
Rhyme Scheme
Poetry
39. Work did not have a political agenda. Wrote 'Their Eyes Were Watching God -' 'Mules and Men -' and 'Jonahs Gourd Vine.' Considered one of the key black writers of the 20th Century.
William Faulkner
Scan
Zora Neal Hurston
Erica Jong
40. End : occurs when words at the ends of lines of poetry rhyme. Internal: occurs when words within a sentences share the same sound - such as 'Each narrow cell in which we dwell.'
Claude McKay
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Melting Pot
Loaded Words
41. 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
Modernism
Meter
Ezra Pound
Ernest Hemmingway
42. 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.
Gwendolyn Brooks
James Fenimore Cooper
Loaded Words
Dorthy Parker
43. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
John Steinbeck
Emile Zola
J.D Salinger
Rhyme Scheme
44. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
Scientism
Nativism
Narrative Poem
F. Scott Fitzgerald
45. 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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nativism
Ernest Hemmingway
Samuel Sewall
46. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
American Adam
Bret Harte
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Allegory
47. The reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some distant ancestor that have not been present in intervening generations - such as hand like a hairy paw.
Toni Morrison
Atavism
Sonnet
Carl Sandburg
48. 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'
Puritan Poetry
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Allegory
Anne Sexton
49. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Phillip Roth
Melting Pot
Darwinism
Rhyme
50. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Nativism
John Winthrop
Countee Cullen
Scan