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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. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Toni Morrison
e.e cummings
William Faulkner
Refrain
2. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Verse
Scan
Blank Verse
3. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Iambic Pentameter
Saul Bellow
4. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Refrain
Robert Frost
Zora Neal Hurston
Frederick Douglass
5. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
Melting Pot
Three main colonial era poets
Theodore Dreiser
F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. 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
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Dorthy Parker
James Weldon Johnson
Nativism
7. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Dorthy Parker
Prose
Social Darwinism
Polemic
8. (Colonial Period) Began 'The History of New England' aboard the Arbella in 1630. Lead 2 -000 English emigrant to Massachusetts Bay. Made daily journal-style entries until his death. Intended it to be an account of his long governorship. Style is pla
Persona
T.S Eliot
Blank Verse
John Winthrop
9. Local Colorist Great Niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Robert Frost
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Transcendental Club
10. Prose - Poetry - Drama
William Byrd
The 3 primary literary genres
Transcendental Club
Imagist Poetry
11. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Saul Bellow
Maya Angelou
Countee Cullen
Broadside
12. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Drama
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Emile Zola
13. A pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that create a beat - as in music.
Loaded Words
Rhythm
Edgar Allen Poe
Edwin Arlington Robinson
14. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
William S. Burroughs
T.S Eliot
Robert Lowell
Epic Story
15. 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
Henry David Thoreau
Foot
Ernest Hemmingway
Herman Melville
16. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Transcendental Club
John Winthrop
Jack London
Thomas Jefferson
17. (Colonial Period) Wrote Of Plymouth Plantation (First Thanksgiving) - Chronicled the Pilgrim experience from the religious considerations that caused them to leave England for Holland and then for America.Style is dignified and Grave - and events are
William Bradford
Allen Ginsberg
The Declaration of Independence
Ernest Hemmingway
18. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Herman Melville
Zora Neal Hurston
Allen Ginsberg
Ernest Hemmingway
19. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Darwinism
Nietzscheism
Flannery O'Connor
Three main colonial era poets
20. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Loaded Words
Refrain
Puritan Poetry
Alice Walker
21. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wonders of the Invisible World
Broadside
Toni Morrison
22. 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.
Allen Ginsberg
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Mayflower Compact
Stephen Crane
23. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
John Smith
William Bradford
William Faulkner
Three main colonial era poets
24. 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.
Rhyme
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Frederick Douglass
Thomas Jefferson
25. 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
Carl Sandburg
Ballad
Vachel Lindsay
Jack London
26. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Ballad
Edgar Allen Poe
T.S Eliot
Calvinism
27. Use of medieval - wild - or mysterious elements in literature. Features gloomy settings and horrifying events. Edgar Allen Poe is regarded as the American Master of Gothic writing.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lyric Poem
Gothic
Vachel Lindsay
28. 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'
Jonathan Edwards
John Winthrop
Saul Bellow
Toni Morrison
29. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.
James Fenimore Cooper
Walt Whitman
Prose
Lyres
30. 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
Henry David Thoreau
Naturalism
Poetry
T.S Eliot
31. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
Lyric Poem
William Byrd
Free Verse
Melting Pot
32. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Epic Story
Atavism
Maya Angelou
Ezra Pound
33. American novelist - essayist - social critic - painter and spoken performer. Most of his works are autobiographical. Frequently experimented with drugs. He wrote the 'Naked Lunch' and the 'Cities of Red Night'
Beat Writers
William S. Burroughs
Emile Zola
Prose
34. Wrote 'Songs of Jamaica' - Poetry and 'Harlem Shadows' (first great literary achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. Much of his poetry evokes the rich heritage of Jamaica.
Claude McKay
Richard Wright
Thomas Paine
Emile Zola
35. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Herman Melville
Bret Harte
James Baldwin
Narrative Poem
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
Broadside
Loss of Traditional Values
Norman Mailer
Stephen Crane
37. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Booker T. Washington
Jack London
Henry James
Anne Sexton
38. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Alice Walker
Realism
Benjamin Franklin
Stephen Crane
39. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Ballad
Sylvia Plath
Monologue
Blank Verse
40. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
James Weldon Johnson
Abigail Adams
Lyric Poem
Three main colonial era poets
41. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
Maya Angelou
Abigail Adams
James Fenimore Cooper
The Declaration of Independence
42. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Carl Sandburg
Modernism
James Thurbur
Thomas Morton
43. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Ezra Pound
Carl Sandburg
Gothic
Scientism
44. Written by Michael Wigglesworth - the most famous poem of 17th Century - proceeds from judgement day to hell and then to paradise. First American Best Seller.
Nativism
James Fenimore Cooper
William S. Burroughs
The Day of Doom
45. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Allegory
Sylvia Plath
Edgar Lee Masters
Frank Norris
46. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Foot
Aphorisms
Emile Zola
Persona
47. Wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' - first American novel to sell a million copies. The most influential book of the 19th century. Credited with starting the Civil War. Most famous American woman of her day.
Walt Whitman
Harriet Beecher Stowe
John Smith
Edgar Lee Masters
48. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Bret Harte
Foot
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Thomas Morton
49. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Frank Norris
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Iambic Pentameter
Kate Chopin
50. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Poetry
Nietzscheism
John Smith
Phillip Roth