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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. 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.
Social Darwinism
Harriet Beecher Stowe
John Steinbeck
Beat Movement
2. 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
Free Verse
Realism
Thomas Jefferson
T.S Eliot
3. 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
Transcendentalism
Foot
William Faulkner
4. All written work that is not poetry - drama or song. Articles - autobiographies - biographies - essays - novels and editorials are prose.
Drama
Prose
Robert Lowell
Loaded Words
5. 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.
Toni Morrison
Nativism
William S. Burroughs
Zora Neal Hurston
6. Typically referred to as the greatest American novelist (next to Mark Twain) of the second half of the 19th century. Main theme of his work was the innocence and exuberance of America compared to the corruption and wisdom of Europe. Wrote 'The Portra
Persona
Sonnet
Polemic
Henry James
7. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Iambic Pentameter
Ralph Ellison
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Transcendental Club
8. Unrhymed poetry Captures natural rhythm of speech.
Anne Sexton
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Blank Verse
Dorthy Parker
9. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Emile Zola
Willa Cather
John Adams
T.S Eliot
10. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Nietzscheism
Atavism
Henry David Thoreau
Racialism
11. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Rhyme
Allen Ginsberg
Epic Story
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
12. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
John Smith
Vachel Lindsay
Anne Sexton
James Weldon Johnson
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
Walt Whitman
Bret Harte
Verse
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
14. 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
Cotton Mather
James Baldwin
John Smith
15. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Rhyme Scheme
Zora Neal Hurston
Bret Harte
Herman Melville
16. Well-known humorists.
Racialism
Jonathan Edwards
Beat Movement
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
17. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Scientism
Beat Writers
Foot
Polemic
18. 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.
Edward Teller
John Steinbeck
Monologue
Toni Morrison
19. 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'
William S. Burroughs
Romanticism
John Steinbeck
Carl Sandburg
20. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Herman Melville
Benjamin Franklin
Booker T. Washington
John Smith
21. 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
Realism
Loaded Words
Naturalism
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
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
Norman Mailer
Booker T. Washington
Polemic
James Fenimore Cooper
23. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Alice Walker
Anne Sexton
Mayflower Compact
William Byrd
24. A piece of literature intended to be performed in front of an audience.
Saul Bellow
Carl Sandburg
Drama
Blank Verse
25. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Iambic Pentameter
Jean Toomer
Phillip Roth
Ballad
26. A pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that create a beat - as in music.
Thomas Morton
Rhythm
Calvinism
Monologue
27. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Ralph Ellison
Loaded Words
Beat Movement
Norman Mailer
28. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Dorthy Parker
Frank Norris
Cotton Mather
Ezra Pound
29. Wrote 'since feeling is first -' 'somewhere i have never traveled - gladly beyond -' and 'The Enormous Room' - Experimented with : form - punctuation - spelling - typography - grammar - imagery - rhythm - and syntax.
James Thurbur
e.e cummings
Rhythm
Abigail Adams
30. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Benjamin Franklin
Rhyme Scheme
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Jack London
31. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'
Edward Teller
Benjamin Franklin
The 3 primary literary genres
Aphorisms
32. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Lyric Poem
Scientism
Social Darwinism
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
33. Ranked as top American novelist - even though few of his contemporaries recognized his genius. Moby Dick is considered to be America's greatest prose epic. It is also top contender for best American novel. Wrote the first great romance about the Sout
Free Verse
Herman Melville
Ralph Ellison
Erica Jong
34. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
Anne Sexton
Vachel Lindsay
Persona
Broadside
35. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Frederick Douglass
William Bradford
Narrative Poem
Edward Teller
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
Dorthy Parker
Theodore Dreiser
Stephen Crane
Scan
37. 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
e.e cummings
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Stanza
Booker T. Washington
38. (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
J.D Salinger
Countee Cullen
Rhyme
Puritan Poetry
39. (Colonial Period) 1. God is King and Ruler. 2. Our duty in this world is to see that God's will prevails.3. Man is depraved from birth. 4. Few will be saved. Damned are damned despite their best efforts. Belief in Covenant Theology : God's covenant w
Booker T. Washington
Frederick Douglass
Rhyme
Calvinism
40. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Maya Angelou
Naturalism
Gothic
James Baldwin
41. 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
Anne Sexton
Blank Verse
Bret Harte
Allegory
42. Characterized by: Ordinary Language - Free Verse - Concentrated Word Pictures - Very specific words and phrases - Advanced by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell; also utilized by Robert Frost
Imagist Poetry
Richard Wright
Walt Whitman
Thomas Morton
43. (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
Countee Cullen
Ezra Pound
William Bradford
Alice Walker
44. (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
Meter
Racialism
Thomas Morton
Naturalism
45. 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
William S. Burroughs
Abigail Adams
Lyres
Rhyme
46. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
W.E.B Du Bois
Calvinism
John Steinbeck
Walt Whitman
47. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Robert Frost
William Faulkner
Emily Dickinson
F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Darwinism
Samuel Sewall
Realism
Sylvia Plath
49. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Richard Wright
Ernest Hemmingway
Transcendentalism
Jack London
50. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
Edgar Lee Masters
Jack Kerouac
James Weldon Johnson
Transcendental Club