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CLEP American Literature

Subjects : clep, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • Match each statement with the correct term.
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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 literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.






2. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet






3. (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






4. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'






5. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac






6. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.






7. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.






8. 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






9. 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






10. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'






11. 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






12. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.






13. 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






14. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.






15. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.






16. Credited with creating: the modern short story and the detective novel - and the entire genre of mystery. Wrote 'The Philosophy of Composition' - 'The Raven' - 'Tell-Tale Heart -' 'The Cask of Amontillado -' and 'The Gold Bug.' (The first detective






17. 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.






18. 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






19. 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






20. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.






21. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.






22. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.






23. 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






24. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.






25. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.






26. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'






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






28. (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






29. 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.






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.






31. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'






32. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'






33. 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






34. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.






35. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'






36. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.






37. 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.






38. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture






39. Southern Gothic writer. Creates stories that simultaneously shock readers and reflect her strong Catholic faith.

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40. 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






41. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.






42. (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






43. 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.






44. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.






45. 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.






46. A type of literature win which words are selected and strung together for their beauty - sound - and power to express feelings.






47. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor






48. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'






49. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.






50. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'