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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. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
William S. Burroughs
Genteel Tradition
James Baldwin
Free Verse
2. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture
Beat Movement
Walt Whitman
Sylvia Plath
Three main colonial era poets
3. 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'
Toni Morrison
Romanticism
Claude McKay
Three main colonial era poets
4. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Booker T. Washington
Edith Wharton
Zora Neal Hurston
5. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Cotton Mather
Epic Story
Norman Mailer
Realism
6. 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.
Refrain
e.e cummings
Erica Jong
Bret Harte
7. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
Claude McKay
Mary Wilkins Freeman
William Byrd
Gwendolyn Brooks
8. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
Jack Kerouac
Stanza
Transcendental Club
Allen Ginsberg
9. (Colonial Period) One of the most brilliant of American thinkers. Theologian and philosopher; vigorous defender of Calvinistic orthodoxy at the end of the Puritan era. Influenced major nineteenth century writers such as Emerson - Hawthorne - Melville
Modernism
Drama
Meter
Jonathan Edwards
10. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Gwendolyn Brooks
John Smith
John Adams
Jack Kerouac
11. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Epic Story
The 3 primary literary genres
Norman Mailer
Dorthy Parker
12. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Drama
Countee Cullen
Broadside
Polemic
13. 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
Edgar Allen Poe
Edith Wharton
Frank Norris
Meter
14. 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
Cotton Mather
Robert Lowell
Henry James
Phillip Roth
15. 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
Herman Melville
Nativism
Erica Jong
Saul Bellow
16. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Robert Frost
Loaded Words
Three main colonial era poets
Richard Wright
17. A 14-line poem with a set rhythm and rhyme scheme.
Frederick Douglass
Narrative Poem
Sonnet
Ernest Hemmingway
18. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Beat Writers
Loss of Traditional Values
Edward Teller
James Fenimore Cooper
19. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
Robert Frost
Polemic
Puritan Poetry
John Adams
20. 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.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Sarah Orne Jewett
Ernest Hemmingway
Polemic
21. 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.
Washington Irving
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Persona
Langston Hughes
22. 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.'
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Naturalism
Mayflower Compact
23. 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.
Nativism
Calvinism
Claude McKay
Rhyme Scheme
24. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Melting Pot
Ernest Hemmingway
Richard Wright
Mayflower Compact
25. 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
T.S Eliot
Verse
Ralph Ellison
Gwendolyn Brooks
26. (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
Calvinism
Toni Morrison
Broadside
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
27. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Loss of Traditional Values
Booker T. Washington
Phillip Roth
Meter
28. 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.
Monologue
Gothic
James Weldon Johnson
Modernism
29. 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)
Ralph Ellison
The Declaration of Independence
John Adams
30. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
Foot
Saul Bellow
Naturalism
Melting Pot
31. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Willa Cather
Scientism
Bret Harte
Three main colonial era poets
32. 'The Old Man and the Sea -' 'The Sun Also Rises -' 'A Farewell to Arms -' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Writing style emphasizes: Short sentences - brief paragraphs - active verbs - authenticity - compression - clarity - and immediacy. Produced some
Imagist Poetry
Ernest Hemmingway
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Benjamin Franklin
33. 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
Washington Irving
Transcendentalism
Langston Hughes
Stephen Crane
34. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
Broadside
e.e cummings
Nathaniel Hawthorne
James Weldon Johnson
35. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Samuel Sewall
Jonathan Edwards
Frank Norris
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
36. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
Blank Verse
James Thurbur
Edgar Allen Poe
Ralph Ellison
37. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'
Norman Mailer
Langston Hughes
Saul Bellow
Maya Angelou
38. (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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Genteel Tradition
Thomas Morton
Ballad
39. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
W.E.B Du Bois
Phillip Roth
Broadside
Thomas Morton
40. 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
Richard Wright
Beat Movement
Benjamin Franklin
Ezra Pound
41. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.
Cotton Mather
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wonders of the Invisible World
Nietzscheism
42. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
Anne Sexton
Samuel Sewall
Robert Lowell
Toni Morrison
43. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
James Weldon Johnson
Monologue
Epic Story
Foot
44. (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
Allegory
Puritan Poetry
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cotton Mather
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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Abigail Adams
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Ballad
46. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
e.e cummings
Emile Zola
Meter
Transcendental Club
47. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Morton
Jack London
William Byrd
48. Poetry that does not have a regular beat - rhyme or line length. Walt Whitman
Nathaniel Hawthorne
e.e cummings
Poetry
Free Verse
49. (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
Refrain
William Bradford
John Adams
Iambic Pentameter
50. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Benjamin Franklin
William Faulkner
Social Darwinism
Wonders of the Invisible World