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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

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.
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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 romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.






2. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.






3. A celebration of the simple - rustic life of shepherds and shepherdesses - usually written by a sophisticated - urban writer.






4. A humorous imitation of a serious work of literature. The humor often arises from the incongruity between the imitation and the work being imitated. For example - Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock uses the high diction of epic poetry to talk abou






5. A novel written in the form of letters exchanged by characters in the story - such as Samuel Richardson's Clarissa or Alice Walker's The Color Purple. This form was especially popular in the 1700s.






6. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.






7. A work that exposes to ridicule the shortcomings of individuals - institutions - or society - often to make a political point. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels is one of the most well known examples in English.






8. The nonfictional story of a person's life - told by that person.






9. A narrative work that reports true events.






10. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.






11. A narrative in which literal meaning corresponds clearly and directly to symbolic meaning. For example - the literal story in John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress






12. Traditionally - a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language - often with a refrain.






13. A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.






14. An autobiographical work. Rather than focus exclusively on the author's life - it pays significant attention to the author's involvement in historical events and the characterization of individuals other than the author.






15. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






16. A story about the origins of a culture's beliefs and practices - or of supernatural phenomena - usually derived from oral tradition and set in an imagined supernatural past.






17. Disturbing or absurd material presented in a humorous manner - usually with the intention to confront uncomfortable truths. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is a notable example.






18. A formal poem that laments the death of a friend or public figure - or - occasionally - a meditation on death itself. In Greek and Latin poetry - the term applies to a specific type of meter (alternating hexameters and pentameters) regardless of cont






19. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






20. A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s.






21. A particularly compressed and truncated short story. They are rarely longer than 1 -000 words.






22. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.






23. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.






24. The brief narration of a single event or incident.






25. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.






26. A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.






27. A concise expression of insight or wisdom: 'The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity' (Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil).






28. A novel - such as Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea - that the author uses as a platform for discussing ideas. Character and plot are of secondary importance.






29. A short play based on a biblical story.






30. A work that imitates the style of a previous author - work - or literary genre. Alternatively - the term may refer to a work that contains a hodgepodge of elements or fragments from different sources or influences. It differs from parody in that its






31. A speech - often in verse - by a lone character. The most famous example being the 'To be or not to be' speech in Shakespeare's Hamlet.






32. A lengthy narrative that describes the deeds of a heroic figure - often of national or cultural importance - in elevated language. Strictly - the term applies only to verse narratives like Beowulf or Virgil's Aeneid - but it is used to describe prose






33. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.






34. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.






35. Originally - a realistic novel detailing a scoundrel's exploits. The term grew to refer more generally to any novel with a loosely structured - episodic plot that revolves around the adventures of a central character.






36. A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter.






37. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.






38. A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.






39. A novel that tells a nonfictional - autobiographical story but uses novelistic techniques - such as fictionalized dialogue or anecdotes - to add color - immediacy - or thematic unity.






40. Any composition not written in verse.






41. Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example - Virgil's Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.






42. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.






43. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.






44. A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.






45. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.






46. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.






47. A short poetic expression of grief. It differs from an elegy in that it often is embedded within a larger work - is less highly structured - and is meant to be sung.






48. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.






49. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.






50. A story meant to be performed in a theater before an audience. Most are written in dialogue form and are divided into several acts. Many include stage directions and instructions for sets and costumes.