Test your basic knowledge |

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.
  • 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 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.






2. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.






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






4. 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.






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






6. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.






7. A genre of fiction that presents an imagined future society that purports to be perfect and utopian but that the author presents to the reader as horrifyingly inhuman.






8. 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.






9. A novel that focuses on the social customs of a certain class of people - often with a sharp eye for irony. Jane Austen's novels are prime examples of this genre.






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






11. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






14. 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).






15. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.






16. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.






17. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.






18. 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






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






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






21. A novel in which the author's aim is to tell a story that illuminates and draws attention to contemporary social problems with the goal of inciting change for the better. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin - which exposed the horrors of Africa






22. Works that express a preference for the natural over the artificial in human culture - and a belief that the life of primitive cultures is preferable to modern lifestyles.






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






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






25. A poem that contains words that a fictional or historical character speaks to a particular audience. Alfred - Lord Tennyson's 'Ulysses' is a famous example.






26. 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.






27. 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.






28. Any composition not written in verse.






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






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 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.






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






33. 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






34. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






36. A succinct - witty statement - often in verse. For example - William Wordsworth's observation 'The child is the father of the man.'






37. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.






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






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






40. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.






41. 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






42. 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






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






44. A German term - meaning 'formation novel -' for a novel about a child or adolescent's development into maturity - with special focus on the protagonist's quest for identity. James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a notable example.






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






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






47. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.






48. 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.






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






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