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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres
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Subjects
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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 novel that tells a nonfictional - autobiographical story but uses novelistic techniques - such as fictionalized dialogue or anecdotes - to add color - immediacy - or thematic unity.
Myth
Biography
Autobiographical novel
Tragicomedy
2. 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.
Propaganda
Dystopic literature
Satire
Miracle play
3. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.
Ode
Lyric
Eclogue
Short-short story
4. A work of prose fiction that is much shorter than a novel (rarely more than forty pages) and focused more tightly on a single event.
Short story
Autobiography
Morality play
Fiction
5. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.
Ballad
Pastiche
Novel of ideas
Tragedy
6. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.
Farce
Ballad
One-act play
Metafiction
7. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.
Tragedy
Historical novel
Eclogue
Parody
8. 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.
Myth
Autobiographical novel
Dramatic monologue
Science fiction
9. Traditionally - a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language - often with a refrain.
Ballad
Didactic literature
Novel
One-act play
10. A narrative work that reports true events.
Nonfiction
Short story
Tragedy
Dirge
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
Autobiography
Epic
Prose
Allegory
12. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.
Comedy
Nonfiction
Drama
Noh drama
13. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.
Epic theater
Eclogue
Morality play
Comedy
14. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.
Black comedy
Problem play
Novel of ideas
Biography
15. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.
Fable
Epic theater
Science fiction
Propaganda
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.
Romance
Novel of manners
Prose poem
Dystopic literature
17. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.
Black comedy
One-act play
Bildungsroman
Legend
18. The nonfictional story of a person's life - told by that person.
Dystopic literature
Noh drama
Autobiography
Black comedy
19. 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.
Memoir
Propaganda
Fable
Chivalric romance
20. 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.
Noir
Propaganda
Myth
Essay
21. 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
Prose
Elegy
Confessional poetry
Chivalric romance
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.
Tragedy
Tragicomedy
Primitivist literature
Novel of ideas
23. Any composition not written in verse.
Comedy
Pastiche
Elegy
Prose
24. 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.
Tragedy
One-act play
Fiction
Soliloquy
25. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.
Verse novel
Historical novel
Parody
Novel
26. 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.
Problem play
Dirge
One-act play
Metafiction
27. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.
Epic theater
Verse novel
Fable
Parable
28. A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.
Parody
Lyric
Novel of manners
Romance
29. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.
Anecdote
Historical novel
Dirge
Novella
30. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.
One-act play
Nonfiction
Tragicomedy
Noh drama
31. 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).
Farce
Aphorism
Fable
Biography
32. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.
Mystery play
Soliloquy
Epigram
Propaganda
33. 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.
Drama
Comedy
Novel of manners
Biography
34. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.
Romance
Verse novel
Short-short story
Bildungsroman
35. A romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.
Chivalric romance
Elegy
Fiction
Autobiography
36. A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.
Parable
Short-short story
Fiction
Autobiographical novel
37. 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
Memoir
Noh drama
Comedy
Burlesque
38. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.
Satire
Historical novel
Novella
Short-short story
39. 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.
Dystopic literature
Picaresque novel
Novel of ideas
Mystery play
40. 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
Dramatic monologue
Bildungsroman
Anecdote
Pastiche
41. 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.
Prose poem
Dystopic literature
Prose
Romance
42. A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s.
Legend
Pastiche
Epic theater
Essay
43. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.
Epistolary novel
Fiction
Parody
Ode
44. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality
Memoir
Epigram
Science fiction
Tragedy
45. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.
Dystopic literature
Historical novel
Fiction
Noir
46. The brief narration of a single event or incident.
Anecdote
Romance
Novel
Drama
47. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.
Epigram
Lyric
Picaresque novel
Romance
48. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.
Primitivist literature
Burlesque
Dramatic monologue
Confessional poetry
49. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.
Autobiographical novel
Miracle play
Metafiction
Play
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.
Bildungsroman
Play
Novel of manners
Legend