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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

Subjects : clep, literature
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  • 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 composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.






2. A full-length fictional work that is novelistic in nature but written in verse rather than prose. Examples include Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate.






3. 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.






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






5. 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.






6. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






8. 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






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






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






11. 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.






12. 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.






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






14. 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.






15. 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






16. 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.






17. 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






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






19. 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.






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






21. 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.






22. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






23. 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.






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






25. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






28. Any composition not written in verse.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






38. 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.






39. 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.






40. 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.






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






42. 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.






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






44. 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






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






46. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






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






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






50. 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.







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