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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

Subjects : clep, literature
Instructions:
  • 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 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






8. Any composition not written in verse.






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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.






13. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






19. 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.






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






21. 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.






22. 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






23. 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.






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






25. 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.






26. 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






27. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






29. 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.






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






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






32. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






33. 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.






34. 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






35. 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.






36. 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.






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






38. 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.






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






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






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






42. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






44. 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.






45. 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).






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






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






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






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






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