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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 lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.






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






3. 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.






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






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






6. Any composition not written in verse.






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






9. 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.






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






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






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 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.






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






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






16. A short play based on a biblical story.






17. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






23. 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






24. 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.






25. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






26. 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






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 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






29. 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.






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






31. 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.






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






33. 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.






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






35. 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






36. 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.






37. 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.






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






39. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






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






43. A narrative work that reports true events.






44. 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






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






46. 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.






47. 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






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






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






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