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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. 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.






2. 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






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






4. 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






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






6. 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






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






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






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






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






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






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






13. A narrative work that reports true events.






14. 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






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






16. 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.






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






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






19. 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.






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






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






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






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






24. 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.






25. 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.






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






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






28. 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.






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






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






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






32. 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.






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






34. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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 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






44. 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.






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






46. 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.






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






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






49. 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.






50. 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.