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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres
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Study First
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 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).
Aphorism
Drama
Science fiction
One-act play
2. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.
Epic theater
Noir
Problem play
Chivalric romance
3. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.
Fable
Problem play
Miracle play
Ballad
4. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.
Prose poem
Farce
Epistolary novel
Metafiction
5. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.
Legend
Prose poem
Lyric
Comedy
6. The brief narration of a single event or incident.
Romance
Autobiographical novel
Anecdote
Miracle play
7. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.
Pastiche
Romance
Noir
Mystery play
8. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.
Social protest novel
Epic theater
Tragedy
Dirge
9. 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.
Play
Bildungsroman
Noir
Anecdote
10. 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.
Nonfiction
Picaresque novel
Soliloquy
Bildungsroman
11. A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.
Epic theater
Metafiction
Miracle play
Autobiographical novel
12. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.
Drama
Legend
Dystopic literature
Short-short story
13. 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.
Primitivist literature
Essay
Novel of ideas
Social protest novel
14. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.
Autobiography
Eclogue
Drama
Historical novel
15. A narrative work that reports true events.
Epistolary novel
Nonfiction
Legend
Historical novel
16. A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.
Fable
Mystery play
Drama
Tragedy
17. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality
Science fiction
Legend
Short-short story
Noh drama
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.
Comedy
Prose poem
Myth
Metafiction
19. 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.
Romance
Autobiographical novel
Verse novel
Burlesque
20. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.
Romance
Myth
Farce
Novella
21. 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.
Epistolary novel
Epigram
Novel
Autobiography
22. A romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.
Essay
Epic theater
Chivalric romance
Ballad
23. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.
Tragicomedy
Noir
Autobiography
Ballad
24. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.
Farce
Primitivist literature
Anecdote
Biography
25. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.
Picaresque novel
Play
One-act play
Morality play
26. 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.
Farce
Nonfiction
Dirge
Dystopic literature
27. 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
Epic
Pastiche
Dirge
One-act play
28. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.
Novel
Parody
One-act play
Mystery play
29. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.
Short-short story
Epistolary novel
Tragedy
Allegory
30. 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
Anecdote
Ode
Farce
31. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.
Farce
Elegy
Biography
Nonfiction
32. 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.
Lyric
Dirge
Autobiographical novel
Epistolary novel
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.
Lyric
Novel of manners
Mystery play
Biography
34. A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s.
Metafiction
Essay
Anecdote
Epistolary novel
35. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.
Mystery play
Pastoral
Anecdote
Propaganda
36. A succinct - witty statement - often in verse. For example - William Wordsworth's observation 'The child is the father of the man.'
Epigram
Allegory
Dystopic literature
Autobiography
37. A humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.
Morality play
Epic
Pastoral
Parody
38. 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
Verse novel
Essay
Burlesque
Historical novel
39. 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.
Pastoral
Dirge
Soliloquy
Pastiche
40. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.
Problem play
Verse novel
Drama
One-act play
41. 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.
Soliloquy
Noh drama
Novella
Metafiction
42. A short play based on a biblical story.
Epistolary novel
Verse novel
Aphorism
Mystery play
43. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.
Eclogue
Legend
Noh drama
Prose poem
44. 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.
Science fiction
Essay
Myth
Parody
45. A particularly compressed and truncated short story. They are rarely longer than 1 -000 words.
Short story
Elegy
Short-short story
Didactic literature
46. 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.
Drama
Primitivist literature
Mystery play
Epigram
47. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.
Pastoral
Fiction
Burlesque
Propaganda
48. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.
Verse novel
Parody
Nonfiction
Noh drama
49. 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
Dramatic monologue
Play
Novel
50. 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
Problem play
Novel
Noir
Elegy