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






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






3. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.






4. 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.






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






6. 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






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






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






9. 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.






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






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






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






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






14. 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.






15. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






16. 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






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






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






19. 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.






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






21. 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.






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






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. 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.






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






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






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






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






30. A narrative work that reports true events.






31. 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.






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






33. 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.






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






35. 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.






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






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






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






39. 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.






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






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






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






43. 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.






44. 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.






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






46. 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.






47. 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.






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






49. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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