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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 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






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






3. 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.






4. 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.






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






6. 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






7. 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.






8. Any composition not written in verse.






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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.






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






14. 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.






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






16. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






17. 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






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






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






20. 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.






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






22. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






25. 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.






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






27. 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.






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






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






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






31. 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).






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






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






34. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






36. A narrative work that reports true events.






37. 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.






38. 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.






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






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






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






42. 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.






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






44. 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.






45. 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.






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






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






48. 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.






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






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.