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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 fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






3. 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.






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






5. 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.






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






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






8. 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






9. 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






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






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






12. 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.






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






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






15. 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.






16. A short play based on a biblical story.






17. 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






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






19. 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.






20. 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






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






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






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






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






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






26. 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).






27. 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.






28. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






31. 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.






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






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






34. 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.






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






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






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






38. 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.






39. 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






40. A narrative work that reports true events.






41. 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.






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






43. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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