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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

Subjects : clep, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 30 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 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).






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






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






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






5. 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.






6. 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.






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






8. A short play based on a biblical story.






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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






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






14. 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.






15. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






22. 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.






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






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






25. A narrative work that reports true events.






26. 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.






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






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






29. 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.






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






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






32. 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






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






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






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






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






37. 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.






38. 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.






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






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






41. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






42. 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.






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 short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.






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






46. 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






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






48. Any composition not written in verse.






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






50. 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.