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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 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 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.






3. 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






4. Any composition not written in verse.






5. A narrative work that reports true events.






6. 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.






7. 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.






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






9. 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






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






11. 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






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






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






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






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






16. 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.






17. 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.






18. 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






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






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






21. 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.






22. 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.






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






24. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






25. 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.






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






27. 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.






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






29. 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






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






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






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






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






34. 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.






35. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






41. 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.






42. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






44. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






46. 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.






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






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






49. 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.






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







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