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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

Subjects : clep, literature
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • 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 romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.






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






3. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






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






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






8. 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.






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. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






12. 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.






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






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






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






16. 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.






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






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






20. 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.






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






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






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






24. 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).






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






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






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






28. A narrative work that reports true events.






29. Any composition not written in verse.






30. 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.






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






32. 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






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






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






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






36. 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.






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






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






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






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






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. 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.






44. 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






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






46. 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.






47. A short play based on a biblical story.






48. 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.






49. 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.






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