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






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






3. 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.






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






6. 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.






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






8. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






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






11. 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.






12. 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.






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






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






15. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






22. 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.






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






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






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






26. 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






27. 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






28. 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.






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






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






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






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






33. 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.






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






35. 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






36. 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.






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






38. 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






39. 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






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






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






42. 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.






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






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






45. Any composition not written in verse.






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






47. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






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