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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres
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Study First
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.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.
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 particularly compressed and truncated short story. They are rarely longer than 1 -000 words.
Allegory
Short-short story
Miracle play
Fable
2. 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.
Satire
Soliloquy
Noh drama
Nonfiction
3. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.
Historical novel
Allegory
Parody
Prose poem
4. 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
Allegory
Elegy
Pastiche
Essay
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.
Legend
Parable
Memoir
Novella
6. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.
Epic theater
Verse novel
Black comedy
Lyric
7. A short play based on a biblical story.
Novel
Short-short story
Fiction
Mystery play
8. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.
Pastoral
Social protest novel
Elegy
Tragicomedy
9. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.
One-act play
Pastoral
Noh drama
Didactic literature
10. 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.
Science fiction
Dirge
Parable
Elegy
11. A narrative work that reports true events.
Fiction
Essay
Nonfiction
Prose poem
12. A story about a heroic figure derived from oral tradition and based partly on fact and partly on fiction.
Eclogue
Picaresque novel
Legend
Aphorism
13. 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.
Dirge
Novel
Epistolary novel
Parody
14. Traditionally - a folk song telling a story or legend in simple language - often with a refrain.
Ballad
Propaganda
Noir
Pastoral
15. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.
Tragicomedy
Eclogue
Fable
Biography
16. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.
Epic
Allegory
Novel of ideas
Fable
17. A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.
Dystopic literature
Allegory
Social protest novel
Parable
18. The nonfictional story of a person's life - told by that person.
Autobiography
Soliloquy
Autobiographical novel
Short-short story
19. A celebration of the simple - rustic life of shepherds and shepherdesses - usually written by a sophisticated - urban writer.
Prose
Aphorism
Pastoral
Dystopic literature
20. 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.
Epic
Play
Dystopic literature
Aphorism
21. 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.
Dramatic monologue
Novel of manners
Parody
Noir
22. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.
Epic
Mystery play
Romance
Prose
23. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.
Biography
Tragedy
Eclogue
Play
24. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.
Epigram
Problem play
Propaganda
Autobiographical novel
25. 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.
Primitivist literature
Fable
Propaganda
Verse novel
26. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.
Tragicomedy
Play
Essay
Noir
27. 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.
Satire
Fiction
Propaganda
Biography
28. 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
Noir
Epic
Black comedy
Morality play
29. A romance that describes the adventures of medieval knights and celebrates their strict code of honor - loyalty - and respectful devotion to women.
Ode
Tragedy
Epic
Chivalric romance
30. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.
Epic theater
Tragedy
Primitivist literature
Social protest novel
31. 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
Science fiction
Social protest novel
Drama
Epistolary novel
32. 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.
Soliloquy
Autobiographical novel
Mystery play
Morality play
33. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.
Primitivist literature
Noir
Morality play
Satire
34. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.
Drama
Dirge
Pastiche
Metafiction
35. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.
Comedy
Dystopic literature
Tragicomedy
Miracle play
36. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.
Didactic literature
Pastoral
Legend
Novel
37. Any composition not written in verse.
Prose
Aphorism
Propaganda
Play
38. 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.
Social protest novel
Dramatic monologue
Tragedy
Myth
39. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.
Picaresque novel
Farce
Satire
Dirge
40. Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example - Virgil's Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.
Epistolary novel
Didactic literature
Pastiche
Biography
41. 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
Allegory
Drama
Primitivist literature
Aphorism
42. A novel set in an earlier historical period that features a plot shaped by the historical circumstances of that period.
Historical novel
Dramatic monologue
Myth
Play
43. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.
Memoir
Aphorism
Morality play
Confessional poetry
44. 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.
Short story
Picaresque novel
Noh drama
Ballad
45. 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).
Parable
Legend
Aphorism
Myth
46. 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.
Bildungsroman
Prose
Legend
Autobiographical novel
47. The brief narration of a single event or incident.
Anecdote
Legend
Romance
Ode
48. A form of nonfictional discussion or argument that Michel de Montaigne pioneered in the 1500s.
Essay
One-act play
Parable
Memoir
49. 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.
Memoir
Parable
Lyric
Dystopic literature
50. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.
Metafiction
Dirge
Ode
Lyric