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






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






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. 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.






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






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






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






8. A short play based on a biblical story.






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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.






13. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






20. 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.






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






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






23. 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.






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






25. 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.






26. 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.






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






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






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






30. 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






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






32. 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






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






34. 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






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






36. 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).






37. 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.






38. 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.






39. 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






40. 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.






41. 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.






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






43. 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.






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






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






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






47. 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






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






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






50. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality