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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres
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Subjects
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clep
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literature
Instructions:
Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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study here
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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 humorous and often satirical imitation of the style or particular work of another author.
Propaganda
Science fiction
Problem play
Parody
2. 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.
One-act play
Epistolary novel
Dirge
Tragicomedy
3. The brief narration of a single event or incident.
Primitivist literature
Eclogue
Anecdote
Autobiographical novel
4. 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.
Ballad
Fiction
Problem play
Memoir
5. 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
Prose
Memoir
Miracle play
6. Fiction that concerns the nature of fiction itself - either by reinterpreting a previous fictional work or by drawing attention to its own fictional status.
Chivalric romance
Metafiction
Morality play
Prose
7. A form of high-energy comedy that plays on confusions and deceptions between characters and features a convoluted and fast-paced plot.
Farce
Miracle play
Novel of manners
Essay
8. A short narrative that illustrates a moral by means of allegory.
Confessional poetry
Autobiographical novel
Aphorism
Parable
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
Legend
Burlesque
Lyric
One-act play
10. A play consisting of a single act - without intermission and running usually less than an hour.
Memoir
Picaresque novel
Essay
One-act play
11. 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
Epic
Fiction
Elegy
Dirge
12. 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).
Aphorism
Novel of manners
Chivalric romance
Epic theater
13. An invented narrative - as opposed to one that reports true events.
Verse novel
Fiction
Parody
Play
14. 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.
One-act play
Comedy
Myth
Noir
15. A nonrealistic story - in verse or prose - that features idealized characters - improbable adventures - and exotic settings.
Pastoral
Noir
Nonfiction
Romance
16. 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.
Essay
Prose poem
Tragedy
Short story
17. 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.
Pastiche
Dirge
Novella
Dystopic literature
18. Literature intended to instruct or educate. For example - Virgil's Georgics contains farming advice in verse form.
Morality play
Problem play
Didactic literature
Anecdote
19. A ritualized form of Japanese drama that evolved in the 1300s involving masks and slow - stylized movement.
Comedy
Didactic literature
Epic
Noh drama
20. A succinct - witty statement - often in verse. For example - William Wordsworth's observation 'The child is the father of the man.'
Propaganda
Epigram
Short-short story
Fable
21. A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter.
Primitivist literature
Social protest novel
Parody
Problem play
22. 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
Noir
Short story
Fable
Allegory
23. A play from the Middle Ages featuring saints or miraculous appearances by the Virgin Mary.
Biography
Fable
Miracle play
Prose
24. A play written in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries that presents an allegory of the Christian struggle for salvation.
Novel of manners
Mystery play
Morality play
Elegy
25. A short prose or verse narrative - such as those by Aesop - that illustrates a moral - which often is stated explicitly at the end.
Dystopic literature
Primitivist literature
Romance
Fable
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
Tragedy
Primitivist literature
Lyric
Social protest novel
27. 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
Social protest novel
Propaganda
Noir
28. A work of didactic literature that aims to influence the reader on a specific social or political issue.
Verse novel
Novel of manners
Propaganda
Dystopic literature
29. Bertolt Brecht's Marxist approach to theater - which rejects emotional and psychological engagement in favor of critical detachment.
Epic theater
Primitivist literature
Memoir
Comedy
30. A composition that is meant to be performed. The term often is used interchangeably with play.
Drama
Fiction
Novella
Epic theater
31. 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.
Play
Fiction
Autobiographical novel
Mystery play
32. A play such as Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale that mixes elements of tragedy and comedy.
Parable
Tragicomedy
Nonfiction
Fable
33. A short pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds. Virgil's Eclogues is the most famous example of this genre.
Legend
Eclogue
Romance
Anecdote
34. A work of fiction of middle length - often divided into a few short chapters - such as Henry James's Daisy Miller.
Short-short story
Bildungsroman
Parable
Novella
35. 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.
Soliloquy
Comedy
Noh drama
Propaganda
36. A serious lyric poem - often of significant length - that usually conforms to an elaborate metrical structure.
Ode
Dystopic literature
Myth
Satire
37. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality
Science fiction
Picaresque novel
Farce
One-act play
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
Autobiographical novel
Elegy
Tragedy
Parable
39. 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.
Play
Tragedy
Confessional poetry
Epigram
40. The nonfictional story of a person's life. James Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the most celebrated examples.
Tragedy
Prose
Eclogue
Biography
41. A lighthearted play characterized by humor and a happy ending.
Aphorism
Allegory
Comedy
Nonfiction
42. 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.
Picaresque novel
Novel
Noir
Nonfiction
43. A particularly compressed and truncated short story. They are rarely longer than 1 -000 words.
Aphorism
Short-short story
Play
One-act play
44. A short play based on a biblical story.
Nonfiction
Mystery play
Romance
Novel of ideas
45. A fiction genre - popularized in the 1940s - with a cynical - disillusioned - loner protagonist.
Prose
Lyric
Dystopic literature
Noir
46. A serious play that ends unhappily for the protagonist.
Burlesque
Tragedy
Play
Confessional poetry
47. The nonfictional story of a person's life - told by that person.
Drama
Autobiography
Pastoral
Epistolary novel
48. A poetic work that features the strong rhythms of free versebut is presented on the page in the form of prose - without line breaks.
Problem play
Bildungsroman
Prose poem
One-act play
49. A short poetic composition that describes the thoughts of a single speaker.
Lyric
Science fiction
Play
Dystopic literature
50. An autobiographical poetic genre in which the poet discusses intensely personal subject matter with unusual frankness.
Propaganda
Confessional poetry
Play
Parable