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






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






3. 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).






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






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






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






7. 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.






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






9. 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






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






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






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






13. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






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






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






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






18. 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.






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






20. 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






21. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






28. 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.






29. Any composition not written in verse.






30. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






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






34. 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.






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






36. 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.






37. 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.






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






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






40. 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.






41. 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.






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






43. 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.






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






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






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






47. 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.






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






49. 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.






50. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.