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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 novel that tells a nonfictional - autobiographical story but uses novelistic techniques - such as fictionalized dialogue or anecdotes - to add color - immediacy - or thematic unity.






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






3. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






5. A play that confronts a contemporary social problem with the intent of changing public opinion on the matter.






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






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






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






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






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






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).






13. Any composition not written in verse.






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.






15. 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






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






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






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






19. 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.






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






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






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






23. 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






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






25. 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.






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






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






28. 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.






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






30. 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






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






32. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






35. 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.






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






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






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






39. 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.






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






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






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






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






44. 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.






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






46. 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.






47. 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






48. 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.






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.






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