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CLEP Common Literary Forms And Genres

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






2. 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.






3. 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.






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






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






6. 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






7. 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.






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






9. 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.






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






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






12. 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.






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






14. 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.






15. 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.






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






17. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






19. 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).






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






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






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






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






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






27. 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.






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






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






30. 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.






31. 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.






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






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






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






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






36. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






38. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






45. 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.






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






47. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






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






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