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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 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.






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






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






4. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






6. Any composition not written in verse.






7. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






13. 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






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






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






16. 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.






17. 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.






18. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






21. 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.






22. 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.






23. 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.






24. 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.






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






26. 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






27. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






35. 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).






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






37. 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.






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






39. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






41. 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.






42. 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.






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






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






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






46. 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.






47. 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.






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






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






50. 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.