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






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






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






4. 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.






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






6. 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.






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






8. 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






9. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






11. 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.






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






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






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






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. 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.






17. 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






18. 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.






19. 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






20. 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.






21. 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






22. 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.






23. 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.






24. 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.






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






26. 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.






27. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






33. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






43. 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.






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






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






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






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






48. Any composition not written in verse.






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






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