Test your basic knowledge |

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. 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.






2. 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.






3. 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.






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






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






6. 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.






7. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






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






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






10. 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.






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






12. 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.






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






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






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






16. 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.






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






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






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






20. 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.






21. Any composition not written in verse.






22. 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).






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






24. 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.






25. 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.






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






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






28. 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.






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






30. 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.






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






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






33. 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






34. 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






35. 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






36. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






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






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






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






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






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






42. A novel in which the author's aim is to tell a story that illuminates and draws attention to contemporary social problems with the goal of inciting change for the better. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin - which exposed the horrors of Africa






43. A narrative work that reports true events.






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






45. 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






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






47. 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






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






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






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