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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 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.






2. 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.






3. 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






4. 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.






5. 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.






6. 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.






7. 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.






8. Any composition not written in verse.






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






10. 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






11. 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.






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






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






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






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






17. A short play based on a biblical story.






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






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






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






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






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






23. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






31. 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.






32. 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.






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 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.






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






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






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






39. 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.






40. 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.






41. A fictional prose narrative of significant length.






42. Fiction that is set in an alternative reality






43. 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






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






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






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






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






49. 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.






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







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