CLEP American Literature key terms

A direct, unadorned prose style used by Puritan writers to convey religious ideas clearly, avoiding elaborate ornamentation. It features short sentences, everyday vocabulary, and biblical allusions, aiming to instruct and move the reader toward spiritual reflection.

A sermon or literary work lamenting society's moral decline and calling for repentance, named after the biblical prophet Jeremiah. Common in Puritan New England, it warned of divine punishment and urged a return to covenant obligations.

A first-person account of abduction by Native Americans, popular in colonial America. These narratives combined adventure with spiritual autobiography, often interpreting the captivity as a test of faith and a sign of divine providence.

A personal narrative tracing the author's religious journey from sin to salvation, emphasizing introspection and God's grace. Found in Puritan conversion narratives, it shaped later American autobiographical writing by linking self-examination with moral purpose.

An eighteenth-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, science, and individual rights over tradition and revelation. In American literature, it influenced political pamphlets, deistic thought, and the polished prose of the founding era.

A religious philosophy that regards God as a distant creator who set natural laws in motion but does not intervene in human affairs. It appealed to some American founders and appears in rationalist writings of the early national period.

The belief that anyone can achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination, regardless of background. In literature, it often appears as a promise that characters pursue, attain, or see betrayed by social realities.

A literary movement valuing imagination, emotion, individualism, and nature over reason and classical form. In American literature, it fostered symbolic tales, lyrical poetry, and explorations of the self and the sublime.

A nineteenth-century American movement holding that intuition and the individual soul can access divine truth, and that nature is a source of spiritual insight. It encouraged self-reliance, social reform, and a break from tradition.

A strain of Romantic writing that emphasizes human sinfulness, guilt, and the irrational. It uses Gothic elements and psychological depth to explore the darker sides of the mind and moral ambiguity.

A literary mode featuring mystery, terror, gloomy settings, and supernatural or seemingly supernatural events. American Gothic often explores hidden guilt and social anxieties within domestic or historical settings.

The Transcendentalist principle that individuals should trust their own intuition and conscience rather than conform to social expectations. It celebrates nonconformity and personal integrity as paths to spiritual growth.

A narrative in which characters, objects, and events represent abstract ideas or moral qualities, often with a systematic one-to-one correspondence. It is used to convey philosophical or religious meaning beneath a literal story.

Poetry without a fixed meter or rhyme scheme, relying instead on rhythm, line breaks, and cadence. It became prominent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as poets sought organic form and natural speech.

A literary movement that aims to depict ordinary life and society accurately, without idealization or romantic embellishment. It focuses on plausible characters, everyday settings, and social detail.

An offshoot of Realism that applies deterministic ideas from science to fiction, portraying characters as products of heredity and environment. It often emphasizes harsh conditions, instinct, and the limits of free will.

A literary approach that emphasizes the distinctive geography, dialect, customs, and social life of a particular region. It often preserves local traditions and provides a window into communities outside the cultural mainstream.

Writing that vividly renders the speech, manners, and scenery of a specific locale, often for readers unfamiliar with it. It was popular in the late nineteenth century and is closely related to Regionalism.

The philosophical view that events, including human actions, are caused by prior conditions such as heredity and environment. In literature, it often shapes plots where characters have limited control over their fate.

A type of Realism that exposes social problems such as poverty, labor exploitation, and urban corruption. It aims to awaken readers' consciences and sometimes advocates reform.

Investigative journalism of the early twentieth century that exposed corruption, abuses in business, and social injustices. Its factual, reform-minded spirit influenced realistic and naturalistic fiction.

A twentieth-century movement in literature and the arts that broke with traditional forms and embraced experimentation, fragmentation, and self-consciousness. It often reflects alienation and the search for new ways to represent experience.

A poetic movement that called for precise, concrete images, economical language, and free verse, rejecting sentimentality and vague abstraction. It was a major influence on modernist poetry.

A narrative technique that presents a character's continuous flow of thoughts, feelings, and associations, often without logical order. It aims to capture inner life more faithfully than conventional narration.

A technique that renders a character's inner thoughts in their own voice, often as a silent soliloquy. It may be highly structured or associative and is closely related to stream of consciousness.

A group of American writers who came of age during World War I and expressed disillusionment with traditional values and the postwar world. The term is associated with expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s.

A term for the 1920s in America, characterized by prosperity, cultural change, and the popularity of jazz music. Literature of the period often critiques materialism, changing morals, and the pursuit of pleasure.

A cultural and literary movement of the 1920s centered in Harlem, in which African American writers, artists, and musicians celebrated Black identity and produced innovative work. It addressed racism, heritage, and modern urban life.

T. S. Eliot's term for a set of objects, situations, or events that evoke a specific emotion in the reader without direct statement. It became a key concept for modernist poetic craft.

A late twentieth-century movement characterized by irony, pastiche, metafiction, and skepticism toward grand narratives and absolute truth. It often blurs boundaries between high and popular culture.

Fiction that self-consciously draws attention to its own status as a constructed artifact, often through commentary on the writing process. It questions the relationship between fiction and reality.

A narrative mode in which magical or improbable events are presented as ordinary within a realistic setting. It is often used to explore history, memory, and cultural identity.

A mid-twentieth-century mode in which poets explore intimate personal experience, including mental illness, family trauma, and sexuality, with candor. It values direct emotional exposure over impersonality.

A group of writers of the 1950s who rejected mainstream conformity and celebrated spontaneity, spirituality, and alternative lifestyles. Their work influenced later countercultural movements.

Writing by authors of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds that explores identity, assimilation, discrimination, and cultural heritage. It has become a central part of the contemporary literary landscape.

The use of objects, characters, or actions to represent abstract ideas or qualities beyond their literal meaning. It invites readers to interpret deeper significance and is common across literary periods.

A form of language spoken by a particular region or social group, marked by distinctive vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation. Writers use it to create realistic characters and a sense of place.