All CLEP Humanities Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #3 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Classical Poetry
Which of the following biblical books is an extended love poem?
Wisdom
Psalms
Proverbs
Qoheleth
Song of Songs
Song of Songs
Of course, the very name "Song of Songs" already tempts you to answer that this is a piece of poetry, even if you are not aware of its genre and content. The poem is actually a piece of erotic love poetry, detailing the back and forth of the desires of a bride and groom for each other's beauty and love. The poem was ultimately brought into the overall canon of the Hebrew Scriptures because of its allegorical interpretation for the relation between the Hebrew people and God. For many Christian mystics, this book played a massively important role for describing the relationship between the individual soul and God as well. For example, the great monastic, Cistercian writer Bernard of Clairvaux produced numerous sermons on the Song, not even making it through all of the text in spite of writing over eighty sermons.
The Song is also known as the "Song of Solomon" or the "Canticle of Canticles."
Example Question #1 : Analyzing The Content Of Medieval And Renaissance Poetry
The medieval work that followed its author's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is __________.
Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight
The Canterbury Tales
The Summa Theologiœ
Beowulf
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy tells the story of its author, Dante, traveling through the different realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, all to find what happened to his deceased lover, Beatrice. The work is divided into three separate sections between Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Heaven). The whole work is an allegory for the soul's journey to God, as expressed in Medieval Catholic theology.
Example Question #2 : Analyzing The Content Of Medieval And Renaissance Poetry
Which of these figures was in limbo in Dante Alighieri's fourteenth century epic poem The Divine Comedy?
Beatrice
Emperor Frederick II, King of the Holy Roman Empire
Queen Dido of Carthage
Sultan Saladin of Egypt
Judas Iscariot
Sultan Saladin of Egypt
Sultan Saladin is the correct answer. He was placed in limbo because he was an honorable man, despite being a non-Christian. Sultan Saladin was a contemporary of Richard the Lionheart and conquered Jerusalem in the Second and Third Crusades. Others in limbo in The Divine Comedy include Julius Caesar, Hector, and Avicenna.
Example Question #1 : Analyzing The Form Of Poetry
Which of the following is not a key feature of a sonnet?
Epic length
A specific structure
A strict rhyme scheme
Fourteen lines
Metered lines
Epic length
The sonnet was first developed in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, but became a popular form of poetry throughout Europe during the Renaissance. William Shakespeare became well known in England for his sonnets in the late sixteenth century. A sonnet typically has just fourteen strictly metered lines, with a specific structure and strict rhyme scheme.
Example Question #255 : Clep: Humanities
The rhythmic scheme of iambic pentameter refers to a line that contains __________.
three feet of two unstressed syllables and one stressed syllable
ten feet of two stressed syllables
three feet of two stressed syllables and one unstressed syllable
five feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable
five feet of three long syllables
five feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable
Iambic pentameter is most famous as the rhythm scheme used by William Shakespeare in most of his plays. The scheme features five "feet" per line, with each foot having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. This rhythm creates a standard speaking pattern for actors and audiences to follow.
Example Question #251 : Clep: Humanities
The Italian poet Petrarch is most famous for working in what poetic form?
Common meter
Blank verse
The cinquain
The villanelle
The sonnet
The sonnet
Petrarch, who lived from 1304 to 1374, is not just famous for writing most of his poems in the sonnet form, but for widely popularizing the form across Europe. Petrarch used a standard fourteen line form with an ABBA rhyme scheme. Petrarch is considered one of the standardizers of the Italian language thanks to his immense popularity.
Example Question #3 : Analyzing The Form Of Poetry
If a stanza of poetry has an ABBA rhyme scheme, which of its lines rhyme?
First and third
Second and fourth
Third and fourth
First and fourth
First and second
First and fourth
When a rhyme scheme is described with letters, the first line automatically gets designated as "A." Any other line that rhymes with the first line will also be marked as "A." Therefore, in an ABBA rhyme scheme, the first and the fourth lines rhyme, as do the second and third lines.
Example Question #253 : Literature
What kinds of poems are made up of fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, and end in a rhyming couplet?
Poems written in common meter
Sonnets
Aubades
Haikus
Odes
Sonnets
"Sonnet" is the correct answer, as sonnets utilize iambic pentameter and a concluding couplet and are usually made up of fourteen lines. The most famous writer of English sonnets is William Shakespeare, who wrote one hundred and fifty-four sonnets during his lifetime.
Example Question #254 : Literature
Which of the following metrical schemes was used by William Shakespeare in his poetry?
Iambic Pentameter
Trochaic Tetrameter
Cretic Dimeter
Dactylic Hexameter
Spondaic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter
The poetry of William Shakespeare fit most of the conventions of sixteenth century English poetry, and as such he used the meter of iambic pentameter almost exclusively. Iambs refer to the "feet," or stress breaks, in poetry that are a short syllable followed by a long syllable, while "pentamater" refers to there being five, from the Greek "penta," feet. Thus, an iambic pentameter line is meant to be said with a rhythm of "da-DUH, da-DUH, da-DUH, da-DUH, da-DUH."
Example Question #1 : Understanding Terminology That Describes Poetry
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
What is the rhyme scheme of the given passage?
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
c d
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
e f
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
a b
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
b b
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g
The poem is Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare. The rhyme scheme is four quatrains and an ending couplet. The couplet, or last two lines, rhyme with each other, but not with other lines earlier in the poem.