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Difficulty: MediumLiterary Genres and Forms

A realistic prose narrative that recounts the episodic, often humorous adventures of a roguish, lower-class protagonist who relies on cunning and wit to survive in a hypocritical society is best classified as which literary form?

  1. picaresque novelAnswer
  2. B
    epistolary novel
  3. C
    tragicomedy
  4. D
    gothic novel

Answer

The correct literary form is the picaresque novel, which depicts the episodic adventures of a lower-class rogue surviving by wit.
The picaresque novel is a major subgenre of prose fiction characterized by a first-person or third-person episodic narrative depicting the life and satirical adventures of a rogue or low-born protagonist who survives by cleverness in a corrupt social world.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze key characteristics in the stem
Identified core traits: prose narrative, episodic structure, roguish lower-class anti-hero, satirical commentary on society.
Matching structural and thematic traits identifies the precise literary subgenre.
2
Compare identified traits against prose genre definitions
The term 'picaresque' originates from Spanish 'pícaro' (rogue/knave) and precisely describes episodic prose centered on such characters.
Distinguishes character type and plot structure from epistolary, gothic, or dramatic genres.

Key Concept

Picaresque Novel Conventions
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Topics

Literary Genres and Forms

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