1-forms

Can anyone give me a somewhat simplistic explanation of 1-forms?  For some reason I'm really stuck on this, I understand that they're a linear transformation mapping point and a vector to R.  (I'm guessing they actually map to all of C but for sake of learning I'd appreciate it simplified as my understanding of complex analysis is virtually nonexistant at this point in time.)  I don't even understand their purpose, except that a differential is a type of 1-form.  The wikipedia article was a bit over my head & the wolfram article wasn't much help either.

>>10
Thanks, I'm thinking of picking up an intermediate linear text for the summer as I won't be taking classes at the time.  I'm leaning towards Sheldon Axler's "..Done Right" text, is Hoffman/Kunze a better option (for linear in general, not determinants exclusively)?  As for the forms, thanks, but that still doesn't clear up much for me.  Unless there's a significant difference between linear & multilinear, I haven't heard the word multilinear used often but my assumption has always been that the difference is negligable.