12) The Beats, 1950s and 1960s

Question 1

What is the periodization of The Beats?

Answer 1

1950s and early 1960s

Question 2

What is The Beats about?

Answer 2

rebellion against mainstream society and culture, advocating personal freedom, spontaneity, and rejection of materialism

Question 3

Who was the first to use the term The Beat Generation?

Answer 3

Kerouac

Question 4

Where is the early history of the Beat generation captured?

Answer 4

in Go by Holmes

Question 5

Who belongs to the Beat generation?

Answer 5

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs

Question 6

Which author published many of the Beat poets, yet distances himself from the Beat Generation?

Answer 6

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Question 7

Name two collections of poems written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Answer 7

A Coney Island of the Mind, Little Boy

Question 8

Jack Kerouac

Answer 8

On the Road, Visions of Cody

Question 9

William S. Burroughs

Answer 9

Naked Lunch

Question 10

J. D. Salinger

Answer 10

The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, Hapworth 16 1924

Question 11

Which of J. D. Salinger’s works is about the fictional Glass family?

Answer 11

Franny and Zooey

Question 12

Which of J. D. Salinger’s works is a novella and his last published work?

Answer 12

Hapworth 16, 1924

Question 13

Which 1950s author is a classic of the sci-fi genre?

Answer 13

Ray Bradbury

Question 14

Ray Bradbury

Answer 14

The Martian Cronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, Green Shadows White Whale

Question 15

Flannery O’Connor

Answer 15

Everything That Rises Must Converge, Wise Blood, The Violent Bear It Away, A Good Man is Hard to Find

Question 16

What is A Good Man is Hard to Find and when was it published?

Answer 16

a short story, first published in 1953

Question 17

What is the setting in A Good Man is Hard to Find?

Answer 17

rural South, likely Georgia, in the mid 20-th century, family preparing for a vacation

Question 18

What is the tragic ending in A Good Man is Hard to Find?

Answer 18

Misfit, an escaped convict, kills the whole family

Question 19

Vladimir Nabokov

Answer 19

Lolita

Question 20

When was Lolita published?

Answer 20

1955

Question 21

Who narrates Lolita and who is his main interest?

Answer 21

Humbert Humbert, Dolores Haze

Question 22

How does Lolita end?

Answer 22

Lolita runs away with another man, Humbert is devastated, eventually he is captured and imprisoned and confesses his crimes

Question 23

Harper Lee

Answer 23

Go Set a Watchman, To Kill a Mockingbird

Question 24

When was To Kill a Mockingbird published and what is its setting?

Answer 24

1960, fictional town of Maycomb Alabama during the 1930s

Question 25

Who narrates To Kill a Mockingbird?

Answer 25

Jean Louise “Scout” Finch

Question 26

What are the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird?

Answer 26

racial injustice, inequality in the American South, moral complexities of right and wrong, the importance of empathy and understanding

Question 27

Truman Capote

Answer 27

In Cold Blood, Other Voices Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Question 28

Patricia Highsmith

Answer 28

Strangers on a Train, Talented Mr Ripley, The Price of Salt

Question 29

Ayn Rand

Answer 29

Atlas Shrugged

Question 30

Which Truman Capote’s novel is a semiautobiographical novel about a boy who loses his mother?

Answer 30

Other Voices, Other Rooms

Question 31

Which book is a psychological thriller about two men arranging to commit murders each on the other’s behalf and who wrote it?

Answer 31

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Question 32

Which 1950s author is a Russian born writer and philosopher?

Answer 32

Ayn Rand