Lin Mostly American Literature Flashcards
Which leader of the transcendentalist movement penned essays such as “Nature” and “Self-Reliance?”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Mark Twain was the pen name for which father of American Literature?
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Which novel was the first ever to be written on a typewriter?
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Who wrote a series of mystery novels under the pen name Edgar Box and is known for the social satire “Myra Breckenridge?”
Gore Vidal
Which first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote a detailed journal which provides the basis for modern knowledge about colony’s history?
John Winthrop
What 1789 epistolary novel written by William Hill Brown is generally considered the first American novel?
The Power of Sympathy(, or The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth)
Which pioneering writer is known for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle?”
Washington Irving
Which 20th century Nobel laureate has most of his work set in Central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley where he was born?
John Steinbeck
What novel following the lives of the Trask and Hamilton families did Steinbeck considered to be his magnum opus?
East of Eden
Which novel is centered around George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant ranch workers trying to find jobs during the Great Depression?
Of Mice and Men
Which 1939 novel focusing on the impact of the Dust Bowl on the Joad family in Oklahoma was awarded the Pulitzer Prize?
The Grapes of Wrath
Name the three authors of the Federalist Papers.
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
Which prominent abolitionist and statesman wrote a series of autobiographies including “My Bondage and My Freedom?”
Frederick Douglass
What novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe had a profound impact on attitudes towards African Americans and the anti-slavery movement?
Uncle Tom’s Cabin(, or Life Among the Lowly)
Which sociologist and civil-rights activist is wrote “The Souls of Black Folk” and “Black Reconstruction in America?”
W.E.B. Du Bois
Which 20th century poet was one of the early innovators of jazz poetry and is known for works such as “Not Without Laughter” and “Montage of a Dream Deferred?”
Langston Hughes
Who wrote “I Married A Communist,” “The Human Stain,” and “Goodbye, Columbus?”
Phillip Roth
Who wrote “Arrowsmith,” “It Can’t Happen Here,” and “Babbitt?”
Sinclair Lewis
Who wrote “This Side of Paradise”, “Tender is the Night,” and “The Great Gatsby?”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Who wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “The Old Man and the Sea,” and “The Sun Also Rises?”
Ernest Hemingway
Who wrote “Foundation and Empire,” “The End of Eternity,” and “The Gods Themselves?”
Isaac Asimov
Who wrote “O Pioneers!”, “The Song of the Lark,” and “One of Ours?”
Willa Cather
Who wrote “The Open Boat,” “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” and “The Red Badge of Courage?”
Stephen Crane
Who wrote “Breakfast of Champions,” “Cat’s Cradle,” and “Welcome to the Monkey House?”
Kurt Vonnegut
Which Canadian-American writer is known for works such as “Herzog” and “Humboldt’s Gift?”
Saul Bellow
Which Russian psychologist and writer is known for works such as “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Crime and Punishment?”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The main action of James Fenimore Cooper’s ‘Last of the Mohicans’ takes place during which conflict?
The French and Indian War
Which Henry James novel centers around Isabel Archer and the consequences of her receiving a large inheritance?
The Portrait of a Lady
What Toni Morrison novel based on the life of runaway slave Margret Garner won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988?
Beloved
The 1855 first edition of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman contained only 12 poems. To within 20, how many poems did the final edition published 37 years later contain?
400 (accept 380 to 420)
Which Greek lyric poet from Lesbos was given names such as the “Tenth Muse” and “The Poetess”?
Sappho
Who is the author of the autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?”
Maya Angelou
What Vladimir Nabokov novel was once banned in the U.K and France for its sexual themes?
Lolita
What J.P. Donleavy novel was initially banned for obscenity in the U.S and Ireland?
The Ginger Man
Which novel was cited by Mark David Chapman to be an influence in his decision to murder John Lennon?
The Catcher in the Rye
What Johnathan Littell novel told from the point of view of a Nazi SS officer was criticised in Germany and the U.S for its violence?
The Kindly Ones
While on sick leave from the Merchant Marine, my author started to write what would become me in a barn in Waitsfield, Vermont during the summer of 1945. It is believed that Barack Obama modeled his memoir “Dreams from my Father on me.” My narrator wins a scholarship to an all black-college after high-school but was unaware that the award require him to fight blindfolded for the entertainment of rich dignitaries. I am an award-winning novel by Ralph Ellison that addresses many of the social issues faced by African Americans in the 20th century. Who am I?
Invisible Man
Which American playwright is known for plays such as “A View from the Bridge” and “All My Sons?”
Arthur Miller
Which Tennesse Williams play is set in the Mississippi plantation home of Big Daddy Pollitt?
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“The Iceman Cometh” and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” were plays by whom?
Eugene O’Neill
Which Edward Albee play explores themes of isolation and materialism in just one-act set in New York’s Central Park?
The Zoo Story
What type of creature is Wilbur in E.B White’s “Charlotte’s Web?”
pig
Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” is what species of whale?
sperm whale
Who is the canine main character of Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild?”
Buck
What is the name of the sloth-bear that teaches Mowgli “The Law of the Jungle” in Kipling’s The Jungle Book?
Baloo
Which American poet shows up most often in Quizbowl distro and is known for works such as “Acquainted with the Night” and “Birches?”
Robert Frost
Which 20th century author is associated with modernist free-form poetry and used idiosyncratic syntax alongside lowercase spellings for poetic expression?
e.e. cummings
What modernist T.S Eliot poem and is broken into 5 sections loosely following the legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King?
The Waste Land
“Ariel” and “Winter Trees” are poetry collections of which American poet who died of suicide in 1963?
Sylvia Plath
“Carrie” was the first published novel of which American horror and supernatural fiction author?
Stephen King
What Stephen King novel is centered around a rabid Saint-Bernard?
Cujo
What fantasy novel series centered around gunslinger Roland Deschain inspired a 2017 feature film starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey?
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger
Which longest of King’s novels is set during an apocalyptic pandemic caused by the release of weaponized influenza?
The Stand
In which encyclopedic novel by David Foster Wallace do companies bid for naming rights to calendar years?
Infinite Jest
Who did Hamlet call “A Fellow of Infinite Jest” upon his return to Denmark?
Yorick
Which beat generation novelist’s works including “Desolation Angels” and “On the Road” had a major impact on the rock music of the 1960s?
Jack Kerouac
Alice Walker’s “The Colour Purple” is written as a series of letters to whom?
God
What satirical war novel centers around the experiences of Captain John Yossarian, a bomber pilot in WWII?
Catch-22
In Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” what Matthew Arnold poem does Guy Montag read aloud to Mildred’s friends, to their horror and confusion?
Dover Beach
Which novelist created Phillip Marlowe as the protagonist of his detective fiction novels?
Raymond Chandler
What Henry David Thoreau novel’s name was prompted by his stay in a cabin near a pond of the same name?
Walden
In “A Streetcar Named Desire” which character says the line, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers?”
Blache DuBois
“The House of Mirth” was written by which first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature?
Edith Wharton
Which 1776 work by Thomas Paine helped rouse public favour for the American Revolution?
Common Sense
Which book helped spur the ban of DDT and launched the environmental movement in the 1960s?
Silent Spring
Which straightforward novel by Che Guevara urged readers to revolt against oppressive regimes?
Guerrilla Warfare
In which Edgar Allan Poe poem can we find the lines, “In a sort of Runic rhyme,/To the tintinabulation that so musically wells”?
The Bells
“Laugh and the world laughs with you; Weep and you weep alone” is a line in which poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox?
Solitude
“Here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world” is a line in which poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Concord Hymn
Finish the following line from Ogden Nash’s “Reflections on Ice Breaking”: “Candy is dandy But … “
Liquor is quicker
Which novel begins, ‘No One would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own’?
The War of the World
Which novel begins, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”?
Anna Karenina
Which novel begins, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen?”
1984
I was born in 1804 and once wagered a bottle of Madeira wine that my friend Johnathan Cilley that he would get married before I did. I would befriend future president Franklin Pierce at Bowdoin College and later write a biography of his life. One of my ancestors was a central judge in the Salem Witch trials so I added a “w” to my name to distance from this notorious past. My works center on New England and include the Scarlet Letter. Who am I?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Modern Prometheus” was the subtitle to which horror novel?
Frankenstein
In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Scout’s friendship with Dill is based on Harper Lee’s childhood friendship with what other author of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’
Truman Capote
What is Willy Loman’s obsessive goal in life in ‘Death of a Salesman?’
to be well-liked
Who is the only person to have won both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and Fiction, known for the novel “All The King’s Men?”
Robert Penn Warren
William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” contains a chapter that is just one sentence. What is this sentence?
My mother is a fish.
From whose novels are the quotes “There’s no there there” and “A rose is a rose is a rose” from?
Gertrude Stein
What do the initials J.D stand for in J.D Salinger?
Jerome David
To within 5, how many times does Holden Caulfield say “phony” in the Catcher in the Rye?
49 (accept 44-54)
Which novel by Amy Tan is structured like a game of mahjong and tells a story about Chinese American immigrants in San Francisco?
The Joy Luck Club
In which US state was “To Kill a Mockingbird” set?
Alabama
Which fiction writer created characters such as John Carter of Mars and Tarzan?
Edgar Rick Burroughs
Who is the cannibalistic antihero for Thomas Harris’ novels including “Silence of the Lambs?”
Hannibal Lecter
Which Margret Mitchell novel inspired the highest grossing film in history adjusted for inflation?
Gone with the Wind
What Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem chronicles the heroic night ride of an American revolutionary hero?
Paul Revere’s Ride
