Literature Flashcards
Longfellow poem
Title character asks John Alden to woo Priscilla Mullens in his stead
“Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” (she asks)
John & Priscilla end up together (historically accurate, apparently)
THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
1974 book by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward of how they broke Watergate for the Washington Post
“June 17, 1972… Early for the telephone.”
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward’s 1976 follow-up book about the end of Nixon’s presidency
THE FINAL DAYS
Austrian writer
“Das Lied von Bernadette” (“The Song of Bernadette”) (1941) about a girl’s visions at Lourdes
3rd spouse of Alma Schindler
FRANZ WERFEL
Franz Werfel’s 1941 novel about a girl’s visions at Lourdes
THE SONG OF BERNADETTE
DAS LIED VON BERNADETTE
French playwright
“Phedre” (1677) - tragedy in which the title character is rejected by her stepson Hippolytus & commits suicide
“Britannicus” (who is usurped by Nero)
“Berenice”
Name with French roots?
JEAN RACINE
Anthony Doerr’s 2014 Pulitzer winner about a Nazi boy & a blind French girl in France during WWII
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
Felix Salten’s 1923 novel subtitled “A Life in the Woods”
Title character’s love interest is Faline
BAMBI
Author of “Bambi: A Life in the Woods” (1923)
FELIX SALTEN
David Guterson’s 1994 novel about Japanese-Americans in Washington state
SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
Author of “The Devil Wears Prada” (2003), based on her time at Vogue working with Anna Wintour
Followup “When Life Gives You LuluLemons” (2018)
LAUREN WEISBERGER
Author of “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (1934) & “Lost Horizon” (1933)
JAMES HILTON
James Hilton’s 1934 novel about a teacher
GOODBYE MR. CHIPS
James Hilton’s 1933 novel about a plane crash in the Himalayas leading to a paradise
LOST HORIZON
Name of the paradise in James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon” (1933)
SHANGRI-LA
Writers of the satirical magazine “The Spectator”
Also worked on “The Tatler”
Both published between 1709 & 1711
ADDISON & STEELE
Bloomsbury group member
Biographer
“Eminent Victorians” (1918)
LYTTON STRACHEY
John Van Druten’s play based on Christopher Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories”
It inspired “Cabaret”
I AM A CAMERA
Playwright of “Bell, Book, & Candle” and “I Am a Camera”
JOHN VAN DRUTEN
Author of “A Bear Called Paddington” (1958)
MICHAEL BOND
1757-1787
Poet & painter
“Songs of Inocence”, which includes “The Lamb”
“Who made thee?”
“Songs of Experience”, which includes “The Tyger”
WILLIAM BLAKE
____, ____, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What Immortal hand or eye,
Could frame they fearful symmetry?
-William Blake
(THE) TYGER
Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 realist novel about a bored wife, Emma
Her husband Charles is a doctor
She has affairs with Rodolphe & Leon, then commits suicide
The book was put on trial for “moral offense”
MADAME BOVARY
Author of “Madame Bovary” (1857), about a bored wife and her affairs
Was put on trial for “moral offense”
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Argentine author of short stories
Magical realist
“Labyrinths”
“Ficciones”
JORGE LUIS BORGES
Argentine author
“Betrayed By Rita Hayworth”
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1975)
MANUEL PUIG
Manuel Puig’s 1975 novel
Adapted to a Terrence Mcnally musical (1992) with Chita Rivera (who won a Tony)
Adapted to a 1985 film with William Hurt (who won an Oscar)
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
English romantic poet
One of the “Lake Poets”
“Story of the 3 Bears”
Sounds like a Boston area
ROBERT SOUTHEY
1798 poetry collection by Coleridge & Wordsworth
LYRICAL BALLADS
English Romantic poet with an apt name
One of the “Lake Poets”
“Poet of Nature”
“The Haunted Tree
“Ecclesiastical Sonnets
“Tintern Abbey”
“Daffodils”
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Wordsworth wrote “Lines composed above” this place on the Wye River
TINTERN ABBEY
Alternative title, and last line, of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
DAFFODILS
First line and title of the Wordsworth poem that ends,
“And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD
Group including Wordsworth, Coleridge, & Southey
Named for a district in northern England
THE LAKE POETS
(LAKE DISTRICT)
Romanian-French “theatre of the absurd” playwright
“The Bald Soprano” (1950)
“Rhinoceros” (1959)
“Exit the King”
EUGENE IONESCO
Title of a 1959 Eugene Ionesco play in which people turn into the title animal
RHINOCEROS
“Musical” title of a 1950 Ionesco play about 2 couples
THE BALD SOPRANO
French writer & aviator
“The Little Prince” (1943), also a 1974 film
Disappeared flying in 1944 (in WWII)
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY
14th century (1300s) Italian poet of the “Decameron”
Compatriot of Petrarch
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
Boccaccio work of the 14th century (1300s)
10 people tell 10 stories each (100 total) while escaping the plague in Florence
Inspired Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”
THE DECAMERON
Jewish-American poet
Composed the poem on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal in 1883
Also wrote “1492”
EMMA LAZARUS
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land […]
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles […]
[…] “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
-Emma Lazarus
THE NEW COLOSSUS
American “Quaker poet” of Massachusetts
“Eva” (inspired by a character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin - he was an abolitionist)
“Barefoot boy, with cheeks of tan…”
“For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these - ‘it might have been’.”
A fireside poet.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about gay life in NYC
THE BOYS IN THE BAND
Poet
Friend of Sylvia Plath
“To Bedlam & Part Way Back” (1960)
ANNE SEXTON
Playwright
“The Children’s Hour”
“Toys in the Attic”
“Pentimento” (1973 book - basis of 1977 Jane Fonda film “Julia”)
Partner of Dashiell Hammett
LILLIAN HELLMAN
1939 play by Lillian Hellman about the Hubbard family
Title comes from a bible verse about how they “… spoil the vine.”
THE LITTLE FOXES
British jockey & mystery writer
Created jockey-detective “Sid Halley”
Wrote “Bolt” & “Hot Money” & basically any book that sounds like it’s a mystery at a racetrack
DICK FRANCIS
Author of “The Once & Future King” (1958), an Arthurian tetralogy starting with “The Sword in the Stone”
T.H. WHITE
T.H. White’s 1958 Tetralogy, beginning with “The Sword in the Stone”, that inspired Lerner & Loewe’s musical “Camelot”
THE ONCE & FUTURE KING
Group of 1950s writers
Included Kerouac, Ginsberg, & Burroughs
BEAT GENERATION
British author
“Berlin Stories” / “Goodbye to Berlin” (1939) (which inspired “I Am a Camera” & “Cabaret”)
“A Single Man” (1964)
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD
Coleridge’s 1816 “Vision in a Dream” (meaning opium dream) or “Fragment”:
“In Xanadu did ____
A stately pleasure-dome decree,”
KUBLA KHAN
Coleridge poem published in “Lyrical Ballads” (1798)
Sailor recounts to a passerby wedding guest his story
He shot an albatross with a crossbow & doomed his ship with bad fortune
He was forced to wear the bird around his neck
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink,”
RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
English romantic poet
One of the “Lake Poets”
Co-published “Lyrical Ballads” with Wordsworth
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Chilean poet (pseudonym)
Nobel in Literature, 1971
“Heights of Macchu Picchu”
“20 Love Poems & a Song of Despair”
Portrayed in the film “Il Postino” (1994)
PABLO NERUDA
Chilean poet (pseudonym)
First Latin-American Nobel in Literature in 1945
GABRIELA MISTRAL
Chilean-American writer
Niece of president Salvador
Magical realist
“Daughter of Fortune”
“Eva Luna”
“Of Love & Shadows”
ISABEL ALLENDE
Isabel Allende’s 1982 novel, about the Trueba family and set in an unnamed country
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
LA CASA DE LOS ESPIRITUS
American writer of historical fiction
“The Book of Daniel”
“The March”, about Gen. Sherman’s march to the sea
E. L. DOCTOROW
1975 E. L. Doctorow novel set in the early 1900s about pianist “Coalhouse Walker”
Historical figures of the period make appearances in the plot, including Houdini
Musical stage adaptation by Terrence McNally
RAGTIME
E. L. Doctorow’s 1989 novel about a teen in 1930s NYC
Real mobster Dutch Schultz is a character
BILLY BATHGATE
American playwright of the 1990s
“Love! Valor! Compassion!”
“Ragtime” (based on Doctorow’s novel)
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” (based on Puig’s novel)
TERRENCE MCNALLY
Terrence McNally musical play about Maria Callas
MASTER CLASS
Chippewa author
“The Plague of Doves”
“The Round House”
LOUISE ERDRICH
Alan Dershowitz’s 1985 recount of defending Claus Von Bulow
Later adapted to a movie with Glenn Close as Sunny & Jeremy Irons as Claus
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE
American lawyer & writer
“Reversal of Fortune” (1985)
“Chutzpah”
Frankfurter Law Professor at Harvard
Celebrity defender of clients like O.J. Simpson & Patty Hearst
ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Bear from “Darkest Peru”
Named for a London train station
Introduced in “A Bear Called…” (1958) by Michael Bond
Lived with Mr. & Mrs. Brown
Likes Marmalade
PADDINGTON (BEAR)
Spy created by John Le Carre
Appears in:
“Call for the Dead” (first appearance)
“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
GEORGE SMILEY
Fictional Chinese-Hawaiian detective
Created by Eearl Derr Biggers
Played by Warner Oland, Roland Winters, & Sidney Toler
First appears in novel “House Without a Key”
Has a “Number 1 son” named Lee
CHARLIE CHAN
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1967 novel about 7 generations of the Buendia family
Jose Arcadio Buendia founds village of Macondo
“Timely” and “numerical” title
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
Colombian writer
1982 Nobel Prize for Literature
“Chronicle of a Death Foretold” (1981, novella)
“News of a Kidnapping” (1996, nonfiction)
“The General in His Labyrinth” (1989, historical fiction about Bolivar’s last days)
GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1985 novel about Fermina Daza & Florentino Ariza
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
Chekhov’s final play (1904)
Concerns the selling of a family estate for housing development
Ends with the sound of chopping
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Chekhov’s 1896 play about writers
Trigorin’s rival Treplev kills the title bird
THE SEAGULL
Chekov’s 1899 play with a “relative” title
Revised from his earlier “The Wood Demon”
UNCLE VANYA
Chekov’s 1901 play about Olga, Masha, & Irinia
THREE SISTERS
Russian writer of plays & short stories
Studied medicine
Lived in Yalta, Crimea for a time
Died of Tuberculosis
Originator of a saying about “rifles” or “guns” in theatre
ANTON CHEKHOV
Born in Boston
“Daddy”
“Lady Lazarus” (“Dying is an art,”)
“Ariel”
Won a posthumous Pulitzer 20 years after her death for “Collected Poems”
Spouse of Ted Hughes
Portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2003 film
SYLVIA PLATH
First/only novel of its American poet author, who killed herself in London months after it was published
Autobiographical, about writer Esther Greenwood
Written under pseudonym “Victoria Lucas”
THE BELL JAR
(SYLVIA PLATH)
Term coined by Gertrude Stein for post-WWI 1920s writers like Hemingway
THE LOST GENERATION
Trappist Monk
Author of autobiography “The Seven Storey Mountain” (1948)
THOMAS MERTON
Thomas Merton’s 1948 autobiography
THE SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN
Ann Brashares’ 2001 novel
Has 3 sequels (the last is titled “Forever in Blue”)
SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS
Author of the “U.S.A. Trilogy” in the 1930s
“Manhattan Transfer” (1925)
JOHN DOS PASSOS
John Dos Passos’ 1930s “national” trilogy
U.S.A. TRILOGY
W. Somerset Maugham’s 1915 novel about Philip Carey & the waitress Mildred (played by Bette Davis in a 1934 film)
Title taken from Spinoza
OF HUMAN BONDAGE
W. Somerset Maugham’s 1919 novel inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin
Set partly in Tahiti
THE MOON & SIXPENCE
Maugham’s story about Miss Sadie Thompson
Set in Samoa
RAIN
English writer & physician
Drove ambulances in WWI and became a spy
“Liza of Lambeth”, his first novel, about a cockney girl
“Cakes & Ale”, a satire about snobbery
“Ashenden”, a British agent
“The Razor’s Edge”, later a film with Bill Murray
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
John Le Carré’s 1963 Cold War novel
Protagonist is Alec Leamas, but George Smiley also appears
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
John Le Carré’s 1993 novel about the title employee mixing with arms dealers
Portrayed by Tom Hiddleston in 2016 series
THE NIGHT MANAGER
John Le Carré’s 1983 novel about an undercover actress
LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL
John Le Carré’s 1974 George Smiley novel about uncovering a mole
“Occupational” title
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY
Irish author
Born David John Moore Cornwell
Spy for MI5 & MI6
“Call for the Dead” (1961), first novel, introduces George Smiley
“A Most Wanted Man” (2008)
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Dublin theatre co-founded by poet & dramatist William Butler Yeats
ABBEY THEATRE
Irish writer
Nobel in Literature in 1923
Lover of Maud Gonne, who was cast in his “Cathleen Ni Houlihan”
“Countess Cathleen” (play)
“Leda & the Swan”
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Wrote his own epitaph, from “Under Ben Bulben”:
Cast a cold eye
On Life, on death
Horseman, pass by!
(Larry McMurtry used the last line as a title)
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Where W. B. Yeats says he will “arise and go to”
INNISFREE
Poet
“Easter 1916” (about an uprising)
“September 1913” (which repeats ‘O’leary in the grave)
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Yeats poem
Source of Achebe’s title “Things Fall Apart”
Source of quote “The center cannot hold”
Source of Didion’s title “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”
THE SECOND COMING
