Literature

Question 0

This was taken from what novel?
You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Answer 0

1984 written by George Orwell

Question 1

Complete this verse by Ogden Nash with a word meaning “abhorrent.”
The song of canaries
Never varies,
And when they’re molting
They’re pretty …

Answer 1

revolting

The Canary

Question 4

The name of what dog is in the title of a Jack London novel?

Answer 4

White Fang

Question 5

Who wrote “Great Expectations”?

Answer 5

Charles Dickens

Question 6

Who wrote “Tao te Ching”?

Answer 6

Laozi (founder of taoism)

Question 7

Who wrote “Annabelle Lee”?

Answer 7

Edgar Alan Poe

Question 8

In literature, what kind of animal is “Rosinante‖” as found in Don Quixote??

Answer 8

horse

Question 9

/The Decameron/ was originally written in what language?

Answer 9

Italian

written by Giovanni Boccaccio

Question 10

"Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, 
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, 
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the 
table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a 
broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, Boom,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a
broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom."

From what poem is this from?

Answer 10

The Congo by Vachel Lindsey

Question 11

Who wrote “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”?

Answer 11

Jonathan Swift

Commonly referred to as just “A Modest Proposal”

Question 12

In the Oxfordian theory, who is thought to have authored the Shakespearean literature?

Answer 12

Edward de Vere

Question 13

Who wrote “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium”?

Answer 13

Nicolaus Copernicus

On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres

Question 14

From what poem is this?
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Answer 14

The Charge Light Brigade by Lord Alfred

Question 15

Who narrated One Thousand and One Arabian Nights?

Answer 15

Scheherazade, a Persian queen

Question 16

From what poem is this from?

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.

Answer 16

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Question 17

Name the authors of The Communist Manifesto.

Answer 17

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Question 18

Who authored this excerpt?
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Answer 18

Edward Estlin Cummings

Question 19

From what poem is this from?

Listen my children and you shall hear

Answer 19

The Midnight Ride of Pual Revere

by Henry Longfellow

Question 20

What is the oldest known English epic poem?

Answer 20

Beowulf (c. 975-1025)

Question 21

Name the three musketeers.

Answer 21

Athos, Porthos, Aramis

From The Three Musketeers, written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844, originally in French

Question 22

From what poem is this from?
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

Answer 22

The Last Leaf

written by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Question 23

Whose pseudonym was “Boz,” author of Pickwick Papers and contributor to the Morning Chronicle?

Answer 23

Charles Dickens

Question 24

The 13th Century Italian poet named Dante Alighieri wrote a poem about an imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, which is considered perhaps the greatest poem of the Middle Ages. What is the name?

Answer 24

Divine Comedy

Question 25

Where were each of the following Shakespearean plays set?
•Hamlet
•Macbeth
•Romeo and Juliet

Answer 25

• Hamlet : Denmark
• Macbeth : Scotland
• Romeo and Juliet : Verona, Italy

Question 26

Who wrote Little Women?

Answer 26

Louisa Alcott

Question 27

In the best-selling novel, “Life of Pi,” how long was Pi at sea?

Answer 27

227 days - Life of Pi was written by Yann Martel, a Canadian author.

Question 28

Where was Beowulf set in?

Answer 28

Scandinavia

Question 29

The book War of the Roses was written by whom?

Answer 29

Warren Adler - Adler also penned Random Hearts.

Question 30

“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower” is the first line to which famous poem?

Answer 30

Auguries of Innocence - Auguries of Innocence was written by William Blake

Question 31

Who wrote the classic story “Rip Van Winkle”?

Answer 31

Washington Irving - A short story, Rip Van Winkle was published in 1819.

Question 32

“The free bird leaps on the back of the wind” is a line from what poem?

Answer 32

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - The poem was written by Maya Angelou.

Question 33

Charles Dickens and Oliver Twister, from the book with the same name or otherwise known as “A Parish Boy’s Progress,” both share what aspect from their life’s?

Answer 33

They both were child workers.

Question 34

Charles Dickens and Oliver Twister, from the book with the same name or otherwise known as “A Parish Boy’s Progress,” both share what aspect from their life’s?

Answer 34

They both were child workers.

Question 35

Who wrote “A Room with a View”?

Answer 35

E. M. Forester

Question 36

Who wrote the science fiction novel about a lunar colony’s revolt from Earth called “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”?

Answer 36

Robert Heinlein

Question 37

Name the authors (real and pen name) of these three books:
Jane Eyre
Withering Heights
Agnes Grey

Answer 37

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Brontë (Currer Bell)

Wuthering Heights- Emily B. (Ellis B.)

Agnes Grey- Anne B. (Acton B.)