Literature In English Flashcards

1
Q

This “Lonesome Dove” author dedicated his novel “The Desert Rose” “to Lesley, for the use of her goat”

A

Larry McMurty

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2
Q

Her novels The Paris Apartment (2022) and The Guest List (2020) are New York Times best sellers.

A

Lucy Foley

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3
Q

A 20th century Nigerian writer whose works include “Things Fall Apart” (1958) and “Arrow of God” (1964)

A

Chinua Achebe

his novels focus on the clash between traditional, African values and culture, and the encroachment of colonialism and westernization

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4
Q

In 1965, this Indianapolis-born novelist published “God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater”

A

Vonnegut

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5
Q

This 20th century American writer and critic was posthumously awarded a 1958 Pulitzer Prize for “A Death in the Family”, his only novel

A

James Agee (AYjee)

He was best known for his classic “Let us now Praise Famous Men”, with photos by Walker Evans, an account of sharecroppers in Alabama during the 1930s. 

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6
Q

A 19th century American author known for his many books in which poor boys become rich through their earnest attitudes and hard work

A

Horatio Alger Junior

A true story of spectacular worldly success achieved by someone who started near the bottom is often called a “Horatio Alger story ”

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7
Q

“LOVE” IS WITHIN THE TITLES OF 3 OF HIS MOST FAMOUS BOOKS; A FOURTH, “THE RAINBOW”, CALLS LOVE “THE FLOWER OF LIFE”

A

D. H. Lawrence

A 20th century British author. Two of his best regarded works are Sons and Lovers and Women in Love Lawrence is known for his frank treatment of sex and for the racial ideas on society and the family that he voiced in his books

His novel Lady Chatterly’s Lover was banned of obscene in both Britain and the United States. In the United States, the band was appealed to the Supreme Court, which it overruled. 

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8
Q

All the world’s a stage is the beginning of a speech in this play

A

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

The monologue is also called “The Seven Ages of Man” because it treats that many periods in a man’s life: his years as an infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, judge, foolish old man, and finally “second childishness and near oblivion”

Most of the action of the play takes place in the forest of Arden, to which several members of the Duke’s Court have been banished 

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9
Q

This writer read her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inaugural ceremony 

A

Maya Angelou

She was a 20th century African-American writer, whose best known work is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings an autobiographical account of growing up as a black girl in the rural south 

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10
Q

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who says the speech that begins “friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”?

A

Mark Antony

The speak addresses the crowd at Caesar’s funeral, in it he repeats several times the words “Brutus is an honorable man“. The speech is Anthony’s funeral oration over Caesar, who Brutus has helped killed. “Brutus is an honorable man” is ironic, as Antony is attempting to portray Brutus as ungrateful and treacherous. He succeeded in turning the Roman people against Brutus and the other assassins 

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11
Q

This Welsh poets’s “Fern Hill” says, “Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs… and happy as the grass was green”

A

Dylan Thomas

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12
Q

Category: American Plays

THIS DRAMA IS SET AT A SUMMER HOME IN AUGUST 1912; ACT 1 TAKES PLACE AT 8:30 A.M.; ACT 4 IS 15 1/2 HOURS LATER, AT MIDNIGHT

A

Long Day’s Journey into Night

By. Eugene O’Neill

Long Day’s Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O’Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956.

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13
Q

The youngest of Alcott’s March sisters

A

Amy

Meg, the oldest, beautiful and rather vain, but sweet; Jo the main focus of the books, a spirited tomboy; Beth, a sickly, gentle musician who dies in the first novel; and Amy, pampered and artistic 

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14
Q

A friend of Shakespeare, this “Song: to Celia“ poet and playwright was buried standing up in Westminster Abbey 

A

Ben Jonson

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15
Q

The biography “Two Lives”, about Gertrude Stein and this partner investigates how they survived Nazi Europe

A

Alice B. Tolkas

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16
Q

She wrote “The Hunger Games” and also co-wrote the screenplay for the movie based on it

A

Suzanne Collins

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17
Q

He wrote “A Confederacy of Dunces”

A

John Kennedy Toole

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18
Q

Irishman Yeats wrote a poem entitled this holiday “1916”

A

Easter

It commemorates the martyrs of the Easter Rising, an insurrection against the British government in Ireland in 1916, which resulted in the execution of several Irish nationalists whom Yeats knew personally.

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19
Q

In a classic of American fiction, these 2 boys get a $6,000 reward each after finding money that Injun Joe hid in a cave

A

Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer

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20
Q

20th century, British-American writer and critic whose works include collections “The Double Man“ and “The Dyer’s Hand“. He is best known for his poetry, which was influenced by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War and Christianity

A

W.H. Auden

Born: February 21, 1907, York, United Kingdom

The Spanish Civil War was fought in the late 1930s in Spain. 

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21
Q

Having spent most of the first 40 years of her life in China, this author was the first American woman to win both a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize

A

Pearl S. Buck

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22
Q

Winston Groom’s novel about a not so smart guy became this Oscar winning 1994 film

A

Forrest Gump

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23
Q

Who wrote the 1922 novel Babbitt?

A

Sinclair Lewis

The title character, an American real estate agent in a small city, is portrayed as a crass, loud, over optimistic boor who only thinks about money and speaks in cliché such as “you’ve gotta have pep, by golly!“

By extension a “Babbit” is a narrow minded, materialistic businessman 

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24
Q

A twentieth-century African American author. His writings, mostly about the black experience in the United States, include NOVELS, such as Go Tell It on the Mountain, and ESSAYS, such as “The Fire Next Time.”

A

James Baldwin

Go Tell It on the Mountain is a 1953 semi-autobiographical novel by James Baldwin. It tells the story of John Grimes, an intelligent teenager in 1930s Harlem, and his relationship with his family and his church.

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25
Q

On holiday in Jamaica, this Terry McMillan title heroine goes gaga over a much younger man

A

Stella

How Stella Got Her Groove Back
Published 1996. Movie in 1998.

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26
Q

Category: B F Q

A standard American reference work for quotations from literature and speech

A

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations

Originally published in 1855 by John Bartlett 

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27
Q

An English author and artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. An early leader of romanticism, he is best known for his collections of poems. “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”.

A

William Blake

Blake illustrated printed and distributed all of his books himself 

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28
Q

An eighteenth century Scottish author, best known for his “Life of Samuel Johnson”

A

James Boswell

Boswell became a general term for a biographer: “James Joyce found his Boswell in Richard Ellmann”

29
Q

19th century English poet, best known for Sonnets from the Portuguese. The most famous of these sonnets begins “how do I love thee? Let me count the ways”

A

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Wife of Robert Browning 

Robert Brownings many poems include “the Pied Piper of Hamelin“ and “My Last Duchess“

30
Q

The central character in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales , such as “The Last of the Mohicans”, where he is called Hawkeye.

A

Natty Bumppo

Natty, a settler, is taught by the native Americans and adopts their way of life 

“The Last of the Mohicans” (1826)- the leading character is Uncas, a noble native American, who helps a British family of settlers during the French and Indian war 

31
Q

Which 18th century poet recorded the words to “Auld Lang Syne” (the words had been passed down orally)

A

Robert Burns

Auld Lang Syne is a traditional Scottish song, customarily sung on New Year’s Eve; the title means “Long Time Past.” The song begins:
Should auld (old) acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to min’?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

32
Q

American writer of “hard-boiled” crime drama and political activist best known for The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and Red Harvest.

A

Dashiell Hammett

33
Q

New York Times bestselling author of thrillers including The Good Girl, The Other Mrs., Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple

A

Mary Kubica

34
Q

19th century English poet who was a leader of romanticism and whose best known work is Don Juan, a long poem of satire

A

Lord George Gordon Byron

A Byronic hero is a kind of hero found in several of the works of Lord Byron. Like Byron, a Byronic hero is a melancholy and rebellious young man, distressed by a terrible wrong he committed in the past

35
Q

Joseph Conrad: “Lord _____”

A

Jim

36
Q

Pen name of Charles Ludwig Dawson,

A

Lewis Carroll

a 19th century, writer, scholar, and photographer best known for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass (1872) is the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In it, Alice passes through a mirror over a fireplace and finds herself once more in an enchanted land, where she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the White Knight, Humpty Dumpty and other amazing creatures.

37
Q

20th century American writer known for his hard-boiled mysteries featuring private detective Philip Marlowe, whose adventures chronicle the seamy underside of Southern California

A

Raymond Chandler

Many of his works, including The Big Sleep and Farewell, My lovely have been adapted into films

38
Q

Who wrote the 1797 evocative poem “Kubla Khan” about an exotic emperor

A

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It begins with “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree…”

Coleridge was a leader of Romanticism. He also wrote the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

39
Q

“Come live with me and be my love” is the opening line of “The Passionate Shepard to His Love” by this English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era

A

Christopher Marlowe

40
Q

Shakespeare:

The youngest of King Lear’s three daughters

A

Cordelia

King Lear at first thinks her ungrateful to him because she refuses to flatter him as her sisters do; he soon finds out that she is the only one of the three who genuinely cares for him

King Lear is a tragedy about an old king who unwisely hands his kingdom over to two of his daughters. The daughters, who had flattered him while he was in power, turn on him; their actions reduce him to poverty and eventually to madness. Cordelia remains faithful to him 

41
Q

Who wrote the poem, “There is no Frigate like a Book”

A

Emily Dickinson

She was a nineteenth century poet know. For short evocative poems. Some of her other best known poems begin “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped me” and “I’m nobody! Who are you?”

42
Q

Author of memoir “Out of Africa” about the time from 1914 to 1931 that she lived on a coffee plantation in what is now Kenya

A

Isak Dinesen

Nom de plume of Danish writer Baroness Karen Blixen. The book was the basis for the 1985 movie of the same name

43
Q

“death, be not proud”, “no man is an island”, and “for whom the bell tolls” are expressions drawn from this 17th century English poet and clergyman

A

John Donne

Was famous for his intricate metaphors, as in the poem he compares two lovers to the two legs of a drawing compass

44
Q

Wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

A

Robert Louis Stevenson

A 19th century Scottish author. He spent the last few years of his life as a planter and storyteller on Samoa in the south Pacific Ocean. His other works include Treasure Island, and a Child’ Garden of Verses. 

45
Q

A 20th century American author best known for the three novels that make up U.S.A., a complex and technically innovative portrait of the United States, in which the country itself acts as a protagonist.

A

John Dos Passos

46
Q

In this epic poem about leaving heaven, John Milton created Pandemonium, the capital of Hell

A

Paradise Lost

47
Q

Author of the popular 1751 poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”. It contains the lines “Full many a flower is born to blush unseen/ and waste its sweetness on the desert air,” and “the paths of glory lead but to the grave”

A

Thomas Gray

Another line is and “far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife/ Their sober wishes never learned to stray,”

48
Q

she received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, becoming the first Black female writer in history to be honored with the prize.

A

Toni Morrison

49
Q

Who wrote the 1927 novel Elmer Gantry?

A

Sinclair Lewis

The title characters is successful preacher in the Midwest. Lewis stresses the importance of insincerity and clever publicity in the rise of Gantry.

Lewis was a 20th century American author known for using his novels to criticize aspects of American life, such a small town narrowness, insincere preachers, and the discouragement of scientific curiosity. His books include Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, and Main Street. Lewis won the Nobel prize for literature in 1930. 

50
Q

18th century English author known for his novels including “Tom Jones” and “ Joseph Andrews” a parody of the contemporary novel

A

Henry Fielding

51
Q

“Get thee to a nunnery” is a line in this Shakespeare play

A

Hamlet

The advice Hamlet gives to Ophelia when he bids he live a life of celibacy

52
Q

British historian who wrote the classic English historical literature “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”

A

Edward Gibbon

He said he conceived of the masterpiece while he was”sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol”

53
Q

“God’s in his heaven—All’s right with the world” is a line sung by a little Italian girl, Pippa, in the poem “Pippa Passes” by this poet

A

Robert Browning

18th Century English poet whose many poems include “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” and “My Last Duchess”

54
Q

The first land that Lemuel Gulliver visits in “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. The inhabitants, though human in form, are only 6 inches tall.

A

Lilliput.

Something “Lilliputian” is very small. The expression is especially appropriate for a miniature version of some thing.

Gulliver also travels to Brobdingnag (where people are seventy feet tall), and the land of the Houyhnhnms (where horses are the intelligent beings, and the humans, called yahoos, are the mute brutes of labor)

55
Q

The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic romance novel by

A

Nathaniel Hawthorne

It tells the story of the Pyncheon family and their ancestral home in Salem, Massachusetts

Hawthorne was a 19th century author known for his novels and short stories that explore themes of sin and guilt

56
Q

Category: American Playwrights
This author of The Little Foxes was also known for her controversial memoir Pentimento, which included the tale “Julia,” later adapted into a 1977 Oscar-winning film.

A

Lillian Hellman

Her plays, such as The Children’s Hour and Toys in the Attic often deal with controversial social and psychological themes

57
Q

“The horror! The horror!” Is spoken by this dying adventurer in Heart of Darkness (1902)

A

Kurtz

Short novel by Joseph Conrad. It concerns a seafarer, Marlow, who is sent to the interior of Africa in search of a mad adventurer named Kurtz.

Francis Ford Coppola based his 1979 film Apocalypse Now on a version of Conrad’s story set in the Vietnam War.

58
Q

Author of the novel Their Eyes were watching God

A

Zora Neale Hurston

Novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. A member of the Harlem Renaissance also known for her collection of African-American lore, Mules and Men

59
Q

“If music be the food of love, play on” is the first line in what play

A

Twelfth Night

The speaker is asking for music because he is frustrated in courtship; he wants an over abundance of love so that he may lose his appetite for it

60
Q

In the nursery rhyme, what could Jack Sprat’s not eat

A

Lean

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt them both
They licked the plate clean

61
Q

Long before the Queen of Hearts, the command “Off with his head!” was cried by what Shakespeare king?

A

Richard III

62
Q

Before it was a feature-length ad for Huey Lewis, “American Psycho” was a polarizing novel by what three-named dude?

A

Bret Easton Ellis

63
Q

An American author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is known for his novels, such as “The Turn of the Screw” and “Portrait of a Lady”

A

Henry James

The philosopher and psychologist William James was Henry James‘s brother 

64
Q

“To justify the ways of God to men” is the declared aim of this poem

A

Paradise Lost

John Milton- the poem’s subject is the fall of man; it also tells the stories of rebellion and punishment of Satan and the creation of Adam and Eve.

65
Q

“Lean and hungry look” is a phrase from what Shakespeare play?

A

Julius Caesar

Caesar remarks, concerning one of the men conspiring against him, “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.” Caesar means that Cassius looks dangerously dissatisfied, as if he were starved for power 

66
Q

If you’re looking for Mr. Robin Goodfellow, ask for this Shakespearean character

A

Puck

67
Q

Author of non-fiction books “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Lost City of Z”

A

David Grann

68
Q

“Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” is the title and first line, known as the African-American National Anthem was written by brothers, including this author also known for his novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

A

James Weldon Johnson

He was a writer, diplomat and civil rights leader of the early 20th century. He encouraged writers of the Harlem Renaissance. 

69
Q

In a nursery rhyme, who puts his thumb in a Christmas pie and pulls out a plum?

A

Little Jack Horner

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie:
He put in his thumb,
and pulled out a plum,
And said, “what a good boy am I!“