Varsity Language Arts

Literature

Q: What collection of stories by Kipling includes “How the Elephant Got Its Trunk” and
“The Cat Who Walked By Itself”?

A: The Just So Stories

Q: Finish the title of this narrative poem by Longfellow: The Courtship of ______?

A: Miles Standish

Q: Which of John Greenleaf Whittier’s poems was subtitled “A Winter Idyll”?

A: Snow Bound

Q: Which poem by Thomas Gray begins “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day/The
lowering herd wind slowly o’er the lea,”?

A: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Q: Edward Fitzgerald created the first English translation of what famous poetic work by Omar
Khayyam?

A: the Rubaiyat

Q: Which collection of poems is made up of the 244 epitaphs of people speaking from their
graves in a fictional small town in Illinois? It is Edgar Lee Masters’ best known work.

A: Spoon River Anthology

Q: Which play of Shakespeare’s begins with Christopher Sly being entertained as a

nobleman?

A: The Taming of the Shrew

Q: In which Shakespearean play does Prince Fortinbras claim the throne after the death
of
the title character?

A: Hamlet

Q: Which play begins “When shall we three meet again?” The three weird sisters agree to
meet at sundown on the heath.
A: Macbeth

Q: Which of Shakespeare’s history plays begins: “O! for a Muse of fire, that would
ascend/The brightest heaven of invention;”?

A: Henry V

Q: In which of Shakespeare’s plays do the characters of Edmund, Regan, and Gloucester

appear?

A: King Lear

Q: Which play by Aristophanes involves Dionysus’s descent into the underworld to retrieve
the recently deceased Euripides? The title derives from a chorus of amphibians that
appears.

A: The Frogs

Q: Which of Tennessee William’s plays is set in New Orleans?

A: A Streetcar Named Desire

Q: Which novel centers on the activities of the main character after he is kicked out of
Pencey Prep just before Christmas?

A: Catcher in the Rye

Q: The adventures of Alexander Selkirk form the basis of what novel by Daniel Defoe?

A: Robinson Crusoe

Q: What novel was partially inspired by the sinking of the ship Essex after an attack by a
sperm whale?

A: Moby Dick

Q: Elinor and Marianne was a working title of which Jane Austen novel?

A: Sense and Sensibility

Q: What is the title of Shirley Jackson’s short story about a small town as its residents carry
out an annual ritual?

A: “The Lottery”
Q: Which Pulitzer Prize winning novel tells the story of Henry Wirz and the Civil War
prison camp he commanded? The MacKinlay Kantor work’s title is the name of the
notorious Confederate camp.

A: Andersonville

Q: Sir Percy Blakeney was created by Baroness Orczy in which novel?

A: The Scarlet Pimpernel

Q: Ovid wrote a series of tales written in verse on historical, legendary, and mythological
figures. What is the title of this work which describes all varieties of change?

A: Metamorphoses

Q: What is the title of the Leon Uris novel about the establishment of the modern state of
Israel?

A: Exodus

Q: The character of Marmee appears in which novel? She is the mother of four daughters
during the Civil War.

A: Little Women

Q: What was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel? The story is about the gradual disillusionment
of Princeton University student Amory Blaine.

A: This Side of Paradise

Q: Which popular novel of the 1970s was based on the stories of shark attacks along the
New Jersey coast in 1916? The Peter Benchley novel was also the source of a movie by
the same name.

A: Jaws

Q: Which of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel involves the characters of Monroe Stahr and Celia
Brady? It was unfinished at the author’s death.

A: The Last Tycoon or The Love of the Last Tycoon

Q: Which work involves half a dozen characters interrupting a rehearsal for another play and
insisting that their story be told? It is Luigi Pirandello’s best known play.

A: Six Characters in Search of an Author

Q: What 19th century Russian novel involves over 500 characters, including Napoleon
Bonaparte?

A: War and Peace

Q: What was the fourth Mark Twain novel to feature Tom Sawyer as a character? In it
he
attempts to solve a murder.

A: Tom Sawyer, Detective

Q: What is the name of the poem by Robert Browning about a mysterious stranger who
offers to rid a German town of rodents? When he is refused payment, he lures away all
the children.

A: “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

Q: What is the title of the Langston Hughes poem which includes the lines: “I’ve known
rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.”?

A: The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Q: Which children’s book tells the story of an irresponsible bird named Mayzie and the
creature she dupes into caring for her egg? After remaining 100% faithful to his task, the
egg-hatches an elephant bird.

A: Horton Hatches the Egg

Q: Which poem includes this line: “I call/That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s
hands/Worked busily a day, and there she stands.”? This dramatic monologue by Robert
Browning is based on a historical person.

A: “My Last Duchess”

Q: In which of Shakespeare’s plays does the Battle of Agincourt occur?

A: Henry V

Q: In which Medieval epic poem do the characters of Oliver, Ogier the Dane, and
Charlemagne appear?

A: The Song of Roland

Q: What is the subtitle of The Hobbit?

A: There and Back Again

Q: The minister Stephen Kumalo is the main character in what novel by Alan Paton?

A: Cry, The Beloved Country

Q: Which novel by Herman Hesse is not a fictionalized account of Buddha’s life, but uses
parallels from his life instead?

A: Siddhartha

Q: What was Theodore Dreiser’s first novel? Officially published in 1900, the publisher
suppressed it until 1912 because of its frankness and supposed immorality.

A: Sister Carrie

Q: Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote what historical novel about Rome in the time of Nero? In
Latin, the title means “Where are you going”.

A: Quo Vadis

Q: The sequel to which story continues the adventures of the former March girls? Jo and her
husband open a boys’ school in Little Men.

A: Little Women

Q: Who created the character of Serafina Delle Rose in the play The Rose Tattoo?

A: Tennessee Williams

Q: Who wrote Night of the Iguana?

A: Tennessee Williams

Q: What playwright’s only comedy was Ah, Wilderness?

A: Eugene O’Neill

Q: Identify the author who founded the weekly magazines Household Words and All the
Year Round? Most of his later works, possibly including Our Mutual Friend, were
published in these periodicals.

A: Charles Dickens

Q: Who wrote The Poetry of Minor Connecticut Wits as wells as Poor Richard’s Almanack?
A: Benjamin Franklin

Q: Who wrote the poem which begins “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a
tree”?

A: Joyce Kilmer

Q: Whose collections of dialogues Phaedo and Symposium? His Republic is also a dialogue.

A: Plato

Q: Who wrote Toilers of the Sea? His novel The Man Who Laughs appeared later.

A: Victor Hugo

Q: Which German playwright also wrote The Theory of Colors in 1810? The first part of his
Faust appeared two years earlier.

A: Johann Goethe

Q: Whose last novel was The Reivers published in 1962?

A: William Faulkner

Q: The work “The Death of the Hired Man” was written by which poet?

A: Robert Frost

Q: Identify the author of the quote: “O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Tommy, go
away”; But it’s “Than you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,”. It appears in
the Poem “Tommy” in the collection Barrack Room Ballads.

A: Rudyard Kipling

Q: A fictionalized version of the historical county of Wessex is the setting for which
author’s novels? Far from the Madding Crowd is the first work set there.

A: Thomas Hardy

Q: Who wrote the book of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827? Ten years later his
Narrative of A Gordon Pym was serialized.

A: Edgar Allen Poe

Q: Who created the character of Jurgis Rudkus in his novel The Jungle?
A: Upton Sinclair

Q: who created almanacs under the name Richard Saunders? From 1732 to 1747 the title
was Poor Richard, and later, Poor Richard Improved.

A: Ben Franklin

Q: Who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1982, despite having committed suicide
in 1963? Among her published works are The Colossus and Ariel.

A: Sylvia Plath

Q: Which author wrote many essays including “How the Poor Die” and “A Nice Cup of
Tea”? His first book was Down and Out in Paris and London, which was followed by
several early science fiction works.

A: George Orwell

Q: Who wrote The Parliament of Fowls and, The House of Fame? His most famous work is
undoubtedly The Canterbury Tales.

A: Geoffrey Chaucer

Q: What author created the town of Altamont in the state of Catawba in his novel.
“Look Homeward Angel”?

A: Thomas Wolfe

Q: Who wrote Our Town?

A: Thornton Wilder

Q: Who created the character of Dolores Haze in the novel Lolita?

A: Vladimir Nabokov

Q: Identify the author of Kim about a British schoolboy growing up in India?

A: Rudyard Kipling

Q: Identify the author of Notes from the Underground and The Possessed?

A: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Q: Who composed the epic Poem Aeneid?

A: Virgil

Q: Who wrote the poetry collection New Hampshire?

A: Robert Frost

Q: Who wrote Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog?

A: Dylan Thomas

Q: Who wrote Gift from the Sea?

A: Anne Lindberg

Q: Who wrote Robinson Crusoe?

A: Daniel Defoe

Q: Whose first novel was Maggie: A Girl of the Streets?

A: Stephen Crane

Q: Who penned The House of the Dead, which was inspired by his lengthy imprisonment in
a Siberian labor camp?

A: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Q: Who wrote The Bleachers?

A: John Grisham

Q: Who wrote Desire Under the Elms?

A: Eugene O’Neill

Q: Who wrote Portrait of a Lady?

A: Henry James

Q: Who wrote “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”?

A: Walt Whitman

Q: Identify the poet who created The Waste Land?

A: T.S. Eliot
Q: Who wrote The Devil’s Dictionary?

A: Ambrose Bierce

Q: Who wrote the novel Schindler’s Ark?

A: Thomas Keneally

Q: Who wrote Sartoris?

A: William Faulkner

Q: Identify the author of Antigone?

A: Sophocles

Q: Who wrote Out of the Silent Planet?

A: C.S. Lewis

Q: Identify the author of A Doll’s House?

A: Henrik Ibsen

Q: Who wrote the partially autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage?

A: Somerset Maugham

Q: Who wrote Ethan Frome?

A: Edith Wharton

Q: Identify the author of The Optimist’s Daughter?

A: Eudora Welty

Q: Identify the author of The Fountainhead?

A: Ayn Rand

Q: Who wrote In Dubious Battle?

A: John Steinbeck
Q: Who wrote the poem Four Quartets?

A: T.S. Eliot

Q: Who wrote the poem “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight”?

A: Vachel Lindsay

Q: Who wrote Gravity’s Rainbow?

A: Thomas Pynchon

Q: Who wrote the poem “Old Ironsides”?

A: Oliver Wendell Holmes

Q: Identify the poet who wrote “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”?

A: Walt Whitman

Q: Who won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his work John Brown’s Body?

A: Stephen Vincent Benet

Q: “Renasence” and “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver” are two works by what poet?

A: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Q: Who wrote the open letter denouncing the Dreyfus affair known as “J’accuse”?

A: Emile Zola

Q: Identify the author of the horror stories “The Color Out of Space” and “The Dream Quest
of Unknown Kadath”.

A: H.P. Lovecraft

Q: What Irishman penned The Celtic Twilight as well as the poems “The Lake Isle of
Innsfree” and “ Easter 1916”?

A: William Butler Yeats

Q: Who created the characters of Inspector Javert and Marius Pontmercy in his novel
Les Miserables?
A: Victor Hugo
Q: What author wrote a campaign biography for his friend Franklin Pierce, and was later
appointed a consul to Great Britain? As a result of his travels in Europe he wrote
The Marble Faun.

A: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Q: Who wrote the poem “The Children’s Hour”?

A: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Q: Who wrote the collection of poems called The Decameron?

A: Giovanni Boccaccio

Q: Who wrote Commentaries on the Gallic Wars? The seven books describe the author’s
campaigns to make Gaul part of the Roman Empire.

A: Julius Caesar

Q: Which American author took the title of her autobiography from a poem by Paul
Laurence Dunbar called “Sympathy” which begins: “I know what the caged bird feels,
alas!”?

A: Maya Angelou

Q: Who on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her work Gilead?

A: Marilynne Robinson

Q: Who used the pen name Boz early in his writing career?

A: Charles Dickens

Q: Which Nobel Prize winning author’s most recent book is Magic Seeds? Earlier works
include In a Free State and A Bend in the River.

A: V. S. Naipaul

Q: What Italian scientist wrote Dialogue on the Great World Systems in 1632? The next
year he was brought before the Inquisition.

A: Galileo (Galilei)

Q: Who wrote Theogony, a poem which synthesizes the various Greek myths into a whole?
A: Hesiod
Q: Who wrote “Fantastic Mr. Fox”? Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator appeared a few
years later.

A: Roald Dahl

Q: In the Canterbury Tales who tells the story of Sir Topas? He also tells the “Tale of
Melibee”.

A: Geoffrey Chaucer

Q: The fictional continents of Balnibari and Laputa were created by what author? Not
surprisingly, they appear in his most famous work, “Gulliver’s Travels”.

A: Jonathan Swift

Q: Who wrote the poem in which Madeline performs a special ritual to see the man she will
marry, and he elopes with her on the eve of St. Agnes’ day?

A: John Keats

Q: Who wrote The Blithedale Romance in 1852? His most well known novel The Scarlet
Letter appeared two years earlier.

A: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Q: Which first lady’s books include This I Remember and My Days?

A: Eleanor Roosevelt

Q: Whose memoir of the “Lost Generation” is called A Moveable Feast? In it he recounts

anecdotes about his time in 1920s Paris and mentions authors Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound
and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

A: Ernest Hemingway

Q: What author created the town of Altamont in the state of Catawba in his novel, “Look
Homeward, Angel”?

A: Thomas Wolfe

Q: What Roman author wrote Historia naturalis? His interest in the natural world led him
to study the eruptions of Vesuvius and he died during the destruction of Pompeii.

A: Pliny (the Elder)

Q: Which French novelist had plays turned into operas including La Gioconda and
Rigoletto? His novel Notre Dame de Paris was turned into a Disney movie.

A: Victor Hugo

Q: Across Spoon River was the autobiography of which American poet?

A: Edgar Lee Masters

Q: Who wrote a short story called “The Minister’s Black Veil”? It appears in
Twice-Told Tales.

A: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Q: Who wrote Parallels Between the Ancients and Moderns in the 1690s? He is better
known for collecting and publishing the Tales of Mother Goose.

A: Charles Perrault

Q: Who created the character of Caroline Meeber in the novel Sister Carrie?

A: Theodore Dreiser

Q: Who wrote a collection of poems inspired by the Civil War called Drum-Taps?

A: Walt Whitman

Q: What Western American poet and author penned The Luck of Roaring Camp and
The Outcasts of Poker Flat?

A: Bret Harte

Q: What Greek philospher’s second group of dialogs includes Gorgias, Symposium, and
Republic?

A: Plato

Q: Who coined the terms “newspeak”, “thought police”, and “Big Borther”?

A: George Orwell

Q: In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, who says to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our
stars./But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”?
A: Cassius

Q: Who adopts Cosette after the death of her mother in Les Miserables?

A: Jean Valjean

Q: Which of Shakespeare’s characters asks of Ophelia “Nymph, in thy orisons, be all my

sins remembered”?

A: Hamlet

Q: In the play King Lear, who agrees to marry Cordelia despite her being disowned by her
father?

A: the King of France

Q: Which female, sometimes human, sometimes a Valkyrie appears in the Volsunga Saga
and the Nibelungenlied?

A: Brunhild or Brunhilda

Q: What is the name of one of the young men thrown into a furnace on the orders of
Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament book of Daniel?

A: Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego

Q: Which Old Testament prophet was able to read the writing on the wall for King
Belshazzar?

A: Daniel

Q: According to the Old testament, who succeeded David as king of Israel?

A: Solomon

Q: What is the name of the little deformed man who offers to spin straw into gold for a girl
in exchange for her first child? If she guesses his name she may keep the baby.

A: Rumplestiltskin

Q: What was the profession of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird?

A: a lawyer

Q: What detective solves the murders in the Rue Morgue?

A: C. Auguste Dupin

Q: In the Iliad, who was the leader of the Myrmidons?

A: Achilles

Q: In Romeo and Juliet, which of Romeo’s friends is killed by Juliet’s cousin Tybalt?

A: Mercutio

Q: Who is the main character in Death of a Salesman?

A: Willy Loman

Q: Which literary character gives up knight-errantry after his defeat by the Knight of the
White Moon and returns home to La Mancha?

A: Don Quixote

Q: Which of the characters in The Canterbury Tales has married five successive husbands
and boasts of her ability to keep them in line? Her tale is of a knight who must discover
what women really desire.

A: the Wife of Bath

Q: What was the name of Ebenezer Scrooge’s employer whom he sees in the vision
provided by the Ghost of Christmas Past? Scrooge’s memories of the Christmas parties
at his warehouse are very happy.

A: Mr. Fezziwig

Q: In the story of Rip van Winkle, who does Rip see playing at ninepins with his crew?
Historically, the English captain was the victim of a mutiny and his fate is unknown.

A: Henry Hudson

Q: Which Biblical ruler appears in the story “The Butterfly That Stamped”? His wisdom in
rendering decisions is legendary.

A: Solomon

Q: Which fictional woman’s married name is Tesman? This Ibsen titular character shoots
herself to avoid a scandal.

A: Hedda Gabler
Q: What is the name of Candide’s beloved in the Voltaire novel?

A: Cunegonde

Q: Which fictional detective lives in the village of St. Mary Mead? She solves cases based
on her knowledge of human nature.

A: Jane Marple

Q: What creature teaches Alice to dance the Lobster Quadrille in Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland?

A: the Mock Turtle

Q: Which King of France did the Three Musketeers serve?

A: King Luis XIII

Q: Who serves as the host in The Canterbury Tales? He is the owner of the Tabard Inn.

A: Harry Bailey

Q: In 1984, what is the name of the ministry responsible for the identification, arrest and
torture of dissidents? It is here that Winston Smith’s will is broken.

A: Ministry of Love

Q: About which queen did Shakespeare write: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her
infinite variety”?

A: Cleopatra

Q: By what other name is the character of Dolores Haze called in the Vladimir Nabakov
novel?

A: Lolita

Q: In The Tempest, what is the name of the young man who falls in love with Miranda?

A: Ferdinand

Q: What Sinclair Lewis title character is an ex-football playing minister, who succeeds on
the basis of half-plagiarized sermons and a good deal of self promotion?
A: Elmer Gantry

Q: What was the name of Ebenezer Scrooge’s long suffering clerk?

A: Bob Cratchit

Q: What state is usually the setting for the novels of Willa Cather? She moved there as a
child and is a member of the state’s Hall of Fame.

A: Nebraska

Q: Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote what poem which helped spur efforts to preserve the USS
Constitution?

A: “Old Ironsides”

Q: In what city does the action of The Scarlet Letter occur?

A: Boston

Q: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is based on accounts of trials in what American town?

A: Salem, Massachusetts

Q: The Old Man and the Sea takes place primarily in the waters surrounding what country?

A: Cuba

Q: According to Virgil, survivors of which besieged city became the ancestors of the
Romans? It’s not know if he was just “horsing around”.

A: Troy

Q: In “A Christmas Carol”, what was the ghost of Marley condemned to drag with him for
eternity?

A: a chain

Q: The Nun’s Priest’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales is a story about what type of birds and
their troubles with a fox?

A: chickens

Q: What date and year are mentioned at the beginning of “The Midnight Ride of Paul
Revere”?
A: 18th of April in (17)75

Q: What is the name of the town, based on Sauk Center, MN, which is the site of Sinclair
Lewis’s Main Street?

A: Gopher Prairie

Q: By what other name is the fourteen line poem called an Italian sonnet known? It is
named after the earliest major practitioner of the form.

A: Petrarchan

Q: What does the phrase “Strum and Drang” mean? The phrase is used in reference to a
German literary movement.

A: “Storm and stress” or “Storm and urge”

Q: What is the term for inserting an external means to solve the problems of a story? This
device originated in Greek drama when a god would arrive suspended by a crane to save
the day. The term is Latin for “god from the machine”.

A: dues ex machina

Q: In the Odyssey, Circe turns Odysseus’s crew into what sort of animals? She turns them
into the creatures after she observes them gorging themselves.

A: pigs

Q: Dutch author Robert van Gulik created over a dozen mystery novels about Judge
Dee
who lived and worked in what country? The real Judge Dee served his country
during
the Tang dynasty.

A: China

Q: What is the term for the tragic flaw of pride or overconfidence in a hero that leads to his
downfall? This Greek word could be translated as “pride” or “insolence”.

A: hubris

Q: Finish this line from Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: “theirs not to make
reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to (blank)?

A: do or die
Q: What was the profession of Daggoo, Tashtego and Queequeg in the novel Moby Dick?

A: harpooners

Q: What item caused the murderer to give himself up at the end of “The Tell-Tale Heart”?

A: a watch

Q: In what month do the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales make their journey?

A: April

Q: What structures did Don Quixote believe to be giants?

A: windmills

Q: What item is purloined in the title of an Edgar Allen Poe work?

A: a letter
Q: Identify the Shakespearean play from these quotes:

1. “Both baked in this pie/ Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,”
2. “If we shadows have offended/ Think but this, and all is mended,”
3. “Is this a dagger I see before me/ The handles toward my hand?”
4. “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that
hath fed of that worm.”
5. “Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,/Of life, of crown, of queen at once
dispatched;”
6. “I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day,”
7. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
8. “A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!”

1. Titus Andronicus
2. A midsummer Night’s Dream
3. Macbeth
4. Hamlet
5. Hamlet
6. The Taming of the Shrew
7. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
8. The Merchant of Venice

Q: Identify the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley form these lines:

1. “I met a traveler from an antique land/who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of
stone/Stand in the desert”
2. “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!/Bird thou never wert,”
3. “I weep for Adonias—he is dead!”
4. “wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere/Destroyer and preserver, hear, oh,
hear!”

1. Ozymandias
2. To a Skylark
3. Adonais
4. Ode to the West Wind
Q: Identify the poem by John Keats form these lines:

1. “Thou still unravished bride of quietness/Thou foster child of silence and slow
time,”
2. “O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,/Alone and palely loitering”
3. “Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,/ And many goodly states and
kingdoms seen.”
4. “Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing
sun,”

1. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

2. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
3. “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
4. To Autumn”

Q: Identify the authors of the following quotes:

1. “A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

2. “There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
3. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
4. “Okie means you’re scum. Don’t mean nothing itself, it’s the way they say it.”
5. “Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing.”
6. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.”
7. “I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.”
8. “The land was ours before we were the land’s.”

1. Herman Melville
2. Mark Twain
3. Margaret Mitchell
4. John Steinbeck
5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
6. Walt Whitman
7. Langston Hughes
8. Robert Frost

Q: Identify these characters from Othello:

1. Othello’s wife who he is deceived into killing?

2. The villain who lies to Othello about his wife?
3. The villain’ wife who is also killed?
4. Othello’s father-in-law who is a Venetian senator?

1. Desdemona
2. Iago
3. Emilia
4. Brabantio
Q: Identify the following about Romeo and Juliet:

1. Who encourages Juliet in her romance with Romeo?

2. Who, besides himself, does Romeo kill?
3. What is the name of the friar who performs the wedding?
4. To what city does Romeo escape after killing the answer to question 2?

1. the Nurse
2. Tybalt
3. Friar Laurence
4. Mantua

Q: Identify the following about Richard III:

1. Who is King of England at the beginning of the play?

2. Where does Richard hold his nephews and eventually kill them?
3. What physical anomaly is Richard said to possess?
4. During the Battle of Bosworth Field, what is Richard willing to trade his
kingdom for?

1. Edward IV
2. the Tower (of London)
3. a hunchback
4. a horse

Q: Identify the following about the play Oedipus the King:

1. Who wrote it?

2. Who has caused a plague in the city of Thebes by murdering King Laius?
3. Who is the blind prophet who knows the cause of the plague?
4. What does the murderer do to himself at the end of the play?

1. Sophocles
2. Oedipus
3. Tiresias
4. blinds himself
Q: Identify the following about Voyages of Sinbad:

1. What birds were capable of carrying off elephants?

2. What being latched on to Sinbad’s shoulders and wouldn’t let go?
3. His third voyage imitates some of the fantastic travels of what other man, down to
the blinding of a one-eyed giant?
4. The sixth and seventh voyages involve Sinbad delivering gift from the King of
Serendip to Sinbad’s ruler in what city?

1. rocs
2. the Old Man of the Sea
3. Odysseus
4. Baghdad

Q: Identify the following about Illiad:

1. What is the name given to the section of Book II which lists all the Greek and
allied commanders?
2. Who was the leader of the Myrmidons?
3. What is the name of the queen of Troy?
4. Which Greek commander is killed by his wife when he arrives home?

1. Catalogue of Ships
2. Achilles
3. Hecuba
4. Agamemnon

Q: Answer the following about A Pligrim’s Progress:

1. What type of work is it?

2. What is the name of the main character?
3. What is the name of the city to which he is traveling?
4. In what festive event does the main character get caught? The name was taken as
the title of a novel by William Thackeray.

1. allegory
2. Christian
3. Celestial City
4. Vanity Fair
Q: Identify the following about The Book of 1,000 and 1 Nights:

1. What woman tells the stories in an effort to preserve her life?

2. The servant girl Morgiana helps what poor man retain the treasure he stole from
theives?
3. Who collects a fortune in diamonds from the nest of a bird?
4. Which charcter is described as living in China?

1. Sheherazade
2. Ali Baba
3. Sinbad
4. Aladdin

Q: Identify the following about The Song of Roland:

1. Who is the emperor in the story?

2. Who was Roland’s best friend and fellow knight?
3. What is the name of Roland’s supernatural horn?
4. The final battle at the Pass at Roncevaux is situated between France and what
other country?

1. Charlemagne
2. Oliver
3. Oliphant
4. Spain

Q: Identify the following about 1984:

1. Who is the main character?

2. What is the name of the woman who falls in love with him?
3. What was the main character’s place of work?
4. Whom did the main character love at the end of the novel?

1. Winston Smith
2. Julia
3. Ministry of Truth
4. Big Brother
Q: Identify the following about Pride & Prejudice:

1. To which of the Bennett sisters does Mr. Bingly become attached and latter
marries?
2. In which county is Mr. D’Arcy’s estate?
3. Which of the Bennett sisters runs off from Brighton with Mr. Wickham?
4. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is related to which character?

1. Jane
2. Derbyshire
3. Lydia
4. Mr. D’Arcy

Q: Identify the following about A Farewell to Arms:

1. In what country does the action take place at the beginning of the novel?
2. In what country does the story end?
3. What was Frederic Henry’s job as a soldier?
4. Catherine Barkley dreams about dying during what meteorological
circumstances?
5. What is the name of the nurse who falls in love with Frederic Henry?
6. To What country does Henry escape with the nurse?

1. Italy
2. Switzerland
3. ambulance driver
4. it will be raining
5. Catherine Barkley
6. Switzerland

Q: Identify the following about The Sun Also Rises:

1. In what country does the most of the action take place?

2. What is the name of the main female character, a friend of Jake Barnes?
3. In what war had the main character been wounded?
4. What was the original title for the work?
5. What annual event in Pamplona, Spain is described in the work?

1. Spain
2. Brett Ashley
3. World War I
4. Fiesta!
5. the running of the bulls
Q: Identify the following about The Grapes of Wrath:

1. What is the name of the eldest married daughter of the Joads?

2. What is the term for the migrant workers’ camps?
3. What is the last name of the man and woman the Joads travel with towards
California?
4. What is the name of the preacher who becomes an advocate for the migrant
workers and is killed?

1. Rose of Sharon or Rosasharn

2. Hooverville
3. Wilson
4. Jim Casy

Q: Identify the following about Of Mice and Men:

1. The title is take form a poem by which author?

2. What animals does Lennie want to tend when they buy their farm?
3. What was the name of the old handyman whose dog is shot at the beginning of the
story?
4. Where does Lennie flee to after killing Curley’s wife?

1. Robert Burns
2. rabbits
3. Candy
4. the river

Q: Answer the following about Tom Sawyer:

1. Tom and Huck were attempting to cure warts with a visit to what location?
2. What is Becky Thatcher’s father’s occupation?
3. Who do Tom and Becky find while lost in the cave?
4. Who takes Huck into her home in an attempt to civilize him?

1. the cemetery
2. Judge
3. Injun Joe
4. Widow Douglas
Q: Identify the following about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

1. What is the name of the escaped slave who travels with Huck?
2. Who has been found dead in a boat along the river?
3. Identify one of the two women who attempt to reform Huck.
4. Who delivers the news that the escaped slave has been freed?

1. Jim
2. Pap Finn
3. Miss Watson or the Widow Douglas
4. Tom Sawyer

Q: Identify the following about The Scarlet Letter:

1. In what city does the action take place?

2. Where was Hester required to stand for three hours as part of her punishment?
3. What was the profession of Roger Chillingworth?
4. Who dies at the end of the novel?

1. Boston
2. the pillory
3. physician
4. Arthur Dimmesdale

Q: Answer the following about Wuthering Heights:

1. In what city did old Mr. Earnshaw find Heathcliff?

2. What is the name of the family with whom Catherine stays when she is attacked
by a dog?
3. What is the name of the housekeeper who acts as narrator?
4. Who dies after deliberately starving himself?

1. Liverpool
2. Lintons
3. Ellen (or Nelly) Dean
4. Heathcliff
Q: Answer the following about the novella Death in Venice:

1. Who is the author?

2. What is the name of the main character?
3. What is the name of the young Polish boy he becomes interested in?
4. What disease had broken out in the city?

1. Thomas Mann
2. Gustave von Ashenbach
3. Tadzio
4. Cholera

Q: Answer the following about Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There:

1. Which knight claims Alice as his prisoner and tells her how to become a queen?
2. What two animals (one real, one mythical) were fighting for the crown?
3. What two fat little men recited the poem about the Walrus and the Carpenter?
4. In what shape was the land inside the looking glass?

1. the White Knight

2. the Lion and the Unicorn
3. Tweedledum and Tweedledee
4. a chessboard

Q: Answer the following about Les Miserables:

1. What had Jean Valjean stolen to warrant five years imprisonment?

2. Who is the police inspector who tracks Valjean?
3. Near what city does most of the action occur?
4. The story begins around the time of the fall of which French ruler?

1. bread
2. Monsieur Javert
3. Paris
4. Napoleon
Q: Identify the main characters in these Dickens works:

1. A boy born in the work house is nearly corrupted by London thieves

2. A boy is orphaned but finds friends through his old nurse Pegotty and his Aunt
Betsy
3. A boy is raised by his sister and blacksmith husband and receives an education
through the gifts of a mysterious benefactor
4. An old man receives frightening and enlightening visitations which change his
attitude to life

1. Oliver Twist
2. David Copperfield
3. Great Expectations
4. “A Christmas Carol”

Q: Identify these creatures which appear in Tolkien’s works:

1. The demon-like creature released by the Dwarves of Moria.

2. The large wolf-like creatures used as mounts by some orcs.
3. The large tusked beasts used by the men of the South during the War of the Ring.
4. The special type of horse, of which Shadowfax was one.

1. Balrog
2. Wargs
3. Oliphant or Mumak
4. Mearas

Q: Identify these animals which appear in Medieval literature:

1. What type of animal is Reynard, a crafty liar?

2. What is the traditional name for a bear in these stories? This is also the name of
an NHL team.
3. What type of animal is Chanticleer?
4. What animal was the King of Beasts who continually believed Reynard’s lies?

1. a fox
2. Bruin
3. a rooster
4. a lion
Q: Answer the following about Beatrix Potter’s stories:

1. What kind of animal was Mrs. Tiggywinkle?

2. Which of Peter Rabbit’s sisters married Benjamin Bunny when she grew up?
3. What leafy vegetable causes Benjamin Bunny’s little bunnies to fall asleep?
4. Anna Maria and Samuel Whiskers tried to cook what young cat in a pastry?

1. a hedgehog
2. Flopsy
3. lettuce
4. Tom Kitten

Q: Identify the title of plays by Shakespeare as described below:

1. Which play’s title means a storm?

2. Which play’s title uses a word for a violent tempered woman, or a small
insectivore?
3. Which play’s title is the name of a Roman ruler?
4. Which play’s title means a “great deal of fuss regarding a nonentity”?

1. The Tempest
2. The Taming of the Shrew
3. Julius Caesar
4. Much Ado About Nothing

Q: Identify the works by Dickens in which these characters appear:

1. Agnes Wickfield 1. David Copperfield

2. Mr. Fezziwig 2. A Christmas Carol
3. Mr. Brownlow 3. Oliver Twist
4. Lucie Manette 4. A Tale of Two Cities

Q: Identify the author pf the Pulitzer Prize winning for history given the year and title:

1. 1932, My Experience in the World War

2. 1940, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years
3. 1954, A Stillness at Appomattox
4. 2001, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

1. John J. Pershing
2. Carl Sandburg
3. Bruce Catton
4. Joseph Ellis
Q: Identify the Pulitzer Prize winning author given the following works:

1. 1925, So Big 1. Edna Ferber

2. 1945, A Bell for Adano 2. John Hersey
3. 1958, A Death in the Family 3. James Agee
4. 1963, The Reivers 4. William Faulkner
5. 1947, All the King’s Men 5. Robert Penn Warren
6. 1919, The Magnificent Ambersons 6. Booth Tarkington
7. 1999, The Hours 7. Michael Cunningham
8. 2000, Interpreter of Maladies 8. Jhumpa Lahiri
9. 1990, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love 9. Oscar Hijuelos
10. 1980, The Executioner's Song 10. Norman
Mailer 11. 1970, The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford 11. Jean Stafford

12. 1932, The Good Earth 12. Pearl Buck

13. 1948, Tales of the South Pacific 13. James Michener
14. 1955, A Fable 14. William Faulkner

Q: Identify the Noble Prize in Literature winning author given the following works:

1. 1934, Six Characters in Search of an Author 1. Luigi Pirandello

2. 1925, Pygmalion 2. George Bernard Shaw
3. 1969, Waiting for Godot 3. Samuel Becket
4. 1976, Humboldt’s Gift 4. Saul Bellow

Q: Identify the main character in these works by Jane Austen:

1. and 2. the sisters of Sense and Sensibility.

3. Pride and Prejudice.
4. Persuasion.

1. and 2. Elinor Dashwood

Marianne Dashwood
3. Elizabeth Bennett
4. Anne Elliott

Q: Identify the countries that are the primary setting of these Hemingway works:

1. The Old Man and the Sea 1. Cuba

2. Death in the Afternoon 2. Spain
3. A Moveable Feast 3. France
4. A Farewell to Arms 4. Italy
Q: Identify the Shakespearean play with the following characters:

1. Count Paris and Benvolio 1. Romeo and Juliet

2. Antipholus of Syracuse and Adriana 2. The Comedy of Errors
3. Touchstone and Orlando 3. As You Like It
4. Mistress Quickly and Bardolph 4. The Merry Wives of Windsor
5. Valentina and Julia 5. Two Gentlemen of Verona
6. Kent and Edgar 6. King Lear
7. Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Viola 7. Twelfth Night
8. Benedick and Dogberry 8. Much Ado About Nothing
9. Alonso and Sebastian 9. The Tempest
10. Count Orsino and Olivia 10. Twelfth Night
11. A Soothsayer and Portia 11. Julius Caesar
12. Bianca and Christopher Sly 12. The Taming of the Shrew
13. Ferdinand and Miranda 13. The Tempest
14. Helena and Bertram 14. All’s Well That Ends Well
15. Bassanio and Jessica 15. The Merchant of Venice

Q: Identify the real name of these authors:

1. Stephen King 1. Richard Bachman

2. George Sands 2. Armandine Lucie Aurore Dupin
3. O. Henry 3. William Sidney Porter
4. Lewis Carroll 4. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
5. Joseph Conrad 5. Józef Korzeniowski
6. George Orwell 6. Eric Arthur Blair
7. Petrarch 7. Francesco Petrarca
8. Saki 8. Hector H. Munro
9. Pablo Neruda 9. Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
10. Voltaire 10. Francois-Marie Arouet
11. Ellis Bell 11. Emily Bronte
12. Isak Dinesen 12. Karen Blixen

Q: Identify the authors of the following works:

1. Charlotte’s Web 1. E. B. White

2. The Jungle 2. Upton Sinclair
3. The Maltese Falcon 3. Dashiell Hammett
4. Lake Woebegone Days 4. Garrison Keillor
5. The Remains of the Day 5. Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Faust 6. Johann Goethe
7. I, Cladius 7. Robert Graves
8. Hunger 8. Knut Hamsun
9. A Rose for Emily 9. William Faulkner
10. The Facts in the case of M. Valdemar10. Edgar Allen Poe
11. The Red Pony 11. John Steinbeck
12. Hills Like White Elephants 12. Ernest Hemingway
13. The Trial 13. Franz Kafka
14. The Idiot 14. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15. Madame Bovary 15. Gustav Flaubert
16. Notre Dame de Paris 16. Victor Hugo
17. The Picture of Dorian Gray 17. Oscar Wilde
18. Exodus 18. Leon Uris
19. Anne of Green Gables 19. Lucy Maud Montgomery
20. Remembrance of Things Past 20. Marcel Proust
21. Goblin Market 21. Christina Rossetti
22. Orlando Furioso 22. Ludovico Ariosto
23. Commedia Divina 23. Dante (Aligheri)
24. Around the World in 80 Days 24. Jules Verne
25. The Metamorphosis 25. Franz Kafka
26. Les Miserables 26. Victor Hugo
27. Heart of Darkness 27. Joseph Conrad
28. Tristram Shandy 28. Lawrence Sterne
29. A Modest Proposal 29. Jonathan Swift
30. Gormenghast 30. Mervyn Peake
31. The Moon and Sixpence 31. Somerset Maugham
32. Farmer Giles of Ham 32. J.R.R. Tolkien
33. The Voyage of the Dawntreader 33. C.S. Lewis
34. Keep the Aspidistra Flying 34. George Orwell
35. The Razor’s Edge 35. Somerset Maugham
36. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter 36. Carson McCullers
37. Native Son 37. Richard Wright
38. Main Street 38. Sinclair Lewis
39. The Sea Wolf 39. Jack London
40. Dragon’s Teeth 40. Upton Sinclair
41. The Sea, The Sea 41. Iris Murdoch
42. Fathers and Sons 42. Ivan Turgenev
43. The Stranger 43. Albert Camus
44. This Side of Paradise 44. F. Scott Fitzgerald
45. Eugene Onegin 45. Alexander Pushkin
46. The Phantom of the Opera 46. Gaston Leroux
47. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 47. Aleksandr Solzhenytsin
48. Voyage to the Center of the Earth 48. Jules Verne
49. The Scarlet Pimpernel 49. Baroness Orczy
50. Ligeia 50. Edgar Allan Poe
51. Young Goodman Brown 51. Nathaniel Hawthorne
52. That Evening Sun 52. William Faulkner
53. The Life You Save May Be Your Own 53. Flannery O’Connor
54. Jo’s Boys 54. Louisa May Alcott
55. The Robber Bridegroom 55. Eudora Welty
56. The Bluest Eye 56. Toni Morrison
57. The House of Mirth 57. Edith Wharton
58. Hard Times 58. Charles Dickens
59. Titus Andronicus 59. William Shakespeare
60. The Moonstone 60. Wilkie Collins
61. Sense and Sensibility 61. Jane Austen
62. Of Human Bondage 62. Somerset Maugham
63. Sons and Lovers 63. D. H. Lawrence
64. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? 64. Agatha Christie
65. Dombey and Son 65. Charles Dickens
66. Foucault’s Pendulum 66. Umberto Eco
67. Cat’s Cradle 67. Kurt Vonnegut
68. Amerika 68. Franz Kafka
69. Love in the Time of Cholera 69. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
70. Heart of Midlothian 70. Sir Walter Scott
71. The Master Builder 71. Henrik Ibsen
72. Dead Souls 72. Nikolai Gogol
73. Henderson the Rain King 73. Saul Bellow
74. Doctor Zhivago 74. Boris Pasternak
75. The Tale of Genji 75. Murasaki Shikibu
76. Buddenbrooks 76. Thomas Mann
77. Five Weeks in a Balloon 77. Jules Verne
78. Toilers of the Sea 78. Victor Hugo
79. Anna Karenina 79. Leo Tolstoy
80. Dangerous Liaisons 80. Pierre Laclos
81. My Antonia 81. Willa Cather
82. All the King’s Men 82. Robert Penn Warren
83. Andromeda Strain 83. Michael Crichton
84. The Bell Jar 84. Sylvia Plath
85. Death in Venice 85. Thomas Mann
86. Island of the Blue Dolphins 86. Scott O’Dell
87. The Bridge to Terabithia 87. Katherine Paterson
88. Ramona the Pest 88. Beverly Cleary
89. A Winkle in Time 89. Madeleine L’Engle
90. To Build a Fire 90. Jack London
91. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 91. Ambrose Bierce
92. The Imp of the Perverse 92. Edgar Allen Poe
93. Bernice Bobs Her Hair 93. F. Scott Fitzgerald
94. The Time Machine 94. H.G. Wells
95. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 95. Muriel Spark
96. The Mysteries of Udolpho 96. Ann Radcliffe
97. Death in the Afternoon 97. Ernest Hemingway
98. Go Down, Moses 98. William Faulkner
99. Travels with Charley 99. John Steinbeck
100. Delta Wedding 100. Eudora Welty
101. Guy Mannering 101. Walter Scott
102. The Rainbow 102. D.H. Lawrence
 103. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 103. James Joyce
104. Just So Stories 104. Rudyard Kipling
105. Cancer Ward 105. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
106. The Prisoner of the Caucasus 106. Alexander Puskin
107. The Magic Mountain 107. Thomas Mann
108. Out of Africa 108. Isak Dinesen
109. Carry On, Jeeves 109. P.G. Wodehouse
110. The Castle 110. Franz Kafka
111. The Overcoat 111. Nicolai Gogol
112. A Bend in the River 112. V.S. Naipaul

Q: Identify the books in which the following characters appear:

1. Dilsey Gibson 1. The Sound and the Fury

2. Captain Gardiner 2. Moby Dick
3. Joe Harper 3. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
4. Anselmo 4. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Q: Identify the creators of the following characters:

1. Wackford Sqeers 1. Charles Dickens

2. Harriet Smith 2. Jane Austen
3. Gabriel Oak 3. Thomas Hardy
4. Mr. Brocklehurst 4. Charlotte Bronte
5. Ham Pegotty 5. Charles Dickens
6. Gloriana 6. Edmund Spencer
7. Benvolio 7. William Shakespeare
8. Sophia Western 8. Henry Fielding
9. Uncas 9. James Fenimore Cooper
10. Tashtego 10. Herman Melville
11. Benjy Compson 11. William Faulkner
12. Holly Golightly 12. Truman Capote
13. Addie Bundren 13. William Faulkner
14. Beth March 14. Louisa May Alcott
15. Antonia Shimerda 15. Willia Cather
16. Becky Thatcher 16. Mark Twain
17. George Wickham 17. Jane Austen
18. Bertha Mason 18. Charlotte Bronte
19. Dora Spenlow 19. Charles Dickens
20. Little Father Time 20. Thomas Hardy
21. Fedallah 21. Herman Melville
22. “Big Daddy” Pollitt 22. Tennessee Williams
23. Quentin Compson 23. William Faulkner
24. Kino 24. John Steinbeck
Q: Identify four of the five poets normally referred to as The Fireside Poets:

1. John Greenleaf Whittier

2. Oliver Wendell Holmes
3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
4. William Cullen Bryant
5. James Russell Lowell

Q: For what four works did Eugene O'Neill win Pulitzer Prizes?

Beyond the Horizon

Anna Christie
Strange Interlude
Long Day's Journey Into Night

Q: Identify the playwright who wrote the following:

1. The Seagull 1. Anton Chekov

2. The Marriage of Figaro 2. Pierre de Beaumarchais
3. A Raisin in the Sun 3. Lorriane Hansbury
4. A Doll’s House 4. Henrik Ibsen
5. Cyrano de Bergerac 5. Edmond Rostand
6. Tartuffe 6. Moliere
7. Antigone 7. Sophocles
8. The Odd Couple 8. Neil Simon
9. RUR 9. Karel Capek
10. The Wasps 10. Aristophanes
11. Coriolanus 11. William Shakespeare

Q: Identify the authors of the following poems:

1. The Vision of the 1. William Blake

Daughters of Albion
2. The Rubiayat 2. Omar Khayyam
3. Ode to Joy 3. Friedrich von Schiller
4. Lyrics of a Lowly Life 4. Paul Laurence Dunbar
5. Paradise Lost 5. John Milton
6. The Aeneid 6. Virgil
7. The Afternoon of a Faun 7. Stephane Mallarme
8. The Iliad 8. Homer
9. The Wasteland 9. T.S. Eliot
10. North of Boston 10. Robert Frost
11. Hiawatha 11. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
12. Ulalume 12. Edgar Allen Poe
13. The Wreck of the Hesperus 13. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
14. When I heard 14. Walt Whitman
the Learned Astronomer
15. The Barefoot Boy 15. John Greenleaf Whittier
16. Piers Plowman 16. William Langland
17. Songs of Innocence and Experience 17. William Blake
18. Lines Composed a few 18. William Wordsworth
Miles above Tintern Abbey
19. The Wild Swans at Coole 19. William Butler Yeats
20. The Courtship of Miles Standish 20. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
21. O Captain! My Captain! 21. Walt Whitman
22. The Negro Speaks of Rivers 22. Langston Hughes
23. General William Booth 23. Vachel Lindsay
Enters into Heaven
24. Grass 24. Carl Sandburg
25. Nothing Gold Can Stay 25. Robert Frost
26. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 26. Walt Whitman
27. The Oven Bird 27. Robert Frost
28. Four Quartets 28. T.S. Eliot
29. When Lilacs Last in the 29. Walt Whitman
Dooryard Bloom’d
30. Tam O’Shanter 30. Robert Burns
31. Leben und Leider 31. Rainier Marie Rilke
32. Decameron 32. Giovanni Boccaccio