SB Regionals- Language Arts
Give both the author and the novel that includes the slogan "War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength"emblazoned in huge letters on the Ministry of Truth Building?
1984 by (George) Orwell
Set during World War II, what John Knowles novel depicts the friendship between Phineas and Gene?
A Separate Peace
What book by John Knowles tells the story of what happened one summer to Gene, the introverted intellectual, and Phineas, the handsome, daredevil athlete?
A Separate Peace
Identify the Tennessee Williams' play that includes the famous line: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
A Streetcar Named Desire
What novel begins "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times"?
A Tale of Two Cities
What do we call a word or phrase that is spelled the same backward and forward?
A palindrome
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, her early works were warnings against sociopolitical systems such as Communism and Fascism. Name this woman, a resolute atheist and author of works such as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
(Ayn) Rand
Name the Russian-born novelist whose first novel We, the Living depicts young individualists oppressed and destroyed by totalitarian dictatorship.
(Ayn) Rand
Name the author whose early works were warnings against sociopolitical systems such as Communism and Fascism, and whose works include Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
(Ayn) Rand
What Russian-born American writer developed the philosophy of Objectivism which extolled the supremacy of reason which is explored in works such as Anthem?
(Ayn) Rand
What poem includes these lines: "As it rose above the graves on the hill / Lonely and spectral and somber and still / And lo! As he looks, on the belfry's height / A glimmer, and then a gleam of light"?
"Paul Revere's Ride," by (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow (also accept "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere")
The lines "He was a gentleman from soul to crown,...he glittered when he walked" are from which poem telling the story of a young man whose outward appearance does not match his inward feelings?
"Richard Cory"
Give the title of the poem that begins with these lines: "To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language . . ."
"Thanatopsis"
In which short story by Leo Tolstoy did he repeat the phrase "like all dead men"?
"The Death of Ivan Ilyich"
In what short story does Stephen Vincent Benet write about a salesman's encounter with Satan?
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
What is the name of Hans Christian Andersen's short story about a vain ruler whose only concern is his wardrobe?
"The Emperor's New Clothes"
Robert Frost wrote a poem called "Dedication" for the Presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Because of his poor eyesight, he could not read this poem from his notes. Instead, he recited what other poem from memory?
"The Gift Outright"
What short story by Edgar Allan Poe uses cryptography or ciphers which must be solved?
"The Gold Bug"
What short story begins with this dialogue? "Off there to the right - somewhere - is a large island" said Whitney. "It's rather a mystery." "What island is it?" Rainsford asked.
"The Most Dangerous Game"
Which of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales tells the story of three men searching for Death?
"The Pardoner's Tale"
Name the James Thurber story of an ordinary, boring man who lives an imaginary life in which he is always a hero?
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
What is the title of the James Thurber story in which a hen-pecked husband lives a secret life in which he is always the hero?
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
What is the title of the short story by James Thurber in which the protagonist spends much of his time daydreaming?
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
What is the title of the short story in which a motive for murder is described as follows: "Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man."
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
In Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, the last section titled "Burning Bright" is a reference from what William Blake poem?
"The Tiger"
Which of the Canterbury Tales involves a knight trying to find out what women really want in a marriage?
"The Wife of Bath's Tale"
What is the name of the short story by author Charlotte Perkins Gilman that follows the main character's descent into madness?
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
Correct the error in the following sentence: "Would you please join Bob and I for dinner?"
"Would you please join Bob and ME for dinner?" or I should be ME
Correct the following sentence: Jerry, as well as his sisters, are planning to attend classes.
"are" should be "is" or "Jerry, as well as his sisters, IS planning to attend classes."
Who is the author of the sonnet that ends with these lines: "Send these, the homeless, tempest- tost to me,/I lift my lamp beside the golden door"?
(Emma) Lazarus
Name the American author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 and used both war and sports as metaphors for the working of daily life.
(Ernest) Hemingway
What American author wrote about Nick Adams, a fictional character whose life paralleled that of the author's life experiences?
(Ernest) Hemingway
What is the name of the 20th century author whose collection of short stories that deal with the development of young Nick Adams is titled In Our Time?
(Ernest) Hemingway
Which American author wrote "Soldier's Home," a short story about a World War I veteran who cannot cope with the reality of coming home?
(Ernest) Hemingway
In the 1910s, which playwright, virtually living at Jimmy the Priest's saloon in lower Manhattan, used it as a model for Harry Hope's saloon, the setting for the tragedy The Iceman Cometh?
(Eugene) O'Neill
Name the American dramatist and Nobel Laureate who wrote such plays as The Hairy Ape, Mourning Becomes Electra, and The Iceman Cometh.
(Eugene) O'Neill
Name the American playwright whose works include Anna Christie, Desire Under the Elms, and Strange Interlude who was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature.
(Eugene) O'Neill
Who has a sister named Georgiana, an estate named Pemberley, and a desire to marry Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice?
(Fitzwilliam) Darcy
Name the 14th century Italian Renaissance poet whose many poems have as their subject the idealized woman, "Laura."
(Francesco) Petrarch
What Czech author created the character Gregor Samsa (ZAHM-zah), who woke up one morning as a giant beetle?
(Franz) Kafka
Name the Russian author whose own suffering during the reign of Czar Nicholas I resulted in literary works including The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamozov.
(Fyodor) Dostoevsky ( Dahs toy ev skee)
Name the American author of the 19th Century who created the fictional character Natty Bumppo, the protagonist of each of the five novels collectively known as The Leatherstocking Tales.
(James Fenimore) Cooper
Name two of the four Fireside Poets of American literature
(James Russell) Lowell, (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow, (Henry Wadsworth) (Oliver Wendell) Holmes, (James Greenleaf) Whittier (order not important)
Name the 19th century English author who wrote the lines, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
(Jane) Austen
Identify the character who was sentenced to five years in prison at hard labor for stealing a single loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving family in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.
(Jean) Valjean (val jahn)
Give the author of these contemporary novels: Nineteen Minutes, Keeping Faith, and My Sister's Keeper.
(Jodi) Picoult (Pee koh) accept any reasonable phonetic pronunciation
Identify the author of the allegorical work known as Pilgrim's Progress.
(John) Bunyan
Identify the Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote A Bell for Adano and Hiroshima.
(John) Hersey
What British poet of the Romantic Period is well-known for his odes including "To a Nightingale" and "To Autumn"?
(John) Keats
Name the poet and the title of the poem that begins with the following lines: "Thou still unravished bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time."
(John) Keats and "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Name the American writer who wrote a total of 27 books, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, and wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath.
(John) Steinbeck
What author wrote of the animal Gabilan in the 1933 novel entitled The Red Pony?
(John) Steinbeck
Which American writer's most famous novels were about the struggles of downtrodden Americans during the Great Depression as shown in The Pearl and Of Mice and Men?
(John) Steinbeck
Name the Puritan minister whose The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended asserts that "depravity is inevitable since an identity of consciousness and a continuity of divine action make all men as one with Adam."
(Jonathan) Edwards
Name the minister who wrote "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" during the Great Awakening.
(Jonathan) Edwards
The Great Awakening is best characterized in what author's 18th century sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"?
(Jonathan) Edwards
Identify the author whose dying character named Kurtz in the novel the Heart of Darkness cries, "The horror! The horror!"
(Joseph) Conrad
What Polish author tells the tale of the first mate of the ill-fated Patna in his novel, Lord Jim?
(Joseph) Conrad
Name the author of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Superfudge, and Blubber.
(Judy) Blume
Who introduced his audience in the science fiction genre to the fact that when traveling East around the world, the traveler gains a day, in his novel Around the World in 80 Days?
(Jules) Verne
Identify the author of the poem that begins, "A Rock, a River, a Tree" that was read by the author to commemorate the inauguration of the 42nd President of the United States.
(Maya) Angelou
Name the African-American poet who is referred to as the "Global Renaissance Woman" and who read a poem for President Clinton's inauguration.
(Maya) Angelou
What poet read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's inauguration in 1993?
(Maya) Angelou
What American author had an ancestor who served as a judge during the Salem Witchcraft Trials and subsequently changed the spelling of his name?
(Nathaniel) Hawthorne
What is the name of the 19th century author whose great-great-grandfather had been one of the judges during the Salem witch trials?
(Nathaniel) Hawthorne
What author of the 1833 Common Version of the Bible also wrote The Blue-Backed Speller and created the American Dictionary bought by George Merriam?
(Noah) Webster
Who is the creator of the plays The Importance of Being Earnest and Salome and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray?
(Oscar) Wilde
Who wrote Lady Windermere's Fan, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and The Importance of Being Earnest?
(Oscar) Wilde
Name the Unitarian minister who disputed the divine nature of Jesus in his 1838 Harvard Divinity address and wrote about Transcendentalism in Nature?
(Ralph Waldo) Emerson
What 19th Century American author invited neighbors to his house to discuss philosophical and religious problems, which eventually was dubbed the "Transcendental Club"?
(Ralph Waldo) Emerson
Who was the Massachusetts writer, poet, and philosopher who wrote a short patriotic verse about the Battle of Concord in 1775 that was titled "Concord Hymn"?
(Ralph Waldo) Emerson
Who wrote the following: "Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today". . .To be great is to be misunderstood..."
(Ralph Waldo) Emerson
What author won three Pulitzer Prizes, was the first poet laureate of the United States, and is best known for the novel All the King"s Men?
(Robert Penn) Warren
Name the "Bard of Ayrshire (air-shure)" the Scottish poet who wrote "Tam O' Shanter" and "To A Mouse."
(Robert) Burns
Name the 18th century Scottish poet whose works include "A Red, Red Rose" and "Auld Lang Syne."
(Robert) Burns
Name the poet whose line of poetry, "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley," inspired the title of John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men.
(Robert) Burns
What poet's "To a Mouse" provided John Steinbeck with his title Of Mice and Men?
(Robert) Burns
"He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake. / The only other sound"s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake." Who wrote these lines?
(Robert) Frost
Name the American poet regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life, his command of American colloquial speech and who commented on the adage "Good fences make good neighbors" in his poem "Mending Wall."
(Robert) Frost
Name the American poet who wrote "Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice."
(Robert) Frost
The poems "Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" were penned by what author?
(Robert) Frost
Name the legal husband of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.
(Roger) Chillingworth
Name the British writer, born in Bombay, India, who wrote the short story "The Man Who Would Be King."
(Rudyard) Kipling
What English author was born in Bombay, India, and is known for his works The White Man's Burden, Gunga Din, and The Jungle Book?
(Rudyard) Kipling
Which English author, born in Bombay, wrote many books set in India including Kim and The Jungle Book?
(Rudyard) Kipling
Name the English physician and novelist who wrote The Lost World in 1912, "A Study in Scarlet" in 1887 and many other Sherlock Holmes novels.
(Sir Arthur Conan) Doyle
Name the knight in the King Arthur legend who is characterized as gallant and pure.
(Sir) Galahad
Name the American realist who used color as a symbol in his works such as "The Blue Hotel," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and The Red Badge of Courage.
(Stephen) Crane
Who wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, "The Blue Hotel," and The Red Badge of Courage?
(Stephen) Crane
Who takes Darnay's place on the guillotine in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities?
(Sydney) Carton
Which author wrote "Colossus" and The Bell Jar?
(Sylvia) Plath
Edgar Allan Poe's work "The Raven" makes reference to the 'balm of Gilead," which appears in the biblical book of Jeremiah. What term describes such a figure of speech that "makes a reference to people, places, events, literary works, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication"?
Allusion
What Greek god who sided with the Trojans, giving his personal protection to Hector is represented as a stalwart figure armed with a helmet, shield, and spear?
Ares
What Greek playwright composed the majority of the still existing Greek comedies?
Aristophanes (Air-is-toph-ah-nees)
Although there were certainly many writers of tragedy in fifth century Greece, the work of only three survive. Name any two.
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (Es-ski-lus, Sof-o-cleez, Yur-rip-i-dees)
Which Greek warrior and brother of Menaleus must sacrifice his daughter to the Goddess of the Hunt to lift the plague from his soldiers prior to the Trojan War?
Agamemnon
In the book 1984 what was the name given to Great Britain?
Airstrip One
Name the hero of the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad who kills himself when the prize of Achilles' armor goes to Odysseus instead of him?
Ajax
What white bird is the focus of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
Albatross
Give the word for a narrative such as Pilgrim's Progress in which persons and events represent abstract ideas to convey symbolic meaning.
Allegory
Name the literary word that describes a story in which the characters and actions are used as symbols to convey a hidden meaning, as seen in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Allegory
Name the literary word that describes a story in which the characters and actions are used as symbols to convey a hidden meaning, such as in Animal Farm.
Allegory
Give the title that has come to mean an absurd arrangement that puts a person in a double bind. For example: A person cannot get a job without experience but cannot get experience without a job.
Catch-22
Give the word that by Aristotle's definition describes the release of emotions of the audience after they have watched a tragedy.
Catharsis
What literary term coined by Aristotle can be defined as an emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety?
Catharsis
Which term from the Greek meaning "to purify" was used by Aristotle for "the purgation or the purification of the emotions as pity and fear, especially as an effect of tragic drama"?
Catharsis
Name the literary character who is a poor, barely educated, fourteen-year-old black girl who writes letters to God because the man she believes to be her father, Alphonso, beats and rapes her.
Celie
Identify the creatures in classical mythology who were half-human and half-horse.
Centaurs
In Greek mythology, what was the name of the hideous three headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld?
Cerberus
Name the three-headed dog from Greek mythology who guarded the entrance to Hades.
Cerberus
Who guards the gates of The Underworld, preventing those who have crossed the river Styx from ever escaping?
Cerberus (Sir-burr-us)
Who ferried the dead across the River Styx in Greek mythology?
Charon
Name the boatman in Greek mythology who carried the souls of the dead across the river Styx? It is also one of Pluto's moons.
Charon (Care on) (accept chair on)
About what city is the following poem by Carl Sandburg written? "Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:"
Chicago
What city did poet Carl Sandburg describe as "hog butcher for the world," "player with railroads," and "city of the big shoulders"?
Chicago
Classify the following sentence by structure: "Queen Elizabeth was called a redhead, but no one knew for sure because she always wore a wig."
Compound-complex (sentence)
What literary term refers to the idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its denotation?
Connotation
Name the Greek mythical character who creates wings for his son and himself to escape from the island where they were imprisoned.
Daedalus (Day-du-lus)
Who was the mythological nymph who was changed into a laurel tree in order to thwart the advances of Apollo?
Daphne
In the English language, there are four main kinds of sentences by purpose. Name them.
Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, and Imperative
What are the four types of English sentences by purpose?
Declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory (in any order)
Name the Carthaginian queen with whom the Trojan hero Aeneas had a forbidden affair.
Dido
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee is believed to have used Truman Capote as the inspiration for what character from Meridian County who visits Jem and Scout?
Dill (Accept Charles Baker Harris)
In early Greek theater, plays were given in honor of what god of wine, music, and theater?
Dionysus
What term in English, also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable?
Diphthong
Which work by which author includes the line, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here"?
Divine Comedy by Dante
What well-known children's authors also wrote political cartoons during World War II and alluded to the war in some of his children's books.
Dr. Seuss (also accept Theodore Geisel)
What term in literature describes an often futuristic society as seen in George Orwell's 1984 that has degraded into a repressed and controlled state that exists under the guise of utopia?
Dystopia(n)
Spell the antonym of implode.
E-X-P-L-O-D-E
Name the nymph whom Hera, the wife of Zeus, cursed with the loss of her voice except for the ability to foolishly repeat what others say.
Echo
What was the name of the villain in Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist who taught the orphans to pick pocket and steal for him?
Fagin (fay gun)
A salamander and a phoenix are symbols in which Bradbury novel?
Fahrenheit 451
Guy Montag is the protagonist of which Ray Bradbury novel that begins, "It was a pleasure to burn"?
Fahrenheit 451
What charming, fat, aging rogue who is a lover of wine, women and song provides comic relief in several of Shakespeare's plays?
Falstaff
An instructor at Ohio University wrote a novel concerning a medical experiment that changed a 30-year-old mentally retarded man into a genius. Name the novel and its author.
Flowers for Algernon by (Daniel) Keyes
What do we call a book size whose signatures result from the folding of two leaves or four pages which were used as the first manuscripts of Shakespeare?
Folio
Name the plot device which warns or prepares a reader for upcoming events or changes in mood or tone.
Foreshadowing
What is the literary device in which an author uses hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot?
Foreshadowing
Name the three verbals in English grammar.
Gerund, participle, and infinitive
What hero is the protagonist in the first great epic of the people variously called Akkadians, Sumerians, and Babylonians?
Gilgamesh
What type of literature is characterized by darkness, gloom, and sometimes supernatural occurrences in characters, settings, and plots?
Gothic
What Charles Dickens novel originally published in 1861 includes the characters Joe Gargery, Pip and Mr. Jaggers?
Great Expectations
What is the name of the man-eating monster who lives at the bottom of the lake in Beowulf?
Grendel
Name the mythical winged creature with an eagle's head and the body of a lion.
Griffin
Give the surname of the two German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm, who published works on grammar and language as well as collected three volumes of fairy tales.
Grimm (The Brothers Grimm)
Name the town that is the setting for Thornton Wilder's Our Town.
Grover's Corners
What classic piece of English literature, penned by Jonathan Swift, introduces readers to the Land of Lilliput?
Gulliver's Travels
Name the adverb in the following sentence: "The boy ran hastily down the hall."
Hastily
According to Christopher Marlowe, who was the woman whose "Face launched a thousand ships of Troy?"
Helen of Troy
What is the name of the Greek god of fire, who was born lame and was thrown from heaven by both his mother Hera and his father Zeus?
Hephaestus
Name the Greek god of fire and metalworking who is married to Aphrodite.
Hephaestus (Hef-ace-stus)
What three goddesses did Paris judge for their beauty?
Hera, Athena, Aphrodite (any order)
What is the name of the mythological monster that sprouted two heads every time one was cut off and who was finally killed by Hercules?
Hydra
What figure of speech is seen in this passage from Thurber: "He gave me more trouble than all the other fifty-four or five put together"?
Hyperbole
What is the name for poetic meter expressed by an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable?
Iambic (or an iamb)
What figure of speech is used when expressions do not make literal sense, such as: "Mom is tied up in the kitchen"?
Idiom
What is the term for pictures or sensations created in the mind by language?
Imagery
For which long poem, associated with the American Civil War, did Stephen Vincent Benet win a Pulitzer Prize in 1929?
John Brown's Body
Give the full name of the character who said "Because it is my name. Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies!" in the Arthur Miller play The Crucible.
John Proctor
Name the Shakespearean character who said "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
Juliet
Identify the objective complement in the following sentence: "My father called me 'junior' as a child."
Junior
Gordon Park's novel The Learning Tree is set in what state?
Kansas
What American Southern author wrote Pale Horse, Pale Rider and Ship of Fools?
Katherine Anne Porter (need both first and last names)
Give the term for the spirit of alienation and feelings of disillusionment after WW I prevalent with such authors as Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.
Lost Generation
Spell the word meaning a mental device used to recall information such as the word HOMES for remembering the five Great Lakes.
M-n-e-m-o-n-i-c
Identify the predicate nominative in the following sentence: Before Henry leaves, I must ask him whether the candidate is Mary.
Mary
Give the first and last names of the English author of the classic novel of horror subtitled Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley
What southern author wrote All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?
Maya Angelou
Name the mythological woman who was the daughter of King Aeëtes (A E tees) of Colchis (kol kis) the niece of Circe, and later wife of the hero Jason with whom she had two children.
Medea
In The Catcher in the Rye, which character from Romeo and Juliet did Holden care for the most?
Mercutio
Who was a sorcerer and counselor of Uther Pendragon and his son Arthur?
Merlin
Which literary term is used to refer to the application of a word or phrase to an object or concept it does not literally denote, as seen in "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"?
Metaphor
What is the name of the creature who has a body consisting of one-half man and one-half bull that King Minos kept in a labyrinth on the island of Crete?
Minotaur
Give both the title and the author of the American novel set around the voyage of a ship, Pequod, and its master's obsession with a sea creature.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Used in preparing research papers and other scholarly work, what do the letters MLA stand for?
Modern Language Association
Give the title of the novel by Daniel Defoe about a woman who tries to escape poverty and servitude through many failed marriages and who eventually turns to a life of crime.
Moll Flanders
Who were the two feuding families in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?
Montagues and Capulets
According to ancient mythology, what god created men's dreams while they slept?
Morpheus
In what three ways must a pronoun agree with its antecedent?
Number, Person, and Gender (Sex) (DO NOT accept case)
What is the pen name used by William Sydney Porter known for short stories such as "The Ransom of Red Chief" and "The Furnished Room."
O. Henry
Wednesday is named after what Norse god?
Odin or Woden
Name the winged horse that sprang from the blood of Medusa after she was slain.
Pegasus
Name the character who said, "Neither a borrower nor lender be" in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
Polonius
What are the only two books in the Bible named for specific women?
Ruth and Esther
According to its author, this novel is "an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature." Name this novel by William Golding.
The Lord of the Flies
What is the literary movement whose members included expatriate soldiers disillusioned by the casualties of World War I, such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ezra Pound?
The Lost Generation
Name the novel by Alice Sebold about a young murdered girl who tells her story from heaven.
The Lovely Bones
Give the family name of the main characters featured in Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women?
The March Family
In this Shakespearean play, Shylock demands "a pound of flesh" from Antonio if he does not repay his debt. Name it.
The Merchant of Venice
In which Shakespeare play does the plot hinge on a loan in the amount of 300 ducats?
The Merchant of Venice
Which creature did Theseus defeat in the labyrinth?
The Minotaur (Men-oh-tar)
In what play did Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke make the education of Helen Keller come alive?
The Miracle Worker
What is Mary Shelly's other title for her novel Frankenstein?
The Modern Prometheus
What 1967 novel by Susan Eloise Hinton follows two rival groups, the Greasers and the Socs ("so-shes"), who are divided by their socio-economic status?
The Outsiders
What was the only novel published by Oscar Wilde?
The Picture of Dorian Gray
In what Mark Twain work do Edward VI (6th) and Tom Canty exchange roles?
The Prince and the Pauper
In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland who orders Alice's head to be cut off?
The Queen of Hearts
What mock epic written by Alexander Pope recounts the traumatic cutting of a young girl's hair?
The Rape of the Lock
Although he had never experienced combat in the Civil War, what novel is considered Stephen Crane's greatest achievement?
The Red Badge of Courage
What ancient Roman poet authored the "Metamorphoses" and "The Art of Love"?
Ovid
What literary term is exemplified by the phrases "Living dead," "Clearly confused," and "Larger half"?
Oxymoron
What term is given to the figure of speech which brings together two contradictory terms for sharp emphasis in such examples as "wise fool" or "jumbo shrimp"?
Oxymoron
Plagiarism is the wrongful use, imitation, or publishing of another person's work without appropriate citation. Spell plagiarism.
P-L-A-G-I-A-R-I-S-M
In Thornton Wilder's Our Town, what character directly addresses the audience, narrating the play's action?
The Stage Manager
Which Robert Louis Stevenson story deals with the "thorough and primitive duality of man"?
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The marriage of Katherine and Petruchio is found in what Shakespearean play?
The Taming of the Shrew
What valley lies between East Egg and West Egg in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
The Valley of Ashes
What H.G. Wells book created a national panic when Orson Wells aired an adaptation of it on the radio in 1938?
The War of the Worlds
What was the title of Langston Hughes' first published volume of poetry?
The Weary Blues
Henry Hugh Munro is known for his exciting and thrilling short stories, including "The Interlopers" and "The Storyteller." What is his famous pen name?
Saki
What is the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, author of "The Open Window"?
Saki
Give the first and last name of the narrator of the famous beatnik book On the Road by Jack Kerouac?
Sal (Salvatore) Paradise
What do sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood represent in the title of a Jane Austen novel?
Sense and Sensibility
Name the Toni Morrison novel with a biblical title that was cited by the Swedish Academy in awarding Morrison the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature.
Song of Solomon
What is the term for the grammatical form of verbs implying hypothetical action or condition?
Subjunctive (or Subjunctive Mood)
Name one of the two American women writers to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in the last 100 years.
Toni Morrison (1993) Pearl Buck (1938)
Name the theory that basic truths can be reached through instinct and intuition or that basic truths of the universe lie beyond the knowledge we obtain from our senses.
Transcendentalism
What is the time period in American literature that is given to those writers whose core beliefs reflect the inherent goodness of mankind and the physical world?
Transcendentalism
Captain Flint and First Mate Billy Bones are characters from what novel?
Treasure Island
What is the name for the type of Native American fables that use as main characters animals who are deceitful, intending to teach morality to the tribes?
Trickster tales
According to traditional Iroquois fables, on what does the land between the sky world and the ocean ride?
Turtle's Back
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who were the two characters whose names today designate people "so alike as to be indistinguishable"?
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
"If music be the food of love, play on..." is the opening line to which Shakespearean play?
Twelfth Night
What novel by Reginald Rose is a story of jurors deliberating the fate of a young boy on trial for murder?
Twelve Angry Men
Name the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel that has the subtitle Life Among the Lowly.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
In the epic poem Beowulf, the protagonist claims to have killed sea monsters and swum in a race in the ocean and says he will kill Grendel. Who challenges Beowulf's boast at Herot?
Unferth
In Tennessee Williams' play, The Glass Menageri, what animal symbolizes the character Laura?
Unicorn
On what college campus did Willa Cather's My Antonia take place?
University of Nebraska
What is the name of the grammatical error in the following statement: "Lying on the road, I saw a snake"?
misplaced modifier
Identify the appositive phrase in the following sentence: "Jenny, my best friend's sister, is receiving treatments for cancer."
my best friend's sister
Identify the word in English borrowed from the German that is commonly used in English to mean a "lookalike" but can refer to the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision when there is no chance it was a reflection.
doppelganger
Identify the kind of grammatical error in the following sentence: "I can't hardly believe he ate the whole thing."
double negative
What kind of irony is used in Romeo and Juliet when the audience knows that Juliet is alive, but Romeo believes she is dead?
dramatic irony
Name the literary term that identifies a poem in which a speaker addresses one or more silent listeners, often reflecting on a problem or a situation.
dramatic monologue
Spell the literary name for an inscription written on a gravestone.
e-p-i-t-a-p-h
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," written by Walt Whitman in response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, is an example of what type of poetry?
elegy
What is the literary term used to describe a poem or song composed as a lament for one who is dead such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam A. H. H."
elegy (not eulogy)
What is the grammatical name for the three periods used in writing to show that something has been omitted from a text or to signal a complete change in meaning or incomplete thoughts?
ellipsis
What is the name given to the three dots or periods placed together to indicate that words were left out of a quote?
ellipsis
What is the name given to a long narrative poem that tells about the deeds of a legendary hero?
epic
What part of a literary work, which usually occurs at the beginning, provides the background information necessary to understand characters and their actions?
exposition (do not accept prologue)
What is the word for a fictitious story which usually has talking animals as characters and which teaches a moral lesson?
fable
In which point of view is the following quotation written: "True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad."
first person
Identify the direct object in the following sentence: Jeremy gave the flowers to his girlfriend.
flowers
Name the word defined by writers as someone or something that serves as a contrast to another character, usually the protagonist?
foil
What is the term for a character in literature who is used as a contrast to intensify the qualities of another character?
foil
Most of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman was written in what type of verse?
free (verse)
In poetry, what is the name for verse without a metrical pattern?
free verse
What do we call poetry without regular patterns of rhythm, rhyme, or length?
free verse (do not accept blank verse)
Identify the term that indicates a category under which a work of literature, such as poetry or drama, is classified.
genre
What is the term used for literary classifications, such as romance, science fiction, or mystery?
genre
In Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster" the line "I've fought John C. Calhoun, madam. And I've fought Henry Clay. And by the great shade of Andrew Jackson, I'd fight ten thousand devils to save a New Hampshire man!" What is a shade?
ghost or a spirit
What figure of speech is illustrated in the following sentence? The grass bends with every wind; so does John.
metaphor
What is the proper punctuation between two independent clauses not joined by a conjunction?
semicolon
Which punctuation mark is used to separate independent clauses not joined by conjunctions?
semicolon
Which type of punctuation should be used to join two independent clauses when a comma and coordinating conjunction are not used?
semicolon
What is a form of informal language that is made up of newly coined words used in unconventional ways?
slang
Name the type of speech in which a character expresses his or her private thoughts aloud, while alone on a stage.
soliloquy
Name the direct object in the following sentence: The mother lectured her son about good choices.
son
State the term for a kind of writing that ridicules human weaknesses, vices, or folly in order to effect social reform.
satire
What literary device is used to ridicule foolish ideas or customs for the purpose of improving society?
satire
What type of literary work, such as Gulliver's Travels, uses sarcasm, wit, and irony to ridicule and expose the follies of mankind?
satire
What is the term for the analysis of the meter of a line of verse?
scansion
What is the name for the error in the following sentence: "To really play well, one must get plenty of rest"?
split infinitive
What style of writing is used when the author records thoughts and feelings as they occur as in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury?
stream of consciousness
Which character from Orwell's Animal Farm is considered to be based on Joseph Stalin?
Napoleon
Name the beautiful youth of classical mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.
Narcissus
Henry James' Daisy Miller, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness are all prose pieces that are shorter than novels but longer than short stories. What term describes such pieces?
Novella
Name the Russian playwright who wrote The Three Sisters, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard.
(Anton) Chekhov
This American dramatist's works are concerned with the responsibility of each individual to other members of society. Name this playwright who won the Tony Award for The Crucible and the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman.
(Arthur) Miller
What Jonathan Swift essay suggests the eating of children to solve Ireland's poverty and hunger problems?
"A Modest Proposal"
Name the Herman Melville short story about a copyist and his kindly but exasperated supervisor.
"Bartleby the Scrivener"
According to Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, exactly what makes a man "healthy, wealthy, and wise"?
"Early to bed and early to rise."
Name the short story by Kurt Vonnegut where Diana Moon Glampers is the name of the Handicapper General.
"Harrison Bergeron"
What is the title of the short story by Franz Kafka about a man who turns into an insect?
"Metamorphosis"
Name the Keats poem that contains the following line: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty...".
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Name the work by John Keats that concludes with the following lines: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all\Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
What poem by John Keats includes the famous lines "Beauty is truth, truth beauty'-that is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know"?
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
What was the magic phrase in the Arabic tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" that opens the way to hidden treasures?
"Open Sesame"
Name the Russian playwright known for the plays titled The Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, and The Cherry Orchard.
(Anton) Chekhov
Which author created the characters Hercule Poirot (Air cyule Pwah row)and Jane Marple?
(Agatha) Christie
In 1948, which late and anti-apartheid (a part tied) author wrote Cry, the Beloved Country?
(Alan) Paton
Who is the French author of The Man in the Iron Mask and The Three Musketeers?
(Alexander) Dumas
Name the author of this quote: "To err is human, to forgive divine."
(Alexander) Pope
What highly quotable British author wrote the mock epic The Rape of the Lock?
(Alexander) Pope
Name the author who was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature and wrote of his experiences as a political prisoner in labor camps in the Soviet Union.
(Alexander) Solzhenitsyn (Sols-juh-neat-sin)
What poet wrote Idylls of the King and "The Charge of the Light Brigade"?
(Alfred) Tennyson
Name the writer who authored The Devil's Dictionary and was better known for his Civil War tales of the supernatural such as "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."
(Ambrose) Bierce
Name the American poet whose house and library of 800 books burned, inspiring the poem entitled "Upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666."
(Anne) Bradstreet
Name the author whose poetic works, "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and "Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666" earned her a literary reputation among modern scholars for providing "a personal voice during Puritan times."
(Anne) Bradstreet
Name the woman who traveled from England to Massachusetts at the age of 18 and whose first collection of poems was published in America under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America.
(Anne) Bradstreet
Name the author of The Little Prince or a child's fable for adults in which a pilot crash lands in a desert and encounters a prince from another planet.
(Antoine) (de) Saint-Exupery (son X per ree)
Name the 19th-century Russian author of works including Motley Stories, In the Twilight, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard.
(Anton) Chekhov
Name the Russian author, winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for literature, who wrote the novel Dr. Zhivago.
(Boris) Pasternak
Which author won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago?
(Boris) Pasternak
The short story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" was written by what 19th century contemporary of Samuel L. Clemens?
(Bret) Harte
Who was the captain of the Nautilus in Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?
(Captain) Nemo
Who is the author who created the characters Miss Havisham, Estella, and Magwitch?
(Charles) Dickens (In Great Expectations)
What famous lawyer did Stephen Vincent Benet write about going head-to-head in a court case to save farmer Jabez Stone from relinquishing his soul to the devil?
(Daniel) Webster
Name the title character whose life as a successful professional is disrupted by the Russian Revolution and complicated when he falls in love with Laura, the wife of a revolutionary in a Tolstoy work.
(Doctor) Zhivago
Name the Welsh poet best known for his poems "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" and "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.
(Dylan) Thomas
Name the author and title of the work that begins: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."
(Edgar Allan) Poe "The Cask of Amontillado"
Name the Kansas-born poet and author who is best known for Spoon River Anthology.
(Edgar Lee) Masters
Name the American novelist who created the character Tarzan of the Apes?
(Edgar Rice) Burroughs
Which American writer wrote The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome and won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for fiction?
(Edith) Wharton
Which British author composed an epic poem connecting Queen Elizabeth I to the legend of King Arthur?
(Edmund) Spenser
Identify the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner who wrote a memoir of his experiences in various concentration camps during World War II
(Elie) Wiesel (we-ZELL) OR (vee-zell)
What author and Nobel Peace Prize winner shares his Holocaust experience in the memoir Night?
(Eliezer) Wiesel (wie zell or wee zell or vee zell) Accept Elie Wiesel
Name the American poet who is sometimes referred to as "the New England Nun."
(Emily) Dickinson
What American female poet wrote: "Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell"?
(Emily) Dickinson
Who wrote the following lines? "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one Pain, Or help one fainting Robin Unto his Nest again, I shall not live in Vain."
(Emily) Dickinson
Who wrote the poems "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and "I Heard a Fly Buzz"?
(Emily) Dickinson
Name the American poet who is best known for "The New Colossus," a sonnet written in 1883, whose lines appear on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.
(Emma) Lazarus
Which Nobel prize winning author, known for magical realism, wrote the short story "The Handsomest Man in the World" and the novel Love in the Time of Cholera.
(Gabriel Garcia) Marquez
Name the Irish author and playwright whose works include Androcles and the Lion and Pygmalion.
(George Bernard) Shaw
What pen name was used by Mary Anne Evans, the Victorian novelist who wrote Silas Mariner, among other works?
(George) Eliot
What 20th century English writer wrote "Shooting an Elephant"?
(George) Orwell
Name the American author of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas who once told Ernest Hemingway that he and his literary contemporaries were all a "lost generation."
(Gertrude) Stein
Who is the 14th Century Italian author of the collection of stories entitled The Decameron?
(Giovanni) Boccaccio
Name the Kansas native who was a writer, photographer, and film director and who wrote the novel The Learning Tree.
(Gordon) Parks
What Frenchman wrote the autobiographical Memoirs of a Madman, the novels The Temptation of St. Anthony, Salammbo, Sentimental Education, and his most famous work, Madame Bovary?
(Gustave) Flaubert (flow bare)
What French author is known for short stories with ironic twist endings, such at "The Necklace" and "A Piece of String"?
(Guy) De Maupassant (duh MOW puh sahnt)
Name the author of "A Fishing Excursion," "A Piece of String," and "The Diamond Necklace."
(Guy) de Maupassant (duh Moh-puh-sahn)
Name this English author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who wrote futuristic novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine.
(H.G.) Wells
Which author is known for his science fiction novels The Time Machine and The Invisible Man?
(H.G.) Wells
Whose works include The Outline of History, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Time Machine, and The War of the Worlds?
(H.G.) Wells
Name the author whose one and only published, literary work is a novel about a young girl named Scout Finch who learns the perils of prejudice in a small town in Alabama.
(Harper) Lee
Name the author who, for 18 years, lived in Cincinnati, a portal of travel between the North and South, and who introduced the characters Miss Ophelia, Little Eva, Topsy, and Simon Legree.
(Harriet Beecher) Stowe
What 19th century American author wrote, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer"?
(Henry David) Thoreau
What Romantic poet wrote long verse narratives of American historical and mythological figures such as Hiawatha, Miles Standish, and Paul Revere?
(Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow
What is the name which Agatha Christie gave her internationally famous Belgian detective, who was small in stature but known for his oversized ego, his charm, his broken English, and his vanity?
(Hercule) Poirot (poi row)
The novel The Caine Mutiny won a Pulitzer Prize in 1952. Who wrote this book?
(Herman) Wouk (pronounced woke)
Name the literary character who wore a scarlet letter on her breast as a symbol of her shame.
(Hester) Prynne
Name the unhappy boy who runs away from his boarding school in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
(Holden) Caufield
Name the Gonzo-journalist who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
(Hunter S.) Thompson
What American author and professor of biochemistry was famous for writing science fiction, including "Bicentennial Man"; and I, Robot?
(Isaac) Asimov
What American writer, who died in 1992, wrote more than 460 books on topics including physics, children's literature, space, robots, and Martians?
(Isaac) Asimov
Name the author famous for such works as Children of the Frost, Burning Daylight, The Seawolf, and The Call of the Wild.
(Jack) London
What frank observer gave an account of the events in London from 1660 to 1669 in his diary?
(Samuel) Pepys (pronounced Peeps)
Name the American author—born in La Junta, Colorado, in 1935—whose One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest arose from his experiences working the night shift at a psychiatric ward while using LSD.
(Ken) Kesey (Key See)
Give both the author and title of a novel set in the 1960s with characters such as Billy Bibbit, Chief Bromden, and Nurse Ratched.
(Ken) Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Prior to Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, what Japanese author wrote of a similar society in Battle Royale?
(Koushun) Takami
What author went on to fame after having served as an infantryman in WWII, turning his experiences into a bestselling fictional novel subtitled The Children's Crusade?
(Kurt) Vonnegut
What American novelist is famous for his protagonists Harrison Bergeron and Billy Pilgrim?
(Kurt) Vonnegut (Jr.)
Which Missouri-born black poet, a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaisance, published volumes of verse such as The Weary Blues and Montage of a Dream Deferred?
(Langston) Hughes
Name the English romantic poet who prided himself on duplicating the feat of swimming the Hellespont as Leander did to visit Hero.
(Lord) Byron or (George) Gordon
Education of a Wandering Man is the memoir of what American frontier and adventure author?
(Louis) L'Amour (La More)
Name the author who penned the following line "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," in her novel Little Women.
(Louisa May) Alcott
Name the author who served as a nurse and is famous for her characters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March.
(Louisa May) Alcott
Who is addressing the crowd at Caesar's funeral with these words: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears"?
(Mark) Antony
Who wrote the novels The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and The Prince and the Pauper?
(Mark) Twain (Samuel Langhorne) Clemens
Whose books were first banned from schools in 1905, prompting the author to say, "I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively"?
(Mark) Twain or (Samuel Langhorne) Clemens
What Victorian poet wrote "Dover Beach"?
(Matthew) Arnold
The Baker Street Irregulars is the name of a fan club that honors which fictitious English detective?
(Sherlock) Holmes
The title of Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings comes from what African American's poem "Sympathy"?
(Paul Lawrence) Dunbar
Who was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature?
(Pearl S.) Buck
What novelist won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938 with her novel about Chinese peasants entitled The Good Earth?
(Pearl) Buck
Who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1939 for her "epic descriptions of peasant life in China" in the novel The Good Earth?
(Pearl) Buck
Which poet, brought over on a slave ship in 1761, is considered the first black American female poet?
(Phillis) Wheatley
Name the famous diary writer who documented the colorful and turbulent period of the Restoration in England.
(Samuel) Pepys (Peeps)
In Sandra Cisneros' coming of age story, on what street did Esperanza grow up?
(The House on) Mango Street
Name the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology, the same staff borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera.
(The) caduceus (ca do cee us)
Who is the author of a trilogy based on the life of Charles Yerkes, with titles of The Financier, Sister Carrie, and An American Tragedy to his credit?
(Theodore) Dreiser
Name the patron saint of universities and students. His greatest work is authoring Summa Theologica.
(Thomas) Aquinas (prompt for more if given St. Thomas)
Name the author and the title of the poem from which the title of Thomas Hardy's novel, Far from the Madding Crowd is taken.
(Thomas) Gray; "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Identify the author of a collection of stories titled The Things They Carried about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War.
(Tim) O'Brien
Name the veteran of the Vietnam War who is known for writing the novels Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried.
(Tim) O'Brien
Who did Atticus Finch defend in To Kill a Mockingbird?
(Tom) Robinson
What African-American author of Beloved and Sula was the 1993 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature?
(Toni) Morrison
Upon what well-known writer did Harper Lee base the character of Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird?
(Truman) Capote
What famous modern American novel by which author begins with the following sentence: "The village of Holcomb stands high on the wheat plains of Western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there' "?
(Truman) Capote In Cold Blood
What muckraking novelist contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act with his novel titled The Jungle?
(Upton) Sinclair
Who is the 8th Century author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People?
(Venerable) Bede
Name the French author who was an outstanding lyric poet but is best known for his novels Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
(Victor) Hugo
Name both the author and the title of the book in which Jean Valjean is sent to prison for stealing food for his family.
(Victor) Hugo, Les Miserables
What phrase refers to a group of American writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Dos Passos, who came of age during World War I and established their reputations in the 1920s?
(the) "Lost Generation"
Name the American poet who worked as a nurse during the Civil War and wrote the poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed."
(Walt) Whitman
Name the author of The Legends of Alhambra who also used the nom de plume of Diedrich Knickerbocker.
(Washington) Irving
What author penned Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Antonia, and O Pioneers and is known by many as the Nebraska author?
(Willa) Cather
Name this Irish author of Irish nationalist themes, including The Celtic Twilight and Wild Swans at Coole.
(William Butler) Yeats
Name the American writer whose work is characterized by a "clean stripping of poetry to its essentials" as in his "The Red Wheelbarrow."
(William Carlos) Williams
Which American poet wrote "To a Waterfowl," "The Yellow Violet," and "Thanatopsis"?
(William Cullen) Bryant
Name the English poet and painter known for his contrasting poems "The Lamb" and "The Tyger"
(William) Blake
What English author is noted for his poetic works called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience?
(William) Blake
Name the Pilgrim leader who kept a journal for 27 years titled Of Plymouth Plantation.
(William) Bradford
Name the Southern author who wrote about characters like the Snopes family who lived in a fictional Mississippi county he created.
(William) Faulkner
Name the prolific American writer who became very famous during his lifetime, but shied away from the spotlight as much as possible. His first book, Soldier's Pay, sold few copies; however, The Sound and the Fury was his truly classic novel.
(William) Faulkner
Who was the Kansas author who had tremendous success in the 1950s with plays and films like Come Back Little Sheba, Picnic, Bus Stop, and Splendor in the Grass?
(William) Inge
Who was the Kansas author who had tremendous success in the 1950s with plays and films like Come Back, Little Sheba, Picnic, Bus Stop, and Splendor in the Grass?
(William) Inge
Name the two Romantic writers who penned the 1798 poetry collection known as the Lyrical Ballads.
(William) Wordsworth and (Samuel) Coleridge
Name two of the five Shakespearean plays which are set at least in part in Rome.
(any 2) Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus,or Cymbeline
The Enormous Room is a novel based on the World War I experiences of what poet with a famously lax attitude toward punctuation and capitalization?
(e. e.) cummings
What American poet who wrote "anyone lived in a pretty how town" is known for his unorthodox usage of capital letters and punctuation?
(e.e.) cummings
What poet utilized poetic license to great effect in poems such as "anyone lived in a pretty how town"?
(e.e.) cummings
Which of Shakespeare's works includes a marriage between two actors playing Pyramus and Thisbe?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
How many words in the following sentence should be capitalized? "This semester I am studying biology, history, English, French, and mathematics."
4
In the The Scarlet Letter, what did the "A" stand for on Hester's clothes?
Adulteress (or adultery)
In what Mark Twain story did a New Englander say that Merlin was a humbug, and that on a certain day, the sun would darken and the kingdom would be destroyed?
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Name the Henrik Ibsen play which has been called the first true feminist play and which is sharply critical of the form that marriage takes for two main characters, Nora and Torvald.
A Doll's House
Name the play written by Henrik Ibsen in which Nora Helmer finds herself embroiled in a web of deceit that stems from an IOU.
A Doll's House
Identify the Shakespearean play in which "What fools these mortals be!" is said by Puck.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Who is Ichabod Crane's rival in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?
Abraham Van Brunt or Brom Bones
Rosa Coldfield and Quentin Compson narrate what Faulkner novel whose title alludes to a son of King David?
Absalom, Absalom!
What are the two voices of verbs?
Active and passive
In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem about a ship becalmed at sea, what did the ancient mariner wear around his neck as a punishment for killing it?
An albatross
"Detailed summary" is an example of an apparent contradiction in terms, otherwise known as what?
An oxymoron
What name is given to "chronological inconsistencies" in literature, such as when Shakespeare portrays Brutus being interrupted by the striking of the clock?
Anachronism
In what novel by Leo Tolstoy does the main character enter a tragic adulterous affair and commit suicide by throwing herself under a train?
Anna Karenina
Identify the Greek tragedy whose title namesake rebels against the fundamental rules of her society that state women must fear the dominant men, leading her to defy Creon.
Antigone
What play tells the saga of Oedipus' daughter who has been forbidden by her uncle Creon to bury her brother after his death in battle?
Antigone
Name the Greek heroine who was sentenced to death by entombment after performing forbidden burial rites upon her brother.
Antigone (an-tig-o-nee)
Name the figure of speech used when Anthony said to Caesar's corpse immediately following the assassination in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth..."
Apostrophe
What do we call a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person or an abstract quality is addressed directly?
Apostrophe
As heard in the Hoover vacuum campaign slogan, "It beats . . . as it sweeps . . . as it cleans!" what literary term describes the the repetition of vowel sounds within phrases or sentences?
Assonance
The repetition of a consonant sound is alliteration. What is the repetition of a vowel sound?
Assonance
From mythology, who is the favorite daughter of Zeus and the goddess of wisdom and the arts of war and peace?
Athena
Name the type of story in poetic form passed down from generation to generation, often about tragic love and usually sung, such as "Barbra Allen" and "Childe Roland."
Ballad
"Everyone who cares about children will be voting YES for next year's school budget" is an example of what persuasive technique?
Bandwagon
What is the last name of the family with five daughters in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice?
Bennett
Name the first great work of English literature, an epic composed in Old English around 700 A.D., featuring Grendel, a man-eating monster.
Beowulf
Name the memoir by Richard Wright published in 1945 that begins with a mischievous, four-year-old Wright setting fire to his grandmother's house.
Black Boy
What term describes verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter?
Blank (Verse)
What is the more familiar term for unrhymed iambic pentameter?
Blank verse
On what specific ailment does John Milton's sonnet which begins "when I consider how my life is spent" reflect?
Blindness
Name one of the four plural indefinite pronouns.
Both, few, many, several
What's the title of Aldous Huxley's famous futuristic fantasy of a utopian society whose motto is COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY?
Brave New World
Give full names of any one of the three main characters in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
Brom (Abraham) Bones, Katrina Van Tassel, or Ichabod Crane
In Julius Caesar, what character, upon his death in the final scene, is proclaimed to be "The noblest Roman of them all"?
Brutus
What Biblical ancestor spawned Beowulf's wicked adversary Grendel?
Cain
Who are the last two characters whose punishment is described in Dante's Inferno?
Cain and Judas (Iscariot)
What type of sentence is constructed of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses?
Complex (sentence)
Exemplified in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, what is the name of the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code?
Chivalry
In The Odyssey, what is the name of the witch-goddess who turned Odysseus's men into swine?
Circe (seer see)
What was the title of the essay written by Henry Thoreau after being arrested for not paying his taxes?
Civil Disobedience
What term is given to an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect?
Cliché
What type of noun describes a group of things such as a jury or congregation that can function singularly or plurally?
Collective (noun)
What punctuation mark should be used to introduce a list or series?
Colon
What is the name for the error created when two complete sentences are joined by a comma?
Comma splice (do not accept run-on sentence)
What is the name of the common error writers make when they join two independent clauses with a comma?
Comma splice (do not accept run-on sentence)
Which type of sentence has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses?
Complex
Name the three groups into which conjunctions are divided.
Coordinating, Subordinating, Correlative
What type of conjunctions consists of pairs of conjunctions that work together to connect sentence parts?
Correlative (conjunctions)
Give the title of the novel, published in 1948 and written by South African author, Alan Paton, whose protagonist, Stephen Kumalo, searches for his son, Absalom, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Cry, The Beloved Country
What is the meter of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey?
Dactylic hexameter
Which 1911 Edith Wharton novel concerning simple New England people is considered her greatest tragic story?
Ethan Frome
Correctly spell the word that means the final resolution or outcome of a play or story.
D-E-N-O-U-E-M-E-N-T
"Sonnet 43," which includes the line "How do I love thee... let me count the ways" was penned by what famous Victorian poet?
Elizabeth (Barrett) Browning (need both names)
Name the type of poem that contains three quatrains and one couplet in iambic pentameter.
Elizabethean (or Shakespearean or English) Sonnet (Prompt for more information on an answer of sonnet)
Give both the first and last names of the author who focused on themes of jealousy and vengeance in her novel Wuthering Heights?
Emily Bronte
Identify the Jane Austen heroine described as "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition." She is described by scholars of Austen's works as a terrible snob who is blind to her own faults.
Emma
Identify the primitive man Aruru (A roo roo) created to keep Gilgamesh company.
Enkidu (ink a do)
Name the type of lengthy poem which tells a story and provides a natural hero who personifies culturally admired traits.
Epic
What is the name of a long narrative work that relates the deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of his or her society as exemplified by both Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy?
Epic
What name describes a genre of classical poetry that is a long narrative verse written on a serious subject, usually about the ideals and cultural values of a race, a nation, or a group of people, such as the Iliad?
Epic
What is the term used in literature that describes a moment of sudden insight or revelation that a character experiences?
Epiphany
What is the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid?
Eros
Name the branch of linguistics concerned with the history of the forms and meanings of words.
Etymology
What is the name for a word or expression that substitutes for an unpleasant or unflattering one, such as saying someone is "vertically challenged" instead of "short"?
Euphemism
What is the term for a mild word substituted for a blunt one, such as saying "passed away" instead of "died"?
Euphemism
What term is a substitution for an expression that may offend the receiver, using instead an agreeable or less offensive expression as when the government calls "torture" an "enhanced interrogation technique"?
Euphemism
What term is a substitution for an expression that may offend the receiver, using instead an agreeable or less offensive expression, as when the government calls "torture" an "enhanced interrogation technique"?
Euphemism
What Greek dramatist wrote Medea, The Trojan Women, Electra and Orestes?
Euripides (Yur-rip-ee-deez)
Correct the grammatical error in the following sentence: "Every student should be doing their own work."
Every student should be doing HIS or Her own work. Every student should be doing HIS work. Every student should be doing HER work.
What punctuation mark most often follows an interjection?
Exclamation point or exclamation mark
What type of impromptu speech is delivered with little or no advance preparation?
Extemporaneous
What is the ironic name of the Edgar Allan Poe character who ended up being encrypted alive in the short story, "The Cask of Amontillado"? (uh-mont-tee-yah-doe)
Fortunato
How many prepositions are in the following sentence: He prefers reading in the evening after dinner and before the late news on television."
Four
In Romeo and Juliet, which two characters help Romeo and Juliet to marry?
Friar Lawrence and the Nurse
Identify the tense used in the sentence: "John will have competed his trip by Friday."
Future perfect (tense)
Name the Trojan youth in Greek mythology who was stolen by an eagle and carried to Mt. Olympus where he became cupbearer to the gods.
Ganymede
Name the brother of Troy's King Priam, who, as a boy, so attracted Zeus that he was made immortal cupbearer of the gods.
Ganymede
What was the birthplace of poet and author Edgar Lee Masters who wrote a series of verse epitaphs called Spoon River Anthology?
Garnett, Kansas
Beowulf was from which Scandinavian tribe?
Geat(s)
Name the form of Japanese poetry composed of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables and is intended to create a clear picture that arouses a distinct emotion?
Haiku
The plot of The Lion King closely resembles the plot of which Shakespearean tragedy?
Hamlet
What American literary movement represented an intellectual flowering that fostered a new black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s, featuring the work of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston?
Harlem Renaissance
In mythology, what monsters were described as birds with the faces of maidens?
Harpies
What mythical son of Maia (MYE-uh) and Zeus invented the lyre, stole the flocks of Apollo, and was the Greek equivalent of Mercury?
Hermes (her-mees)
Identify the poetic verse form described as two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter, as used in the following lines: "Know then thyself, presume not God to Scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man."
Heroic Couplet (do not accept couplet--ask for more information)
Give both the play and the issue that it dramatizes without totally accurate reflection, a controversial issue in Dayton, Tennessee, in the summer of 1925.
Inherit the Wind Evolution
What type of action verb does not take an object?
Intransitive
Name the Ralph Ellison novel that traces the life of a young black man trying to find his identity.
Invisible Man
In the following sentence, which word is a proper adjective: "The Wilsons used Irish linen to enhance their formal table setting"?
Irish
In Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour," what literary device is used in the following sentence: "When the doctors came, they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills."
Irony
In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, which seaman is the only one who survives the sinking of the Pequod?
Ishmael
In mythology, what was the home of Ulysses and Penelope?
Ithaca
What is the full name of "Scout," the narrator and main character of Harper Lee's great American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird?
Jean Louise Finch
Give the first and last name of the ex-convict protagonist of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables.
Jean Valjean
Identify the speaker and the subject of this quote: "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why [he] stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it's because he wants to stay inside."
Jem Finch and Boo Radley (accept Jem and Boo)
Walden by Henry David Thoreau also goes by what other title?
Life in the Woods
What Mark Twain work is a memoir of the steamboat era on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War?
Life on the Mississippi
Name any two of the four popular Boston poets who are collectively known as the "Fireside Poets"?
Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Whittier
Give the title and the author of the work described in this plot summary: A coming of age tale gone wrong after a group of English schoolboys is stranded on an island and forced to fend for themselves without adult supervision.
Lord of the Flies by (William) Golding
Name the Shakespearean play that includes the characters Malcolm, Donalbain, Fleance, and Banquo.
Macbeth
The title to Ray Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes is a direct allusion to which Shakespearean play?
Macbeth
William Faulkner's title "The Sound and the Fury" comes from what Shakespearean play?
Macbeth
Name the character who spoke these memorable lines: "Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow /Creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time."
Macbeth (DO NOT accept Lady Macbeth)
In Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Macbeth, who kills Macbeth?
Macduff
Identify the novel by Sinclair Lewis that opens with the following lines: "On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern Sky. She saw no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the blinking windows of skyscrapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul."
Main Street
What is the appositive in this sentence? John felt that his teacher, Mr. Brown, treated him unfairly.
Mr. Brown
In the Arthur Miller play The Crucible, the term "Goody" is used before female characters' names. What does "Goody" stand for?
Mrs.
Identify the Richard Wright novel, set in Chicago during the Depression, in which the main character, Bigger Thomas, struggles to survive in a racist society.
Native Son
Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is an example of which specific "-ism" describing a realistic movement in American literature?
Naturalism
Name the ship that was pulled into a whirlpool off the Norwegian coast in Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Nautilus
What is the nationality of Chinua Achebe (chin-wah ah-chay-bee) who wrote Things Fall Apart and "Marriage Is a Private Affair"?
Nigerian
Name the play based on Lynn Rigg's Green Grow the Lilacs, which features the characters Aunt Eller, Laurey, and Curley.
Oklahoma
S.E. Hinton is known for young adult novels such as The Outsiders. All but one of her novels are set in what U.S. state?
Oklahoma
It was recently sold at auction for 2.43 million dollars which gave it the distinction of being the most expensive literary manuscript in history. What is this book, typed in 1951 during a two week amphetamine-fueled rush by its author, Jack Kerouac?
On the Road
It was sold at auction for 2.43 million dollars which gave it the distinction of being the most expensive literary manuscript in history. Name this book, typed in 1951 during a two week amphetamine-fueled rush by its author, Jack Kerouac.
On the Road
What is the name of the literary device that is defined as "the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it"?
Onomatopoeia (On-o-mott-o-pee-ah)
In William Shakespeare's play Hamlet who is Polonius' daughter, a beautiful young woman with whom Hamlet has been in love?
Ophelia
In Greek mythology, what is the name of the young musician who attempts to retrieve his bride from Hades (Hay dees)?
Orpheus
"Madam, I'm Adam," "Sit on a potato pan, Otis," and "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" are sentences that read the same backward and forward. By what term are such sentences, phrases, and words known?
Palindrome(s)
According to mythology, who was responsible for opening the box to release plagues and sorrows on mankind?
Pandora
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree" is the opening to what English epic poem by John Milton?
Paradise Lost
What is the title of the piece written by John Milton which he claimed to have written to "justify the ways of God to man"?
Paradise Lost
What word refers to a statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually true, such as "You've got to be cruel to be kind"?
Paradox
Name the faithful wife of Ulysses and mother of Telemachus.
Penelope
In Richard Connell's story, "The Most Dangerous Game," what type of prey is being hunted?
People or humans or man
Name the Greek goddess married to Hades who spends six months of the year in the Underworld and six months on earth with her mother, Demeter.
Persephone (purr-sef-a-nee)
Name two of the three ways that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent.
Person, number, and gender (do not accept case)
Name the figurative language technique at work in the following example: "The moon dances around my fears."
Personification
What figure of speech in used in the following sentence "Summer embraced the earth with her warm arms."
Personification
What figure of speech is found in the following sentence: "The orchards wept when the horticulturist died"?
Personification
What figure of speech is used in the following lines: "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me"?
Personification
Name the William Golding character from Lord of the Flies who is an intellectual with poor eyesight, a weight problem, and asthma.
Piggy
"Apples were they with which we were beguil'd\Yet sin, not Apples, hath our souls defil'd" is a quote from what allegory by John Bunyan?
Pilgrim's Progress
What are the three degrees of comparison for adjectives and adverbs?
Positive, comparative, and superlative (in any order)
What was the title of William Least-Heat Moon's 1991 best-selling book about Kansas?
PrairyErth
What is the term for a noun or pronoun that follows a linking verb and renames the subject?
Predicate nominative
Identify the object complement in the following sentence: "Kathy nominated Jeff president."
President
What is the term for an introductory speech delivered to the audience by a performer before the play begins?
Prologue
From Greek mythology, name the Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to man.
Prometheus
Which Titan gave the gift of fire to mankind and was punished by being chained to a rock?
Prometheus (Pro-mee-thee-us)
What term describes a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument?
Propaganda
What U.S. literary award for fiction was established in 1917 and is administered by Columbia University?
Pulitzer Prize
This play, written by George Bernard Shaw, centers around a Miss Eliza Doolittle and lampoons the rigid British classes of the day.
Pygmalion
Name the George Bernard Shaw play in which Professor Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess.
Pygmalion (NOT My Fair Lady, which is the musical version of the play)
Which lovers in Roman mythology, lampooned in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, wooed each other through a crack in a wall?
Pyramus and Thisbe (Peer-uh-mus, Thiz-bee)
Onto whose coffin does Ishmael cling at the conclusion of Herman Melville's Moby Dick—an act that makes him the sole survivor of the Pequod?
Queequeg (KWEE-kweg)
Which punctuation mark is used to separate independent clauses not joined by coordinating conjunctions?
Semicolon
Who is the poverty-stricken student who kills an old pawnbroker for her money in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment?
Raskolnikov (pronounced rahz-call-nick-ov)
Bret Harte, Stephen Crane, and Kate Chopin are writers associated with what movement in American literature?
Realism
During what literary movement were the novels David Copperfield, War and Peace, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written?
Realism
Name the two-word idiom for a logical fallary in which a clue or piece of information is meant to be misleading or distracting.
Red herring
What type of pronoun begins an adjective clause?
Relative Pronoun
Give the term which refers to a question posed without the expectation of an answer but merely to provoke thought or make a point?
Rhetorical
What term describes a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected?
Rhetorical Question
What device is Patrick Henry using in his famous "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention" when he asks, "Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?"
Rhetorical question
Who wrote the popular children's poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"?
Robert Browning (must give both names)
Probably based on the adventures of a sailor named Alexander Selkirk who is rescued from the Juan Fernandez Island, what is this novel by Daniel Defoe?
Robinson Crusoe
"Chanticleer and the Fox" is a popular fable from the Middle Ages. What type of animal is Chanticleer?
Rooster
In the Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, who was Don Quixote's traveling companion?
Sancho Panza
What is the full name of the character in Don Quixote who is a down-to-earth peasant who accompanies Don on his adventures?
Sancho Panza
Who is the protagonist of the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton?
Satan (accept Lucifer or the devil)
What genre of literature that criticizes social vice can be classified as either Horation or Juvenalian?
Satire
What term describes a literary work, such as Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," in which the author ridicules the vices and follies of human beings?
Satire
Which literary device is the basis for Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal?
Satire
In poetry, what name is given to the system of markings that is used to determine the meter of a line of poetry?
Scansion
What is the name of the young girl who learns about racial inequality in the Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?
Scout Finch
In what essay by what author would one find the following quotation: "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist"
Self-Reliance by (Ralph Waldo) Emerson
What type of sonnet has 14 lines, ten syllables to a line, and is written in iambic pentameter?
Shakespearean sonnet (also accept English sonnet)
Identify the proper adjectives in the following sentence: "This Shakespearean work is often called the 'Scottish play'."
Shakespearean, Scottish
What literary detective was killed in the story "The Final Problem" but was brought back to life after public cries for his return?
Sherlock Holmes
What is the name of the figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, such as "a heart as big as a house"?
Simile
What was the name of the son of Lancelot and Elaine who was successful in his quest for the Holy Grail in the King Arthur legend?
Sir Galahad
In Tennyson's poem, "The Lady of Shallot," what legendary knight does the title character see from her tower window as he is riding to Camelot?
Sir Lancelot
Identify the mythical character who was compelled to roll a stone to the top of a slope only to have it roll back down just before it reached the top.
Sisyphus (sis uh fus)
In Greek mythology, this character was doomed to roll a boulder to the summit of a mountain only to have it roll down the other side for all eternity. What was the name of this unfortunate soul?
Sisyphus (sissy fuss)
In which novel does Billy Pilgrim find himself unstuck in time, alternately turning up at the firebombing of Dresden during World War II and the future on the planet of the alien Tralfamadoreans (tral-fu-muh-door-ee-ans)?
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Name the Kurt Vonnegut novel about Billy Pilgrim, who becomes unstuck in time after surviving the Allied forces' firebombing of Dresden.
Slaughterhouse-Five (or The Children's Crusade)
What are the names of the two main pigs in the George Orwell novel Animal Farm?
Snowball and Napoleon
What dramatic device often employed by Shakespeare allows the character to express his or her thoughts to the audience without addressing any of the other characters?
Soliloquy
What term from the Latin for "talking by oneself" is a device often used in drama when a character speaks to himself or herself, relating thoughts and feelings, thereby also sharing them with the audience?
Soliloquy (not monologue, which is a speech in which a character addresses other characters)
William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor were all contributors to what unique American genre?
Southern Gothic (must include both words)
According to Greek legend, what monster has the body of a lion with a woman's head, and eats all creatures unable to answer its questions?
Sphinx
American poet Edgar Lee Masters wrote a collection of epitaphs for the fictional residents of what community?
Spoon River
Name the author of the collection of poems which includes the characters Lucinda Matlock, Emily Sparks, and Minerva Jones.
Spoon River Anthology
What work by American poet Edgar Lee Masters is a collection of epitaphs for the fictional residents of the community of Spoon River?
Spoon River Anthology
Give the term that describes an error in speaking when a person switches the beginning sounds of words such as "Teometry Gest" instead of "Geometry Test"
Spoonerism
Name the five-word title of the influential 1961 science fiction book by Robert Heinlein for which the author borrowed from Moses's description regarding his time among the Midianites.
Stranger in a Strange Land
What is the predicate nominative in the following sentence? The caller on the cell phone was a student.
Student (a student is acceptable)
What Titan from Greek mythology was punished with eternal hunger and thirst, and banished to the River Styx?
Tantalus
Name the Victorian poet laureate who wrote "Ulysses," "In Memoriam," and Idylls of the King?
Tennyson (Lord Alfred)
Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville and published in 1851, received terrible reviews. Almost 70 years later, literary scholars considered it to be one of the two greatest American novels of the nineteenth century. What was the other greatest American novel of that time, which was written by Mark Twain?
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Name the book about which Ernest Hemingway said, "All modern American literature comes from one book."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; also accept Huck Finn
Name the title of the book that was begun in 890 A.D. at the command of King Alfred the Great, who wanted a written history of England from the earliest times.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
What novel by Dostoevsky (dos-tuh-YEF-skee) deals with the trial of one of four brothers accused of murdering their father?
The Brothers Karamazov
Name the epistolary novel which begins with the following line: "You better not never tell nobody but God."
The Color Purple
What is the title of the literary work in which the main character states, "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart"?
The Diary of Anne Frank
Name the epic poem by Edmund Spenser in honor of Queen Elizabeth I about knightly virtues.
The Faerie Queen
In which play by Tennessee Williams does the mother constantly imagine scenes of the "gentlemen callers" of her childhood?
The Glass Menagerie
What American novel ends with the following sentences? "Her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She looked up and across the barn, her lips came together and smiled mysteriously."
The Grapes of Wrath
Name the book that has often been banned because of its risque ending. It tells the story of a family driven from the Dust Bowl because of bad times both economically and agriculturally, and was published in 1939. Give the title and author.
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
"There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind...." is how Nick describes Tom Buchanan in which Fitzgerald novel?
The Great Gatsby
Name the Fitzgerald novel from the Jazz Age that depicts the emptiness of American values through the characters of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.
The Great Gatsby
What American novel begins with the line "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since"?
The Great Gatsby
What is the symbol for unrealized dreams in The Great Gatsby?
The Green Light
Give the author and title of the book set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi about African American maids working in white households.
The Help and (Kathryn) Stockett
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the Mechanical Hound is based on what novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
The Hound of the Baskervilles
In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, the title character's wife, Calpurnia, begs him not to go out on what fateful day?
The Ides of March (March 15th)
During which historical event is Poe's story "The Pit and the Pendulum" set?
The Inquisition (or the Spanish Inquisition)
What term did F. Scott Fitzgerald coin in the The Great Gatsby in regard to the 1920s?
The Jazz Age
What Amy Tan novel has a dedication that reads: "To my mother and the memory of her mother. You asked me once what I would remember. This much and more."
The Joy Luck Club
What is the title of the Tennyson poem beginning with these lines: "On either side the river lie/Long fields of barley and rye/That clothe the world and meet the sky;/And thro' the field the road runs by,/To many-tower'd Camelot."
The Lady of Shalott
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey comprise which English trio?
The Lake Poets
The battle of Fort William Henry during the French and Indian Wars is depicted in what novel by James Fenimoore Cooper?
The Last of the Mohicans
Which of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales centers on three elements -- the siege at Fort William Henry, a love affair between wealthy characters, and the exploits of Natty Bumppo?
The Last of the Mohicans
What is the collective name of the five James Fenimore Cooper novels which relate the life of wilderness figure, Natty Bumppo?
The Leatherstocking Tales
Give the third person plural pronoun in the objective case.
Them
What 1959 novel set in Nigeria tells the story of the Ibo (e bow) tribe's first encounter with colonialism and Christianity?
Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe)
Aristotle considered Oedipus Rex the perfect tragedy because it illustrated the three unities. Name the three unities.
Time, Place, and Action
What is the general term for the elder gods of Greek mythology who existed before the Olympian gods?
Titans
Name the 19th century English satirical novel which is centered on the character Becky Sharp.
Vanity Fair
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is set in which of America's Conflicts?
Vietnam (Conflict) or Vietnam (War)
What are the five properties of a verb?
Voice, number, person, mood, tense (any order)
What war is the setting for Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22?
WWII (World War 2)
There is a new country group called Lady Antebellum. Ante means before. What does belli mean?
War or Warlike
In the Hawthorne short story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," what does the elderly doctor offer his elderly friends saying it has the power to make them young again?
Water
In The Grapes of Wrath, what is the name of the model government camp for the migrants?
Weedpatch
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, what character has been married five times?
Wife of Bath
Spell the term from psychology and social science which uses the Greek root for "stranger" and that can be defined as a fear of foreigners and anything related to them.
X-e-n-o-p-h-o-b-i-a
Identify Eugene Field's three fishermen who one night "Sailed off in a wooden shoe . . . on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew."
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
In what language did the Nobel Prize-winning author, Isaac Bashevis Singer, write all of his novels and stories?
Yiddish
What type of work did Samuel Johnson publish in 1755?
a dictionary
What verbal is the word swimming in the following sentence? "Swimming is my favorite activity."
a gerund
What part of speech are the three articles: "a," "an," and "the"?
adjective
What is the sentence error being committed when two independent clauses are joined only by a comma?
comma splice
In the book Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is an eccentric old lady. What does she wear throughout the book that illustrates her eccentric behavior?
a wedding dress
In grammar, what are the two indefinite articles?
a, an
Which type of logical fallacy attacks the character of the person rather than the substance of his/her argument?
ad hominem (ad hom-ma-nym)
What part of speech is than in the following sentence: "He is smarter than a gorilla"?
conjunction (subordinating conjunction)
In a piece of literature, what term refers to the close repetition of similar vowel sounds as seen in "blue moon."
assonance
What three parts of speech can an adverb modify?
adjective, adverb, and verb
What type of subordinate(or dependent) clause is always introduced with a subordinating conjunction?
adverb
William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies is an example of what literary work that is both literal and symbolic?
allegory
"Lucy languished in the lovely autumn light" is an example of what literary device?
alliteration
Name the literary device which poets sometimes use that involves using several words with the same initial consonant sound.
alliteration
Often used in tongue twisters such as "Sally sells seashells," what is the term for the repetition of initial consonant sounds?
alliteration
What type of phrase follows a noun or pronoun and adds new information about the word it follows?
an appositive phrase
What is the literary term that means anything that is inconsistent with the time period in which it has been placed?
anachronism
What grammar term describes the function of the word "cousin" in the following sentence: Annabel Lee, my cousin, just returned from Europe.
appositive
What is the literary term for a song or song-like poem, often with a refrain, that tells a story?
ballad
Give the subordinate clause in the following sentence: "Because he had a flat tire, he arrived at school late."
because he had a flat tire
Common in Greek and Roman poetry, it was introduced into English in the 16th century by the Earl of Surrey with his interpretation of the Aeneid. What is this medium that appears as unrhymed iambic pentameter?
blank verse
What is the participle used as an adjective in the following sentence? "The windows were broken during the blinding hailstorm."
blinding
In the words "ambivalent" and "ambidextrous," what does the prefix "ambi" mean?
both
What is the term for a phrase that has been used excessively and has become meaningless and even irritating?
cliché
What is the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative which usually marks the turning point?
climax
By what term do we call two consecutive lines of poetry of any rhythmic pattern that ends in rhyming words?
couplet
What is the French word that is often used to describe the resolution of the plot of a short story?
denouement (day-new-ma)
What do we call the form of a language spoken by people of a certain region or group?
dialect
In the following sentence, which word is the indirect object of the sentence: "Rueben reads his grandmother the newspaper."
grandmother
What did poet Walt Whitman call "the beautiful uncut hair of graves"?
grass
What color was first employed by William Shakespeare in his play Othello to describe jealousy?
green
Name the mythological monster with the head and wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the tail of a serpent?
griffin (griffon)
In terms of English grammar, which pronoun can be best described as third person, singular, masculine, and objective?
him
Name the term for two words that are spelled the same but are not pronounced the same, such as minute and minute (my-nute)?
homograph (do not accept homonym or homophone)
The following is an example of what figure of speech "My dog is so ugly, I have to tie a pork chop around his neck to get other dogs to play with him!"
hyperbole (hi per bow lee)
What two letters are used to abbreviate a Latin phrase which means "that is"?
i.e.
The following quote is written in what meter? "Shall compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."
iambic pentameter
Spell the homonyms whose definitions mean "inactive" and "an image of God."
idle and idol
What literary term refers to concrete words or details that appeal to senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and internal feelings?
imagery
What is the antecedent to the pronoun in the following sentence? "Donna will eat lunch when it is ready."
lunch
What part of speech is "boy" in the following sentence? Boy! That was a hard test!
interjection
What type of verb in a sentence cannot take a direct object?
intransitive
What two-word Latin phrase is often used to denote an artist's or writer's greatest work?
magnum opus
In Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, what was Captain Ahab's leg made from?
ivory (from the jawbone of a whale) or whalebone
Name the correlative conjunctions in the following sentence: "Neither his mother nor his father understood why he did not want to attend college."
neither, nor
Identify the adverbs in the following sentence: I have never eaten in an outrageously expensive restaurant.
never, outrageously
What part of speech ends a prepositional phrase?
noun or pronoun
Bang, clang, and hiss are all examples of what type of figurative language?
onomatopoeia
In the line "I heard a fly buzz when I died," the word buzz is an example of what literary element?
onomatopoeia
In Ancient Greece, what was the term for a prophet or diviner, such as the most famous one, located at Delphi?
oracle
What term means a phrase such "Madam, I'm Adam," which reads the same forward or backwards?
palindrome
What is the term for a statement that seems contradictory or absurd, but is actually valid or true?
paradox
What term describes a rhetorical technique in which a writer emphasizes the equal value or weight of two ideas by expressing them in the same grammatical form?
parallelism
What is the literary term for the repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have similar grammatical structure?
parallelism (or parallel structure)
What are the three ways in which a pronoun agrees with its antecedent?
person, number, gender (Do not accept case)
Identify the indirect object in the following sentence: "The Wife of Bath told the other pilgrims an interesting story."
pilgrims
According to Ernest Hemingway, what are the four things a man must do in life to demonstrate his manhood?
plant a tree, fight a bull, write a book, have a son (order not important)
Give the term from poetry which is the poet's practice of violating rules, expectations, or conventions to achieve a desired effect.
poetic license
What part of speech is the word "near" in the following sentence: The road that runs near the railroad tracks is usually crowded.
preposition
What is the only one of the eight parts of speech in English that directly indicates gender?
pronoun
What is the name for a stanza or poem made up of four lines, usually with a definite rhythm and rhyme scheme?
quatrain
In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," what animals help the narrator escape from the pendulum?
rats
What grammatical function does the word "who" serve in the following sentence? "The player who carried the ball was the running back."
relative pronoun (must have both words, or can ask to be more specific)
What type of pronoun introduces adjective clauses?
relative pronouns
Name the figure of speech in which a part of something is used for the whole object or vice versa, such as "head of state."
synecdoche
State the literary device at work in this quote: "We hired fifty new hands today."
synecdoche (sin-neck-due-key)
What is the adjective clause in the following sentence? "Bob spent all the money that he earned last summer."
that he earned last summer
Name the destination of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress.
the Celestial City
What is the name for the mythological figures in Greek mythology who are the goddesses of inspiration in literature, the sciences, and the arts?
the Muses
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, what was the name of the corrupt clergyman who told a tale about three rioters who found Death in the form of golden coins?
the Pardoner
In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, what drops from the Mariner's neck when he finally has a change of heart toward life?
the albatross or a dead albatross
Identify the appositive in the following sentence: One of our most skilled military commanders was George Washington, the first President.
the first President
What point of view is used when the narrator is outside of the story's action and knows the thoughts and feelings of the main characters?
third person omniscient
Name the literary term for point of view where a narrator outside the action describes the events and characters and can see into the minds of some of those characters.
third-person omniscient (or third-person omniscient point of view)
Identify the indirect object in the following sentence: Yolanda baked us a pizza for dinner.
us
What is the term for the language of ordinary people in a written work exemplified by miners in Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County"?
vernacular
