Literature Trivia Questions
Total Questions: 413
Which poet wrote the lines that include 'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set and blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.'?
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robert browning
Who is the monstrous descendant of Cain that serves as the villain in the epic poem 'Beowulf'?
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grendel
What is the name of the series of tales that includes the novel 'The Last of the Mohicans'?
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leatherstocking tales
Who is the title character tutored by Dr. Pangloss in a work created by Voltaire?
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candide
In which Midwestern state are Willa Cather's novels 'My Antonia', 'O Pioneers!', and 'A Lost Lady' set?
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nebraska
Which author won the 1989 Hemingway Foundation Pen Award for best first fiction for her novel 'The Book of Ruth'?
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jane hamilton
Which poet, known for 'The Altar', was the subject of a biography by Walton and shares a first name with former President Bush?
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george herbert
Johnny Gilbert portrays Marlowe's 'Passionate' one of these men in the following poem excerpt: 'Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove that valleys, groves, hills and fields, woods are sleepy mountain yields.' What type of man is he portraying?
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shepherd
What word completes this quote: 'I love thee to the depth and breadth and _____ my soul can reach'?
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height
Which Robert Frost poem concludes with the line 'Good fences make good neighbors'?
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mending wall
Which Irish poet did The New York Times Book Reviews describe as 'arguably the finest poet now writing in English' while reviewing 'Beowulf'?
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seamus heaney
Which author created the character Detective Alex Cross, who appears in novels such as 'Kiss The Girls', 'Jack & Jill', and 'Cat & Mouse'?
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james patterson
What opium-induced masterpiece was left unfinished by Coleridge due to an interruption by a person on business from Porlock?
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kublai khan
Who is the author of the 1921 novel 'Crome Yellow' known for its eccentric characters?
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aldous huxley
Which Mississippi author received help from Sherwood Anderson to publish his first novel, 'Soldiers' Pay'?
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william faulkner
Who wrote the play 'Oedipus at Colonus,' which was produced by his grandson after his death?
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sophocles
Who is the king of the fairies in medieval legend and in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?
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oberon
In which novel by E.L. Doctorow does the character Mobster Dutch Schultz appear?
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billy bathgate
What is the name of the book that precedes Thomas Wolfe's 'Of Time and the River'?
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look homeward, angel
What pen name was used by authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee?
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ellery queen
Who is the author of 'The Piano Lesson' who founded the Black Horizons Theatre Company in 1968?
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august wilson
Which woman, who also wrote 'The Temple of My Familiar,' authored the 1992 novel 'Possessing the Secret of Joy'?
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alice walker
Who is the author of the 1870s novel 'Middlemarch' subtitled 'A Study of Provincial Life'?
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george eliot
What is the title of the Shirley Jackson short story where the 'prize' is death by stoning?
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lottery
Which author wrote the quotation 'Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you' in the work 'Fathers And Sons'?
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ivan turgenev
Which mesmerizing musician's death causes Trilby to lose her voice in the novel 'Trilby'?
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svengali
Which author created the characters Von Humboldt Fleisher, Augie March, and Moses Herzog?
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saul bellow
Who is the author of the 1993 novel 'Over the River' that features the Charwell and Forsyte families?
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john galsworthy
Which mystery author is jockeying for position in front of the microphone in the book 'Second Wind'?
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dick francis
Which author, known for 'Look Homeward, Angel', wrote the novella 'The Lost Boy' that wasn't fully published until 1992?
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thomas wolfe
In the 1766 novel 'The Vicar of ______', which town's name completes the title and involves the abduction of Sophia Primrose by Squire Thornhill?
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wakefield
On which epic did Virgil base the last six books on the 'Iliad'?
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aeneid
Who is the namesake of the award presented by the American Library Association for
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laura ingalls wilder
Which author was inspired by her hometown of Red Cloud, Nebraska to write the novels 'A Lost Lady' and 'O Pioneers!'?
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willa cather
What word completes the title of O. Henry's first book 'Cabbages and ___', which shares its name with a character referenced by the walrus and the carpenter?
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kings
Who is the poet known for writing 'The New Colossus' and for translating works by Victor Hugo and Goethe?
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emma lazarus
What Shakespearean play, set in Scotland, concludes with the demise of its title character?
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macbeth
Who published their first novel 'Jocelyn' under the pen name John Sinjohn and is also known for writing 'The Forsyte Saga'?
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john galsworthy
In Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'Crossing the Bar', what does crossing the bar symbolize?
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death
Who is the poet that wrote Poem No. 1333, which includes the line: 'A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king'?
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emily dickinson
Who is the author of 'Our Man in Havana' who published a volume of his letters to the editor in 1990?
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graham greene
What is the title of the poem that features the line 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses'?
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new colossus
Smetana never completed his opera 'Viola', based on which comedy written by Shakespeare?
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twelfth night
Who wrote the 1918 poem 'Prairie' that includes the line, 'I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes'?
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carl sandburg
What 10-letter word describes literature distributed by advocates of a specific doctrine?
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propaganda
Which author published a series of essays in 1841 that included 'Self-Reliance'?
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ralph waldo emerson
Which British author left his heart and the remains of his two wives at Stinsford Church near Dorchester, a place mentioned in 'Far From the Madding Crowd'?
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thomas hardy
Who wrote the play that features Captain Shotover as the eccentric owner of Heartbreak House?
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george bernard shaw
Which author wrote the quote 'We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves' in their novel 'Adam Bede'?
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george eliot
Which German author wrote in 'The Tin Drum,' 'Even bad books are books and therefore sacred'?
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günter grass
Which Shakespearean comedy begins with the line 'If music be the food of love, play on'?
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twelfth night
What name is shared by the prince who held the masque in Edgar Allan Poe's story and Miranda's father in 'The Tempest'?
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prospero
What word completes the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's bestseller about Simon Bolivar, 'The General in His ____'?
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labyrinth
Which reclusive poetess from Massachusetts wrote over 1,000 poems but only titled a few of them?
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emily dickinson
How many syllables are in a line of standard iambic pentameter?
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10
In which classical language were the fables known as the Panchatantra originally written?
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sanskrit
What play by George Bernard Shaw opens in the library of Lady Britomart Undershaft's house?
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major barbara
In which Natalie Babbitt book does the Tuck family try to convince Winnie that living forever is a curse?
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tuck everlasting
Which woman authored 'The Awakening' that gained recognition in 1899?
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kate chopin
Who authored 'Hard Times,' an oral history of the Great Depression, published in 1970?
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studs terkel