World Literature, Philosophy, and Religion

Question 1

The inscription at the entrance of hell as described by Dante in The Divine Comedy

Answer 1

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here

Question 2

Who was Aeschylus?
(ES-kuh-luhs)

Answer 2

An ancient Greek poet, often considered the founder of tragedy. He was the first of the three great Greek authors of tragedies, preceding Sophocles, and Euripides. 

Question 3

German novel by Erich Maria Remarque about the horrors and futility of WWI that was adapted into an Academy Award winning film in 1930

Answer 3

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

The film was widely considered the first major anti-war motion picture of the modern era won the Academy award for best picture. A television adaptation the film aired in 1979. 

Question 4

The A.M.E. Church acronym stands for this

Answer 4

The African Methodist Episcopal Church

This is an important denomination for African-Americans, founded in 1816 by the ex-slave and preacher Richard Allen. It is noted for education and philanthropy in the black community. An offshoot is the CME (Christian Methodist Episcopal) Church.

Question 5

A saint who was a 13th century Italian priest and philosopher famous for the work Summa Theologica

Answer 5

Thomas Aquinas

He became the most influential theologian of the middle ages. He sought to reconcile faith and reason by showing that elements of the philosophy of Aristotle were compatible with Christianity.

Summa Theologica (1266–1273) is the best known work of Thomas Aquinas, in which he treats the whole of theology by careful analysis of arguments. In one famous section, Aquinas discusses five ways of attempting to prove that there is a God.

Question 6

This ancient Greek playwright wrote the beastly plays “frogs”, “wasps” and “birds”

Answer 6

Aristophanes

eh·ruh·staa·fuh.neez

He is also the author of such comedies as The Clouds and Lysistrata

Question 7

Narrator of the famous collection of Persian, Indian and Arabian folktales, Arabian Nights. She supposedly told the stories to her husband, the Sultan

Answer 7

Scheherazade
Shuh-hair-uh-ZAHD

She said to have told a different tale every night for 1001 days; therefore, the collection is sometimes called The Thousand and One Nights. The Arabian Nights includes the stories of familiar characters such as Aladdin and Alibaba. 

Question 8

Which ancient Greek philosopher is known for his paradoxes and his assertion that “change is the only constant” in the universe?

Answer 8

Heraclitus

Heraclitus was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived around 500 BCE in Ephesus, a city in present-day Turkey. He is often referred to as the “Obscure” or the “Weeping Philosopher” due to the enigmatic and cryptic nature of his writings.

Heraclitus is best known for his doctrine of change, famously summarized by his statement “You cannot step into the same river twice,” which highlights his belief in the constant flux and flow of the universe. He argued that everything is in a state of perpetual motion and transformation, and that change is the fundamental nature of reality.

Question 9

Thomas Kuhn is known for his talk of these frameworks whose “shifts” can change our worldview

Answer 9

Paradigms


Question 10

considered the patron saint of dancers and of entertainers in general. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping.

Answer 10

St. Vitus

Question 11

An important teacher in the Christian church, his works include The City of God and his autobiography, Confessions

Answer 11

Saint Augustine

He lived in the fourth and fifth centuries. After a dramatic conversion to Christianity, Augustine became a bishop. 

Question 12

A 19th century French author known for his long series of novels, known as La Comédie humaine in which he portrayed the complexity of contemporary French society

Answer 12

Honoré de Balzac

A forerunner of naturalism, The Human Comedy portrays the complexity of French society.

Naturalism is a movement in literature and the arts, and an approach to philosophy. Literary and artistic naturalism aims at accuracy and objectivity and cultivates realistic and even sordid portrayals of people and their environment. Philosophical naturalism, which is often identified with materialism holds that minds, spirits, and ideas are fundamentally material . 

Question 13

A 19th century French poet, whose verse noted for its morbid beauty and a evocative language. His famed collection of poems is called Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil)

Answer 13

Charles Baudelaire

Question 14

The Irish-born 20th century French author best known for the play Waiting for Godot

Answer 14

Samuel Beckett

Is associated with theater of the absurd. They are plays that stress the illogical , or irrational aspects of experience, usually to show the pointlessness of modern life. Other playwrights who have written examples of the genre include Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee, and Harold Pinter. 

Question 15

The Bhagavad Gita is a portion of the sacred books of this religion

Answer 15

Hinduism

The name means “the song of God“. The contains a discussion of the deity Krishna and the Indian hero Arjuna on human nature and human purpose. 

Question 16

The highest caste of the four major castes of Hinduism

Answer 16

Brahmins

Brahmins are followers of Brahma and were originally all priests.

The name is often given to socially or culturally privileged classes, such as  “Boston Brahmins”

Question 17

Sixteenth century French Protestant theologian who directed the formations of a religiously based government in Geneva, Switzerland

Answer 17

John Calvin

The founder of Calvinism, which stressed people are saved through God’s grace, not their own merits. The most famous of Calvin’s ideas is predestination, which is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others.

Question 18

The founder of Christian Science

Answer 18

Mary Baker Eddy

Founded in the nineteenth century, Christian Scientists believe that sickness and sin are not ordained by God and can be overcome by prayer and understanding.

Christian Scientists are known for refusing to accept medicine or treatment by doctors. However, a Christian Scientist’s decision to dispense with medical is left to the individual believer and is not dictated by church policy

Mary Baker Eddie was an American religious reformer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her book “Science and Health“ is the official statement of Christian Science principles 

Question 19

20th century American linguist and political theorist who wrote Syntactic Structures which argued that all children are born with an innate knowledge of grammar

Answer 19

Noam Chomsky 

Question 20

Category: Russian writers

One of this poet’s great-grandfathers was a black Ethiopian courtier to Peter the Great

Answer 20

Alexander Pushkin

1799-1837. a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era. He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet, as well as the founder of modern Russian literature.

Notable works:
Eugene Onegin, The Captain’s Daughter, Boris Godunov, and Ruslan and Ludmil

Question 21

The title of two well-known biographies: that of Saint Augustine from the fourth century, describing his early years and conversion to Christianity, and that of 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Answer 21

Confessions

Question 22

The 1879 playA Doll’s House was written by this author

Answer 22

Henrik Ibsen

The play is about a woman who leaves her husband, husband, who has always treated her like a doll rather than a human being, in order to establish a life of her own

Was a 19th century Norwegian author. He wrote many powerful plays on social and political themes, including * A Doll’s House*, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and Hedda Gabler

Question 23

Émile (1762) a work on education, describing how a fictional boy Émile, should be brought up. The book had enormous influence on education during the age of romanticism and afterwards was written by this philosopher.

Answer 23

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau was an 18th century French philosopher; one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment. He held that in the state of nature, people are good, but they are corrupted by social institutions. This notion became a central idea of Romanticism. One of Rousseau‘s best known writings is The Social Contract, an important influence on the French Revolution.

The Social Contract (1762) states that governmental organization should be based on the general will of a society and should conform to the nature of human beings, and that a majority in a government has a right to banish resistant minorities 

Question 24

What is an encyclical?

Answer 24

A letter from the pope to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, in which he lays down policy on religious, moral, or political issues

Question 25

The operas *The Marriage of Figaro” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and The Barber of Seville, by Gioacchino Rossini are about this character

Answer 25

Figaro

Figaro is a scheming Spanish barber who appears as a character in 18th century French plays 

Question 26

Madame Bovary is the best known work of this 19th century French author

Answer 26

Gustave Flaubert

He was known for his careful choice of words and exact descriptions.

The title character, Madame Bovary, dissatisfied with her marriage, seeks happiness in adultery and finally commits suicide 

Question 27

This fraternal organization claims descent from the builders of the Temple in Jerusalem

Answer 27

Freemasons

A men’s fraternal organization with some religious aspects 

Question 28

A 20th century Mexican writer who first gained international acclaim in the 1960s with his novel The Death of Artemio Cruz, a metaphorical study of a political leader

Answer 28

Carlos Fuentes 

Question 29

Colombian-born 20th century writer best known for his epic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude

Answer 29

Gabriel García Marquez

The book is set in the imaginary village of Macondo and chronicles seven generations of the Buendias family. Garcia Marquez won the Nobel prize for literature in 1982. 

Question 30

 German author of the late 18th and early 19th centuries whose celebrated works, include a drama telling the story of Faust and the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther

Answer 30

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Question 31

A 19th century German philosopher, who held that what was truly real in the world was mind or spirit, not material things.

His major works included the book Phenomenology of Spirit (1807; also called the Phenomenology of Mind)

Answer 31

Georg Wilhelm Frederick Hegel

(HAY-gul)

Hegel, argued that history showed a gradual unfolding of this mind. Karl Marx later treated history as a similar kind of unfolding, but maintained that matter, rather than mind, was truly real. Hagel, Marx said had “stood reality on its head“

Question 32

Aristotle was known to stroll while teaching, giving us this word for his followers or walking in general

Answer 32

peripatetic

Question 33

“All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”, claims Dr. Pangloss in this French novel

Answer 33

Candide

Question 34

An ancient Greek historian, often called the father of history. His history of the invasion of GREECE by the PERSIAN EMPIRE was the first attempt at narrative history and the beginning of all Western historical writing.

Answer 34

Herodotus (hi-ROD-uh-tuhs)

Persian Empire - An empire in Western Asia in ancient times. The Persians, under the kings Darius and Xerxes, attempted to conquer GREECE several times in the fifth century B.C. but were defeated in the Battle of Marathon and in several other land a sea battles