Varsity - Language Arts Flashcards by Andrew Berding

Name the American poet who achieved literary stardom at age 21 with the appearance of his poem “Old Ironsides,” which was written to protest the planned destruction of a ship that fought in the War of 1812.

(Oliver Wendell) Holmes

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What type of foot in poetic meter comes from the Greek for “finger” and is compromised of one long syllable followed by two short syllables?

Dactyl or Dactylic

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What descendant of an African slave, often called “The Father of Modern Russian Literature,” wrote plays and poems in the early 19th century?

(Alexander) Pushkin

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Name the poet and the poem in which the following lines are found: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

(Robert) Frost, “Mending Wall”

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Identify the type of sonnet in which the octave typically introduces the theme or problem using a rhyme scheme of a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a, and the sestet provides resolution.

Petrarchan or Italian (Sonnet)

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Name the Greek playwright, known as the “Father of Comedy,” who wrote the plays The Clouds and The Frogs.

Aristophanes

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Which character in Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE spurs her only living daughter to witchcraft in order to conjure the spirits of her seven deceased babies?

Goody Putnam (OR Mrs. Putnam)

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Name the pair of marine terrors — one a horrible six-headed monster who lived on a rock on one side of a narrow strait, the other a whirlpool on the other side — that Aeneas, Jason, and Odysseus all had to pass between on their respective sea voyages.

Scylla and Charybdis (SIL-uh; kuh-RIB-dis)

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In the novel 1984, what technology item was used to spy on the population of Airstrip One?

Telescreens

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Diana Moonglompers held what position in Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”?

Handicapper General

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What is the name of the complement that follows a direct object and either identifies, explains, or describes that object?

Objective (complement)

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Who is the Russian author who was sentenced to work-camps in Siberia, exiled from his home country, and wrote the Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?

(Alexander) Solzhenitsyn

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Name the title and the author of the book that ends with the following: “His submachine gun lay across his saddle…Robert Jordan lay behind the tree…He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place…He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest.”

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, (Ernest) Hemingway

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Name the term invented by the Greeks for a sudden, unlikely resolution to a conflict that appears to come from nowhere.

Deus ex Machina (accept phonetic pronunciation)

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What is the title of the Shakespearean play from which the novel The Fault in Our Stars gets its title?

Julius Caesar

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Thomas is the newborn son of Cherokee Sal, who dies in childbirth at a gold prospecting camp in California, in what short story by Bret Harte?

“The Luck of Roaring Camp”

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What literary term from the Greek for “simple” refers to an ironical understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as seen in the following example: “I was not a little upset”?

Litotes (light-a-tease)

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According to legend, this Chinese poet of “The Drinking Song of Earth’s Sorrows” died while trying to seize the moon’s reflection in a river.

Li Po (OR Li Bo; Li Bai)

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Name the Edgar Allan Poe short story that alludes to the epidemic of bubonic plague that killed more than a quarter of Europe’s population during the 14th century?

“The Masque of the Red Death”

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Name the literary genre that, like Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, parodies common classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature.

Mock-epic

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Name the 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson novel that concerns a bipolar title-character whose evil alter ego kills a member of Parliament.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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From what Paul Laurence Dunbar poem did Maya Angelou take the title of her book I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS?

Sympathy

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Identify the adjective in literature which refers to works that focus on rural subjects and aspects of life in the countryside among shepherds, cowherds, and other farm workers as seen in Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.”

Pastoral

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What adjective that describes a person who is well-intentioned, impractical, and a foolish dreamer comes from the title character of a Cervantes novel?

Quixotic (quicksotic)

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The main action of James Fenimore Cooper's LAST OF THE MOHICANS takes place during which conflict?

The French and Indian War

In Norse mythology, name the winged women who were the "choosers of the slain."

Valkyries

What novel was written by Chinua Achebe about a wrestling champion and his family in Nigeria?

Things Fall Apart

What author's experiences of being shipwrecked off the coast of Florida led to his writing of the short story "The Open Boat"?

(Stephen) Crane

Give the name from Greek mythology of the enchantress who married Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and helped him obtain the Golden Fleece.

Medea

Name the legendary Sumerian king who quested across the known world for eternal life in the epic tale named for him.

Gilgamesh

Give the first and last names of Nathanial Hawthorne's character to whom a group of "goodwives" refer when they say: "What ye think, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five?"

Hester Prynne

What type of irony is seen in a literary work when readers know more about a situation than the characters themselves, as though the writer is letting the reader in on a secret that the characters aren't privy to?

Dramatic (irony)

What Greek play illustrates dramatic irony as the main character, a king, discovers that his past deeds include regicide, parricide, and incest?

Oedipus (the King) OR Oedipus (Rex)

In what town and state would you find the characters from Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD?

Maycomb, Georgia

Name the book by American mythologist Joseph Campbell which discusses the author's theory of the journey of the archetypal hero.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

James Joyce wrote, "He is the true prototype of the British colonist, the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty", about what character created by Daniel Defoe.

Robinson Crusoe

Name the short story, which is set on Ship Trap Island, that includes the characters Ivan, General Zaroff, and Rainsford.

"The Most Dangerous Game" OR "The Hounds of Zaroff"

Give the poetic term seen in William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis" that describes the ending of a line without a pause, which is meant to mimic human speech.

Enjambment

In the epic form of poetry, it is traditional for the poet to invoke his muse at the beginning of the work. Who is invoked in Milton's epic, Paradise Lost?

The Holy Spirit (Ghost)

Originally published as a serial in REEDY'S MIRROR in 1914, what work is compromised of 244 epitaphs regarding life and death in a fictional small town?

SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY

Name the literary technique used in David Mitchell's 2004 novel Cloud Atlas that is sometimes simply called a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented for the purpose of setting the stage for a more emphasized second narrative.

Frame story, Frame tale, Frame narrative, or Frame

What is the framing device in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales?

A group of pilgrims, or strangers, headed to the shrine of Thomas Becket

Described in a poem by Longfellow, what ship that sailed on a wintry sea ends up all sheathed in ice and gored in her side by cruel rocks?

HESPERUS

What name is given to an action verb that does not take an object?

Intransitive (verb)

What science fiction author invented the satellite communication system?

Arthur C. Clarke

Name the American poet who meditated from her bedroom on life and death, writing such famous lines as, "Much Madness is divinest Sense."

(Emily) Dickinson

In the English Language, what grammatical structure uses the word "to" followed by some form of a verb and can serve as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb?

Infinitive

Name the author known for using the theme of the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security in such works as Emma and Northanger Abbey.

(Jane) Austen

Name the author and title of the short story that caused a stir when it appeared in 1904 because the author's family and friends objected to the fictional portrait of her real-life Aunt Franc who lived in Nebraska.

(Willa) Cather, "A Wagner Matinee"

What term is used to denote a poetic stanza that is four lines long?

Quatrain

What became of the title bird in Boccaccio's (Boh-cah-chee-ohs) "The Tale of a Falcon?"

He is cooked for dinner (accept answers that mean the same)

Give the author and title of the novel originating the following quotation: "I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY

What is a gliding monosyllabic speech sound that starts at or near the articulatory position and moves to or toward the position of another?

Diphthong

Name the English author of the Elizabethan period who wrote The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, a play based on a German story in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge.

(Christopher) Marlowe

Captain Flint and First Mate Billy Bones are characters from what novel?

Treasure Island

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 literary selection that ends with the final appeal, "Therefore let everyone that is out of Christ, now awakened fly from the earth to come"?

"Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God"

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 European city that served as the setting for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

Amsterdam

What term describes a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected?

Rhetorical question

What literary term derived from the Greek for "before the word", describes an opening to a story that establishes the setting and provides background details before the story begins?

Prologue

What essay by Henry David Thoreau ends with this famous line: "If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man"?

Civil Disobedience

Ian Fleming wrote a children's story about a flying car in CHITTY-CHITTY BANG BANG. However, he is much better known for what character who also drives nifty cars?

James Bond

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

In 1948, which late and anti-apartheid (a part-tied) author wrote Cry, the Beloved Country?

(Alan) Paton

What two-word term describes a pair of rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter?

Heroic Couplet

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

The American writer Maya Angelou wrote and recited what poem at whose presidential inauguration?

On the Pulse of Morning, (Bill) Clinton

In what novel do the characters Fantine, Cosette, and Javert (Jah-vare) appear?

LES MISERABLES

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

The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Beowulf are all classified as what type of poem?

Epic

Name two of the four Fireside Poets of American literature.

(James Russell) Lowell, (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow, (Henry Wadsworth) (Oliver Wendell) Holmes,(James Greenleaf) Whittier

Give the author and title of the book where you would find this first paragraph. "There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair."

Veronica Roth, DIVERGENT

Who did Atticus Finch defend in To Kill a Mockingbird?

(Tom) Robinson

Name the 19th-century Russian author of works including Motley Stories, In the Twilight, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard.

(Anton) Chekhov

Name both of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies who received kisses from their killers just before they were killed.

(Julius) Caesar and Desdemona

What poetic meter can be simply described as "unrhymed iambic pentameter"

Blank Verse

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

Name the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that includes the following stanza: "I stood and watched by the window/The noiseless work of sky,/And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,/like brown leaves whirling by."

Snowbound

Who wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, "The Blue Hotel," and The Red Badge of Courage?

(Stephen) Crane

Name the Shakespearean character who said "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Juliet

What type of impromptu speech is delivered with little or no advance preparation?

Extemporaneous

Name the Greek playwright whose most famous tragedies (generally known as the Thean plays) are OEDIPUS and ANTIGONE

Sophocles

Name the subject in the following sentence: From the far-off hills came the lonely cry of the whippoorwill.

Cry

In Egyptian mythology, who was the jack-headed guide of souls to Amenti, and the son of Osiris?

Anubis

"Turn up the light, I don't want to go home in the dark" were the last words of which American author when he wrote "The Ransom of Red Chief"?

(William Sydney) Porter (OR O. Henry)

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 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"

Name the 14th-century Italian Renaissance poet whose many poems have as their subject the idealized woman, "Laura."

(Francesco) Petrarch

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

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

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

Which poet, brought over on a slave ship in 1761, is considered the first black American female poet?

(Phillis) Wheatly

Name the Greek playwright whose most famous tragedies (generally known as the Theban plays) are OEDIPUS and ANTIGONE.

Sophocles

In Egyptian mythology, who was the jackal-headed guide of souls to Amenti, and the son of Osiris?

Anubis

"Turn up the light, I don't want to go home in the dark" were the last words of which American author when he wrote "The Ransom of Red Chief"?

(William Syndey) Porter (OR O. Henry)

Name the author who, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, shifted away from the wizarding world and penned an adult mystery in 2013.

(J.K.) Rowling

The idiom “Crossing the Rubicon” means to pass the point of no return. Give the full name of the Roman general associated with this idiom?

Julius Caesar

Name the American female author whose stories of the American South include the novels WISE BLOOD and THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY, as well as many short stories including "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."

(Flannery) O'Connor

Name two of the three ways that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent.

Person, number, and gender (do not accept case)

Name the object in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies that symbolizes democracy, civility, and order within the group of boys on the island—all of which is lost when it is smashed into pieces near the novel’s conclusion.

Conch

Give the literary word for a story in which the characters and actions are used as symbols to convey a hidden meaning, such as in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Allegory

Give the author and the name of the novel that describes the suffering of mental patients to which one character complains, "We are victims of a matriarchy here."

(Ken) Kesey, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

Identify the character whose jealousy leads her to vow vengeance after Jason deserts her and marries Glauce in a play by Euripides.

Medea

Who are the parents of the Greek god Zeus?

Cronus (father) Rhea (mother)

Name the novel, the author, AND the vessel aboard which a reader would find the shipmates Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.

MOBY DICK by (Herman) Melville; Pequod (the vessel)

Name the two female storytellers in Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES?

Taking place in the late 18th to early 19th centuries, this literary movement came about in response to the enlightenment and emphasized emotion, the triumph of the individual, and a return to nature.

Romanticism (do not accept transcendentalism)

In which short story does a female character see that other women are forced to creep and hide behind the domestic "patterns" of their lives as she stares at the wallpaper in her bedroom?

The yellow wallpaper

What Scottish author of the eighteenth century is known only for his biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson?

(James) Boswell

What pair of words describes both the dictionary definition of a word and the emotional associations connected to a word?

Denotation and Connotation

As Ponyboy lies dying at the conclusion of THE OUTSIDERS, Johnny Cade tells him to "Stay gold." This quotation is an allusion to what Robert Frost poem?

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

In the Charles Dickens novel OLIVER TWIST, what is the name of the Jewish man who takes in homeless boys and turns them into pickpockets?

Fagin

March 26, 1920, saw the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel immediately launching the then 23-year-old Fitzgerald to fame and fortune. Name Fitzgerald’s first novel.

This Side of Paradise

What is the reversal of sounds in two words often having a humorous effect such as "May I sew you another sheet?" instead of "May I show you another seat?"

Spoonerism

Actually Irish, this writer wrote primarily in French and was noted for his work with the French Resistance during World War II. A prolific writer, he is best known for his play he wrote for the theatre of the absurd, Waiting for Godot.

(Samuel) Beckett

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee. What is the name of the fictional town in Alabama that is its setting?

Maycomb

Give the term that is derived from a character in Thomas Sheridan's comedy The Rivals who, in the attempt to show off her vast vocabulary, came up with lines like "he is the very pineapple of politeness."

Malapropism

What is the name of the African author who wrote Things Fall Apart?

(Chinua) Achebe

What are the three types of irony?

Verbal, Dramatic, Irony of Situation (accept situation or situational)

Name the short novel by Joseph Conrad in which Marlow goes to Africa in search of a mad adventurer named Kurtz.

Heart of Darkness

After being attacked by her mother's boyfriend, the shock left this person mute from ages 8 to 13. Who is this person, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

(Maya) Angelou

Name 2 of the 3 types of conjunctions.

(Must name 2) coordinating, correlative, subordinating

What Chilean author is known for the novels The Daughter of Fortune and House of the Spirits?

(Isabel) Allende

Chapter nine of Melville’s Moby Dick is a sermon and hymn about which Biblical figure who was swallowed by a big fish?

Jonah

Name the author who was called the "American Kipling" at age 24 and who was a prize winning stock breeder and a self-made millionaire who participated in the Klondike gold rush.

(Jack) London

What is the reflexive form of the pronoun "she"?

herself

Which of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales tells the story of three men searching for Death?

"The Pardoner's Tale"

What is the title and author of the satirical novel in which the reader encounters Doctor Pangloss?

Candide by Voltaire

What American poet wrote the poem that begins, "The fog comes in on little cat feet..."?

(Carl) Sandburg

What literary term, often described as chronological inconsistency in a given piece of art or literature, is seen in the following example from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? "The clock has stricken three."

Anachronism (The setting of Julius Caesar was 44 A.D, and there were no mechanical clocks.)

What Shakespearean tragedy contains a play within a play in which the villainous king is invited to "The Mousetrap" to see a reenactment of the murder of his brother?

Hamlet

What river runs through the central part of Illinois and is the name of an anthology of poems written by Edgar Lee Masters?

Spoon River

What name is given to words that can trace their origins to the name of a person or a place—such as the word sadism, which is derived from the name of Marquis de Sade?

Eponym

"I wish I were" is an example of the verb "to be" in what mood?

Subjunctive

Name the famous existentialist who wrote the novel, The Stranger.

(Albert) Camus

What author whose character Miles Coverdale narrates his satire of Brook Farm in The Blithedale Romance also wrote Fanshawe and The Scarlet Letter?

(Nathaniel) Hawthorne

What poem written in Middle English tells the story of a bet between King Arthur and a stranger who has arrived in the middle of a festival?

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Which author stated that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

(Henry David) Thoreau

What is the term for a break or pause in a line of verse?

Caesura

What Hemingway novel is narrated by Jake Barnes, an expatriate living in Paris who travels to Pamplona, Spain, for the bull fights?

The Sun Also Rises

Give the term for words formed by accident or for deliberate humorous effect by combining two words into one, such "smog" from smoke and fog.

Portmanteau (word)

For what literary genre is the Golden Dagger award given?

mystery

What literary term describes the semblance of reality in dramatic or nondramatic fiction and implies that the action represented in a work of fiction must be convincing to the reader?

Verisimilitude

Give the author and title of the poem from which the following lines are taken: "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."

(Samuel Taylor) Coleridge and Rime of the Ancient Mariner

What American poet is known as "Harlem's Bard"?

(Langston) Hughes

In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, what is the last name of Lennie, the character with tremendous physical strength and limited mental abilities?

Small

Name the young Brahmin and title character of a Herman Hesse novel who wanders in search of inner truth in a story that loosely parallels the early life of Buddha.

Siddhartha

What term derived from a classic Spanish novel describes a person who tries to accomplish idealistic goals, even if the chance of success is very slim?

quixotic

What term—originating from the name of a pastor who removed parts from his book Family Shakespeare that he considered "unfit to be read by a gentleman in the company of ladies"—can be described as the editing of a literary work for profanity, sexually illicit material, or unacceptable political sentiment?

Bowdlerization

Give both the first and last name of the author and the title of the work in which one would find the following quotation: “You are my creator, but I am your monster.”

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Name the man known primarily as an author who first wrote using the pen name Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, worked as a printer’s apprentice and as a steam boat pilot, and was called by Faulkner the “Father of American Literature.”

(Mark) Twain or (Samuel) Clemens

Name the Shakespearean character who was Thane of Glames, Thane of Cawdor, and King.

Macbeth

Name the three Massachusetts poets of the 1830s called the New England Triumvirate or the Boston Brahmins.

(Oliver Wendell) Holmes, (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow, (James Russell) Lowell (Last names only acceptable; any order acceptable )

In what poetic form is John Milton's Paradise Lost written?

Blank Verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter

What author, known for his three laws of robotics, wrote such works as I, Robot and Foundation, along with a large number of essays and factual books?

(Isaac) Asimov

Name the literary technique by which a character is duplicated or divided into two distinct, usually opposite personalities, such as seen in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Doppelganger

A fish, a tortoise, and a boar are three of the ten incarnations - or avatars - of which Hindu preserver god who forms a trinity with Brahma and Shiva?

Vishnu

Identify and spell the name of the Norse god of mischief.

L-O-K-I

Which American novel by what author has a main character called "Big Nurse" or "Nurse Ratched"?

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

What type of poem, such as "The Death of the Hired Man" by Robert Frost, tells a story using elements of character, setting, and plot to develop a theme?

The narrative or a narrative poem

Name the poetic foot that has a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

trochaic or trochee

In Benet’s story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” define "shade" from 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!”

A Ghost or Spirit

Name the Cavalier poet who penned the line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying" in his poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time."

(Robert) Herrick

Name the author who influenced the work of both Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and is most likely remembered for the book Winesburg, Ohio.

(Sherwood) Anderson

What type of literature is characterized by darkness, gloom, and sometimes supernatural occurrences in characters, setting, and plots?

Gothic

As he is dying in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, who says, “A plague on both your houses!”?

Mercutio

What figure of speech is employed when a speaker uses a part of something to refer to the whole thing as in "gray beard" for an older man or "long hair" for a hippie?

Synecdoche (pronounced sin neck do key)

What American novelist is buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey and is the author of Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw?

(Henry) James

Name the hated protagonist/anti-hero in Emily Bronte's only novel.

Heathcliff

Give both first and last names of the Southern American author whose short story illustrates a woman's descent into madness after her father's death.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

What literary work by James Joyce provided the inspiration for the naming of the subatomic particles called “quarks”?

Finnegan's Wake

In what meter are both Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid written?

Dactylic hexameter or heroic hexameter

Identify the literary device that is a two-word metaphorical name for something else. For example, in Beowulf, the ocean is described as a "sea-road."

Kenning

According to Washington Irving's story, what war did Rip Van Winkle sleep through?

Revolutionary (War)

Name the three books in the Old Testament of the King James Bible that are each divided into two books?

Samuel, Kings and Chronicles (can be named in any order)

What type of adjective follows a linking verb?

predicate adjective

Name the poem by Robert Frost which expresses the thought that courage does not follow rutted pathways.

"The Road Not Taken"

What 17th century author wrote about Doubting Castle and the Valley of the Shadow of Death in an allegory about Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress?

(John) Bunyan

Which of the lands visited by the mythological Odysseus was known for its magic food that caused people to forget their homeland?

Land of the lotus-eaters

A person can find an index in the back of a book. Spell both of the acceptable plurals of the word "index."

i-n-d-i-c-e-s and i-n-d-e-x-e-s

Name the unfortunate character sealed behind a wall in the Montresor family vaults in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Cask of Amontillado"(pronounce a manh tee ah doe).

Fortunato

Revise this sentence into active voice: The chips were eaten by Jack.

Jack ate the chips.

Name the American author, born in Virginia, who wrote about the lives of Bohemian, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish settlers on the plains of Nebraska as in the novel O Pioneers!

(Willa) Cather

What character in John Milton's Paradise Lost claims, "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven"?

Satan (also accept Lucifer but not the Devil)

What kind of verb always has a direct object?

transitive verb

Who was the Greek god of fear, dread, and terror?

Deimos

What J. D. Salinger character is expelled from Prency Prep?

(Holden) Caulfield

In 1846 Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax as an act of protest against the US government. Name EITHER of the two issues he was protesting against.

Slavery or The Mexican-American War

What term is given to scrollwork, engravings, and carvings done in bone or ivory that Herman Melville describes in Moby Dick as “lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves”?

Scrimshaw

What name is given to the late 15th-century morality play that, like John Bunyan's 1678 Christian novel Pilgrim's Progress, uses allegorical characters to examine the question of Christian salvation and what Man must do to attain it?

Everyman or The Summoning of Everyman

Name the American poet who penned these lines: “I, too, sing America./I am the darker brother./They send me to eat in the kitchen/When company comes,/But I laugh,/And eat well,/And grow strong.”

(Langston) Hughes

Which punctuation mark is used to identify an editorial correction or clarification?

Brackets

In Beowulf, the monster, Grendel, is descended from what biblical figure?

Cain

In which famous Steinbeck novel would one read the following: "How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other."

THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Give the Latin term that describes a literary technique used in works such as Oedipus Rex, meaning “in the midst of things.”

in medias res

What was William Wordsworth describing when he wrote, "When all at once I saw a crowd/....Beside the lake, beneath the trees/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze"?

daffodils

What character from a short work by Herman Melville shouted from the gallows at his hanging, "God bless Captain Vere"?

"Billy Budd"

Name the type of phrase that begins with a verb but acts as an adjective.

Participle (Phrase)

Name the Christian apologist and author who wrote Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

(C.S.) Lewis

John Steinbeck's OF MICE AND MEN takes its title from a poem by what Scottish poet?

(Robert) Burns

What is the name of the foot of poetry characterized by an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable?

Iamb(ic)

Which author wrote a novel of Hitler's Germany titled The Tin Drum?

(Gunter) Grass

What American author wrote the line, “Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string”?

(Ralph Waldo) Emerson

The sentence "I will have been walking by the time you read this" is an example of which verb tense?

Future perfect progressive (tense)

Name this nineteenth century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to analyze them.

(Gustav) Freytag

The title of Lorraine Hansbury's play A RAISIN IN THE SUN comes from which Langston Hughes poem?

"Harlem"

What name is given to an error in speech or a play on words in which corresponding consonants or vowels are switched between two words in a phrase? For example, saying, "The Lord is a shoving leopard" instead of "The Lord is a loving shepherd."

Spoonerism

Which character appears more than any other in Shakespeare's plays?

(Sir John) Falstaff

What American poet once worked as a nurse for wounded Union soldiers and wrote a group of poems published in 1865 entitled DRUM TAPS?

(Walt) Whitman

The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker is presented as a series of letters, diary entries, and ships' log entries. What adjective is used to describe novels written in this form?

Epistolary

Name the Irish author best known for Ulysses, a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected.

(James) Joyce

Who is the young adult author from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who wrote the novels TEX and THE OUTSIDERS?

(S.E.) Hinton (or Susan Eloise Hinton)

Find the subordinate conjunction in the following: Elmer will wash the dishes while you finish the laundry.

while

Mrs. Hudson appears in what BBC show, based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which also stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character opposite Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson?

Sherlock

Name the controversial 1852 novel that created a storm of anti-slavery sentiment and was the first book to sell a million copies.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

What rhetorical device is Thomas Jefferson using in the lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...”?

Parallelism

Name the short novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad that is written as a frame narrative and concerns Charles Marlow's life as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa.

Heart of Darkness

In what William Faulkner novel do we find the following characters: Caddy, a sweet and loving teenager who becomes pregnant; Benjy, the mentally disabled child who is a source of grief and shame for his family; and Mrs. Compson, an abusive hypochondriac?

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

What Anglo-Saxon figurative device is noteworthy for its prolific use of a special kind of compound metaphor; for example, the phrase “path of whales” to denote the ocean or “battle-sweat” to denote blood?

Kenning

Name the Matthew Arnold poem that is featured in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, where it is read by protagonist Guy Montag to his wife Mildred and a group of her friends.

“Dover Beach”

Which controversial novel is about a young boy with water on his brain who wants to go to school off the Indian reservation where he lives?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

To whom was the Ancient Library of Alexandria dedicated when it was constructed in the third century BC?

The Muses

To what famous British writer can phrases such as "Off with his head," "The game is up," and "Fight fire with fire" be attributed?

(William) Shakespeare

Name the short story by Katherine Anne Porter that has been called a classic study in stream-of-consciousness because of its elderly female protagonist's frequent departures from the present to the past.

"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"

What name is assigned to the verb tense which expresses the earlier of two past actions?

Past Perfect (Tense)

Give the full name of the author who wrote under the pseudonym Ellis Bell and, along with her siblings, created imaginary lands such as Angria, Gondal, and Gaaldine.

Emily Bronte

Name the title and author of the novel where the main character believes he is invisible because of how people overlook him due to his race.

THE INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

In Egyptian mythology, which goddess was the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus?

Isis

Name the Chilean poet and author of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair who won the 1971 Nobel Prize.

(Pablo) Neruda

Name the famous abolitionist and women’s rights advocate that is most famous for her speech “And Ain’t I a Woman?"

(Sojourner) Truth

What term is given to words such as "nonetheless" and "henceforth" when they are used to connect two sentences together?

Conjunctive Adverbs

Name the Persian poet whose Rubaiyat was translated into English by Edward Fitzgerald.

Omar Khayyam

What modernist poet was also a medical doctor and is most remembered for his poem “The Red Wheelbarrow,” found in the 1923 collection SPRING AND ALL?

(William Carlos) Williams

What literary movement is defined by attacks on notions of hierarchy; experimentation in new forms of narrative, such as stream of consciousness; and attention to alternative viewpoints?

Modernism

Well-known works of what author include Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses?

Salman Rushdie

What do we call a word or phrase that is spelled the same backward and forward?

A palindrome

Name the American writer who wrote a total of 27 books, received the Novel Prize for Literature in 1962, and wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath.

(John) Steinbeck

Name the famous diary writer who documented the colorful and turbulent period of the Restoration in England.

(Samuel) Pepys (Peeps)

What figure of speech is illustrated in the following sentence? The grass bends with every wind; so does John.

Metaphor

Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville and published in 1851, received terrible reviews. Almost 70 years later, literary scholars consider 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

What was the magic phrase in the Arabic tale "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" that opens that way to hidden treasures?

"Open Sesame"

What three parts of speech can an adverb modify?

Adjective, adverb, and verb

Name the American author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 and used both war and sports as metaphors for the workings of daily life.

(Ernest) Hemingway

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

Bang, clang, and hiss are all examples of what type of figurative language?

Onomatopeia

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

Name the beautiful youth of classical mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

Narcissus

What figure of speech is used when expressions do not make literal sense, such as: "Mom is tied up in the kitchen?"

Idiom

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

Name the Russian playwright who wrote the The Three Sisters, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard

(Anton) Chekhov

What figure of speech is found in the following sentence: "The orchards wept when the horticulturist died"?

Personification

Name the American poet who wrote "Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice."

(Robert) Frost

Which author won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago?

(Boris) Pasternak

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

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

Name the faithful wife of Ulysses and mother of Telemachus.

Penelope

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

Which literary device is the basis for Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal?

Satire

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

The sentence "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse" is an example of what type of literary device?

Hyperbole

Name the American folklorist who is best known for his Uncle Remus stories.

(Joel Chandler) Harris

Name the daughter of Priam, King of Troy, who had the gift of prophecy, but by Apollo's decree, was never believed.

Cassandra

Using the terms from the Greek, give the terms used by Aristotle to describe the three means of persuasion in writing

Ethos, pathos, logos

In what novel by what author does the narrator's grandfather advise him to "Live with your head in the lion's mouth . . . overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction"?

Invisible Man by (Ralph) Ellison

To what poem does Robert Heinlein's character in Glory Road allude when she asks, "Did your vorpal blade go snicker snack, my blemish boy"?

"Jabberwocky"

Name the literary device that is a specific type of personification that gives human characteristics to animals.

Anthromorphism

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, give the full name of the character who utters the line, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Nick Carraway

Ishmael Beah writes his memoirs about being a boy soldier in the African country Sierra Leone. What is the title of his memoirs?

A Long Way Gone

Name the German playwright who described a system for dramatic structure in his book The Art of Drama that includes exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution

(Gustav) Freytag

What animal in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, whose crossing of the highway occupies an entire chapter of the novel, provides an analogy to the hardships faced by the Joads?

Turtle

Preparing the corpse of his son to feed the gods caused what ancient Greek king, whose name provides us with the word "tantalize," to be perpetually hungry and thirsty in Hades?

Tantalus

What term, coined in 1817 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, suggests that if a writer can infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a narrative, the reader will suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative?

(Willing) Suspension of Disbelief

Who wrote "The Lowest Animal," a short story and satire about the human race falling short of its ideals?

(Mark) Twain or (Samuel Langhorne) Clemens

David Balfour is the main character in which of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels?

Kidnapped

What literary term comes from the Latin for "truth" and "similarity" and is used to describe the plausibility of a fictional work?

Verisimilitude

What Herman Melville character is Captain Vere speaking of when he says, "Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang"?

Billy Budd

In Greek legend, who is the devoted wife of Hector who became the subject of a Euripides tragedy that bears her name?

Andromache

What literary term describes a "glorified nickname" in the works of Homer where Athene becomes "Gray-eyed Athene" and Odysseus becomes "Odysseus, Sacker of Cities"?

Epithet(s)

Which author was born Marguerite Johnson, raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and told the story of her life in the autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

(Maya) Angelou

What French author's novel The Plague has been read by some commentators as a metaphorical treatment of French resistance to Nazi occupation?

(Albert) Camus

What term for a humorous confusion of words that sound vaguely similar draws its name from a character in Sheridan's play The Rivals?

Malapropism

Identify the container where the covenant with God was stored within the Temple in Jerusalem.

Ark of the Covenant

What Toni Morrison novel features Pecola Breedlove, an African American girl who is teased by other children about her dark hair and skin?

The Bluest Eye

Albert Einstein purchased 1,000 copies of what John Hersey book, which was written in 1946 and combined the techniques of a novel with the factual nature of journalism?

Hiroshima

Who was the 17th century satirical playwright who wrote "The Imaginary Invalid"?

Moliere

Identify the subject in the following sentence: "Do not tell me that I cannot purchase these shoes."

You or (the) understood you

In the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, all of the main characters have look-alikes whom they encounter on the show. What German word is used to describe these "doubles" who often play roles in folk tales where they can be harbingers of bad luck?

Doppelganger(s)

The Disney movie Frozen is based on the story "The Snow Queen," which was written by what Danish author?

(Hans Christian) Anderson

Who is the only crew member aboard the Pequod who, when Ahab seeks to pledge the men to vengeance upon Moby Dick, raises his voice in protest, saying, "To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous”?

Starbuck

What Latin word, enclosed by brackets, lets the reader know that the quotation is presented exactly as it appears in its source and that the writer is aware of the error it contains?

Sic

What character in The Scarlet Letter does Hawthorne use to illustrate the theme that revenge will ultimately destroy the avenger?

(Roger) Chillingworth

Name the Russian poet of the very early 19th century who wrote of glorious Russian victories over Sweden and who was killed in a duel.

(Alexander) Pushkin

What epic poem, written by the ancient Sumerians on clay tablets, tells the story of a legendary king in search of the secret of immortality after the death of his friend Enkidu?

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Identify the Latin term, meaning “in the middle of things,” which describes a narrative that begins in the middle of a story, usually at some crucial point in the action.

In media res (in media ray or in medias rez)

Which of Tennessee Williams' plays depicts the southern family of the Pollitts celebrating the patriarch's birthday leading to arguments over the family estate?

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The first edition of what Upton Sinclair novel, originally serialized in the Socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, was salvaged from the cellar of a farmhouse near Girard, Kansas, in the 1980s?

The Jungle

Identify the type of irony which occurs in literature when a scene is understood by the audience but not the characters involved.

Dramatic (Irony)

What Leo Tolstoy work had the working title of But All’s Well That Ends Well?

War and Peace

Identify the voice of the verb in the following sentence: "Examples of poor usage make me laugh."

Active

Name the author of the novels The Road and No Country for Old Men.

(Cormac) McCarthy

Name the 27-year-old woman who is as an accomplice to Winston Smith's crimes against the Party in Orwell's 1984.

Julia

What is the term for the process of analyzing a poem's metrical pattern?

Scansion

What poet penned the work titled “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer," which deals with how human knowledge of science removes a sense of mystery from the universe?

(Walt) Whitman

Name the British poet and soldier who was one of the leading poets of the First World War and known for such poems as "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for a Doomed Youth."

(Wilfred) Owen

What mythical woman, who hatched from an egg laid by Leda, married the Spartan king Menelaus (men-uh-LAY-us), but later ran away, starting an epic war?

Helen (of Troy)

Give the term used in logic for a deductive argument stated in a three-part form, consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

Syllogism

What book, written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells the story of Billy Pilgrim who survives the bombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II?

Slaughterhouse-Five

Name the short story by Edgar Allan Poe from which this quote is taken: "I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him."

"The Tell-Tale Heart"

What literary device was put to use by James Joyce in his short story collection, Dubliners, wherein his protagonists come to sudden recognitions that change their views of themselves or their social conditions?

Epiphany

What fellow poet does Percy Bysshe (Bish) Shelley eulogize in a work called "Adonais"?

(John) Keats

What literary term can be defined as a "figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is associated" and can be seen in the following example: "The pen is mightier than the sword.”

Metonymy

Name the place where Norse gods and slain heroes live.

Valhalla

Name the World War II novel set on the island of Pianosa that takes its name from the vicious cycle of which there is no escape.

Catch-22

Identify the Edgar Allan Poe poem which contains the line, "We loved with a love that was more than love."

"Annabel Lee"

What is the name of the golden haired warrior maidens with shining armor who serve Norse god Odin?

Valkyries

What is the participial phrase in the following sentence? “Thanking everyone, my uncle began to carve the turkey.”

Thanking everyone

What term describes poetry without regular patterns of rhythm, rhyme, or line length?

Free Verse

Robert Penn Warren's book All the King's Men is about Willie Stark, who is based on what Louisiana politician?

(Huey) Long

What poem by T. S. Elliot ends with these words: "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper"?

"The Hollow Men"

Identify the gerund in the following sentence: "Susan enjoyed competing on winning teams."

Competing

What adjective, meaning heroic or gigantic, is derived from a race of giants in Greek mythology?

Titanic

Name the Jack London short story in which the main character ignores the advice of "the old timer of Sulphur Creek" while traveling on the Yukon Trail, falls into the river, and dies of hypothermia.

"To Build A Fire"

In Pride and Prejudice, which character acts as a foil to Mr. Darcy?

(Charles) Bingley

What American poet is known for works such as, "The Children's Hour" and "A Psalm of Life," but is far better known for "Paul Revere's Rides?"

(Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow

Give the object of the prepositional phrase in the following sentence: "There are deep cracks in the moon's surface.”

Surface

Name the American poet whose work "Pain has an element of blank" describes how pain empties life of other experiences.

(Emily) Dickinson

Name the novel by Chinua (Cihn-oh-wah) Achebe (Ah-cheh-bay) which highlights the clash between colonialism and traditional culture in pre-colonial Nigeria.

Things Fall Apart

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used what poetic meter in his epic work Evangeline in an effort to imitate Greek and Latin classics?

Dactylic Hexameter

What Robert Frost poem describes a spindly and awkward tree with remarkably pliable trunks that have white bark ringed with black?

"Birches"

What is the name for a stanza or poem of four lines, usually with a definite rhyme scheme?

Quatrain

Name the poem written by the cavalier poet Richard Lovelace that includes the line: "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage."

"To Althea, from Prison"

What adjective from the Spanish for "rogue" or "rascal" describes a genre of prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a hero of low social class who lives by his own wits in a corrupt society?

Picaresque

Which African-American female author of the Harlem Renaissance penned such works as Mules and Men, Dust Tracks on a Road, and Their Eyes Were Watching God?

(Zora Neale) Hurston

What British author wrote the poem "To Celia" and the dramas The Alchemist and Every Man in His Humor?

(Ben) Jonson

The work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is noted for having popularized what literary style that incorporates fantastic and mythical elements into otherwise mundane literary settings?

Magical Realism

What American poet is known for creating his own personal poetic style, playing with form, structure, grammar, and linguistic rules as exemplified in his book of verse entitled Tulips and Chimneys?

(E.E.) Cummings

What is the seven-letter name for a story told to illustrate a moral truth or lesson like those found in the Bible?

parable

The following quotation is taken from what book? "The heart of Muhammad did not falsely represent what he saw. Will you therefore dispute with him what he saw?"

The Koran

What story by Stephen Vincent Benet features a Massachusetts senator who said, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable”?

"The Devil and Daniel Webster"

What two-word term for a linguistic blend of words describes words like brunch, liger, and Tanzania?

Portmanteau Word(s)

What rhetorical device consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginning of neighboring clauses and was used by Charles Dickens in these lines: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . ."?

Anaphora

What are the oldest religious texts in an Indo-European language?

the Vedas

What author wrote about Seymour Glass in “A Perfect Day For Bananafish” and Holden Caulfield's expulsion in The Catcher in the Rye?

(Jerome David or J.D.) Salinger

In Scottish and English folklore, what small creatures live in houses and help fix things and tidy up, with only porridge and honey as payment?

Brownies

What Latin phrase that translates to "to the man" or "to the person" describes an argument made against a person's character and/or intelligence, not his or her ideas?

Ad Hominem

Name the semi-autobiographical novel by the American writer Sylvia Plath in which the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression.

The Bell Jar

Which Ray Bradbury short story features Fahrenheit 451's character Clarisse McClellen's odd uncle, who was arrested for walking at night?

"The Pedestrian"

Our word "clue" is related to the old form of "clew," spelled c-l-e-w, meaning a ball of string or thread, and relating to which Greek mythological story?

Possible answer: Thesus, the minotaur, Theseus and the minotaur, the labyrinth, Theseus and the labyrinth, or Theseus and Ariadne

What American literary period includes works such as Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Jack London's Call of the Wild?

Realism

What character from To Kill a Mockingbird is described by Scout as the only man she'd ever heard of being "fired from the WPA for laziness"?

(Bob) Ewell

Name the author and the trilogy that is the only extant example of an ancient Greek theater trilogy?

Aeschlyus' Oresteia

What type of noun is used to name a group of persons, animals, or objects?

Collective (noun)

Name the American author who made use of the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique in The Sound and the Fury?

(William) Faulkner

The origin of theatre can be traced to drama contests during the annual Greek celebration of what mythological figure?

Dionysus

What is the relative pronoun in the following sentence: "None of us knew which of the witnesses we ought to believe"?

Which

Name the literary work from which the following was taken, "Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Charlotte's Web

What god, who rides the eight-legged horse Sleipnir (SLAYP-neer) and owns the spear Gungnir (GOONG-neer), presides over Valhalla in Norse mythology?

Odin (also accept Wotan or Woden)

Identify the type of pronouns in the following group: this, that, these, those.

Demonstrative (pronouns)

What American author, who died in July of 2014, wrote such books as Fallen Angels, Sunrise over Fallujah, and Monster?

(Walter Dean) Meyers

Which Dutch humanist and leading scholar wrote “Praise of Folly?"

(Desiderius) Erasmus

Identify the type of error in the following sentence: "Her explanation caused me to really be confused."

Split infinitive

What 1957 Ayn Rand novel was originally titled The Strike?

Atlas Shrugged

Name the Anglo-Saxon historian and scholar who is best known for his work The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

(the) Venerable Bede

Name the appositive in the following sentence: "During the game, Oscar, the editor of the local newspaper, took pictures of the team."

The editor of the local newspaper

Name the woman and native Kansan who, in 1950, became the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

(Gwendolyn) Brooks

Name the God of Panic from Greek mythology from which the English word claustrophobia takes its roots.

Phobus

Name the predicate nominative in the following sentence: “At the end of the tournament, Rory McIlroy was the leader.”

(the) leader

Name the American short story writer known for "The Death of Halpin Frazer," "The Moonlit Road," and his satirical dictionary called The Devil's Dictionary.

(Ambrose) Bierce

Introducing the character Mephistopheles, what Shakespearean rival wrote the play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus?

(Christopher) Marlowe

What type of literary work, such as Gulliver’s Travels, uses sarcasm, wit and irony to ridicule and expose the follies of mankind?

Satire

Give the full names of the two characters who compete for the affections of Katrina Van Tassel in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

Brom Bones and Ichabod Crane

Name the play by Robert Bolt that is chiefly concerned with the English statesman Sir Thomas More.

A Man For All Seasons

What language is the source of the English words yoga, nirvana, and ashram?

Sanskrit

What is the title of the sequel to Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird?

Go Set a Watchman

What Sophocles title character, a daughter of Oedipus, says to her sister Ismene: "Go your own way; I will bury my brother; and if I die for it, what happiness! Convicted of reverence--I shall be content"?

Antigone

What name is given to a compound figurative expression in Old English and Old Norse that is often hyphenated, such as battle-sweat and oar-stead, and has metaphorical meaning?

Kenning

In Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, which March sister contracts scarlet fever?

Beth (March)

Identify the play from which the following lines were taken: “Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today?"

Waiting for Godot

Identify the method of exposition being used in the following sentence: "In the same way as one cannot have the rainbow without the rain, one cannot achieve success and riches without hard work."

Analogy

The battle of Fort William Henry during the French and Indian Wars is depicted in what novel by James Fenimore Cooper?

The Last of the Mohicans

A dedicated officer of the law pursues a thief for nearly twenty years over a violation of parole. Ultimately, said officer finds himself driven to suicide when unable to comprehend that his quarry has indeed changed. What is the name of this Parisian bloodhound created by Victor Hugo?

Javert

English poet John Milton invented what word for "chaos, tumult, or wild lawlessness" when he used the word to name the capital of Hell in his work Paradise Lost?

Pandemonium

While traveling down the Mississippi River in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck and Jim are aiming for what town which would bring them freedom?

Cairo (Illinois)

Give the general name for the type of character of tribal folk narratives who breaks cultural codes or behavior such as Loki in Norse mythology.

Trickster

Ancient Greek playwrights adhered to what three dramatic unities, attributed to Aristotle, when composing their drama productions?

(Unity of) place, (unity of) time, (unity of) action

What is it, according to Carl Sandburg, "that comes on little cat feet and sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches?"

Fog

What 1861 novel by George Eliot is an outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver but takes on a variety of social issues ranging from religion to industrialization?

Silas Marner

What do we call a word or phrase that is spelled the same backward and forward?

A palindrome

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

Name the subject in the following sentence: From the far-off hills came the lonely cry of the whippoorwill.

Cry

Which figure of speech is illustrated in the following sentence? - The grass bends with every wind; so does John.

Metaphor

Malapropism

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

March 26, 1920, saw the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel immediately launching the then 23-year-old Fitzgerald to fame and fortune. Name Fitzgerald’s first novel.

This Side of Paradise

What three parts of speech can an adverb modify?

Verb, adjective, adverb

What is the reversal of sounds in two words often having a humorous effect such as "May I sew you another sheet?" instead of "May I show you another seat?"

Spoonerism

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 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

(Earnest) Hemmingway

(Samuel) Beckett

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee. What is the name of the fictional town in Alabama that is its setting?

Maycomb

Name the European city that served as the setting for THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.

Amsterdam

Bang, clang, and hiss are all examples of which type of figurative language?

Onomatopoeia

What essay by Henry David Thoreau ends with this famous line: "If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man"?

Civil Disobedience

What literary term derived from the Greek for “before the word”, describes an opening to a story that establishes the setting and provides background details before the story begins?

Prologue

What is the name of the African author who wrote Things Fall Apart?

(Chinua) Achebe

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

What are the three types of irony?

Verbal, Dramatic, Irony of Situation (accept situation or situational)

Name the beautiful youth of classic mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

Narcissus

Name the short novel by Joseph Conrad in which Marlow goes to Africa in search of a mad adventurer named Kurtz.

Heart of Darkness

Ian Fleming wrote a children's story about a flying car in CHITTY-CHITTY BANG BANG. However, he is much better known for what character who also drives nifty cars?

James Bond

What two-word term describes a pair of rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter?

Heroic Couplet

After being attacked by her mother's boyfriend, the shock left this person mute from ages 8 to 13. Who is this person, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

(Maya) Angelou

Name 2 of the 3 types of conjunctions.

(Must name 2) coordinating, correlative, subordinating

What figure of speech is used when expressions do not make literal sense, such as: "Mom is tied up in the kitchen"?

Idiom

The American writer Maya Angelou wrote and recited what poem at whose presidential inauguration?

On the Pulse of Morning, (Bill) Clinton

(Arthur) Miller

What Chilean author is known for the novels The Daughter of Fortune and House of the Spirits?

(Isabel) Allende

Chapter nine of Melville’s Moby Dick is a sermon and hymn about which Biblical figure who was swallowed by a big fish?

Jonah

In what novel do the characters Fantine, Cosette, and Javert (Jah-vare) appear?

Les Miserables

Name the author who was called the "American Kipling" at age 24 and who was a prize winning stock breeder and a self-made millionaire who participated in the Klondike gold rush.

(Jack) London

The Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Beowulf are all classified as what type of poem?

Epic

Name the Russian playwright who wrote The Three Sisters, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard

(Anton) Chekov

What is the reflexive form of the pronoun "she"?

herself

Veronica Roth, DIVERGENT

Which of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales tells the story of three men searching for Death?

"The Pardoner's Tale"

What figure of speech is found in the following sentence: "The orchards wept when the horticulturist died"?

Personification

Name both of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies who received kisses from their killers just before they were killed.

(Julius) Caesar and Desdemona

Name the American poet who wrote "Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice."

(Robert) Frost

What is the title and author of the satirical novel in which the reader encounters Doctor Pangloss?

Candide by Voltaire

What American poet wrote the poem that begins, "The fog comes in on little cat feet..."?

(Carl) Sandburg

What poetic meter can be simply described as “unrhymed iambic pentameter”?

Blank Verse

Which author won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for Dr. Zhivago?

(Boris) Pasternak

Snowbound

Name the Greek playwright whose most famous tragedies (generally known as the Theban plays) are OEDIPUS and ANTIGONE.

Sophocles

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 A Pilgrim's Progress?

Allegory

Anachronism (The setting of Julius Caesar was 44 A.D, and there were no mechanical clocks.)

In Egyptian mythology, who was the jackal-headed guide of souls to Amenti, and the son of Osiris?

Anubis

"Turn up the light, I don't want to go home in the dark" were the last words of which American author when he wrote "The Ransom of Red Chief"?

(William Syndey) Porter (OR O. Henry)

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 Shakespearean tragedy contains a play within a play in which the villainous king is invited to "The Mousetrap" to see a reenactment of the murder of his brother?

Name the faithful wife of Ulysses and the mother of Telemachus

Penelope

S.E. Hinton is known for young adult novels such as The Outsiders. All but one of her novels are set in which U.S. state?

Oklahoma

Name the author who, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, shifted away from the wizarding world and penned an adult mystery in 2013.

(J.K.) Rowling

The idiom “Crossing the Rubicon” means to pass the point of no return. Give the full name of the Roman general associated with this idiom?

Julius Caesar

What river runs through the central part of Illinois and is the name of an anthology of poems written by Edgar Lee Masters?

Spoon River

What name is given to words that can trace their origins to the name of a person or a place—such as the word sadism, which is derived from the name of Marquis de Sade?

Eponym

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?

A sphinx

The sentence "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse" is an example of what type of literary device?

Hyperbole

(Flannery) O'Connor

"I wish I were" is an example of the verb "to be" in what mood?

Subjunctive

Conch

Name the American folklorist who is best known for his Uncle Remus stories

(Joel Chandler) Harris

Name the daughter of Priam, King of Troy, who had the gift of prophecy, but by Apollo's decree, was never believed

Cassandra

Name the famous existentialist who wrote the novel, The Stranger.

(Albert) Camus

Give the literary word for a story in which the characters and actions are used as symbols to convey a hidden meaning, such as in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Allegory

Give the author and the name of the novel that describes the suffering of mental patients to which one character complains, "We are victims of a matriarchy here."

(Ken) Kesey, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

What author whose character Miles Coverdale narrates his satire of Brook Farm in The Blithedale Romance also wrote Fanshawe and The Scarlet Letter?

(Nathaniel) Hawthorne

Identify the character whose jealousy leads her to vow vengeance after Jason deserts her and marries Glauce in a play by Euripides.

Medea

"Lucy languished in the lovely autumn light" is an example of what literary device?

Alliteration

Who are the parents of the Greek god Zeus?

Cronus (father) Rhea (mother)

What poem written in Middle English tells the story of a bet between King Arthur and a stranger who has arrived in the middle of a festival?

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Name the novel, the author, AND the vessel aboard which a reader would find the shipmates Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.

MOBY DICK by (Herman) Melville; Pequod (the vessel)

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

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

Which author stated that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

(Henry David) Thoreau

What is the term for a break or pause in a line of verse?

Caesura

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 Hemingway novel is narrated by Jake Barnes, an expatriate living in Paris who travels to Pamplona, Spain, for the bull fights?

The Sun Also Rises

During which historical event is Poe's story The Pit and the Pendulum set?

The Inquisition (or The Spanish Inquisition)

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

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 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 the term for words formed by accident or for deliberate humorous effect by combining two words into one, such "smog" from smoke and fog.

Portmanteau (word)

What are the oldest religious texts in an Indo-European language?

the Vedas

The Bell Jar

What six-letter literary term that denotes an extreme pride and self-confidence which leads to destruction, can be seen in Mary Shelley's character Victor and Christopher Marlowe's character Dr. Faustus?

Hubris

In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, how does Mariam kill Rasheed?

with a shovel

Name the American novelist and short story writer who wrote the short stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil."

(Nathaniel) Hawthorne

What figure of speech is seen in the following lines from Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet addresses the dagger with which she intends to kill herself: "O happy dagger! This is/thy sheath; there rust,/and let me die"?

Apostrophe

Who is the Colombian author and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in literature who wrote Love in the Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude?

(Gabriel) Garcia Marquez

What American short story begins with an explanation that the story itself was found among the papers of the late Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker?

"Rip Van Winkle"

What literary device from the Greek for “out of time” is seen in Troilus and Cressida when Shakespeare has Nestor quote Aristotle?

Anachronism

What genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment was a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil?

Morality Plays

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby introduced Nick Carraway to Meyer Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim, a gambler and con man who sported cufflinks made from human molars, claimed responsibility for fixing what sporting event?

(1919) World Series

What is the past participle form of the verb "to lie," which means to rest or recline?

(has or have) lain

Name the American author born to Methodist minister parents whose religious upbringing is said to have influenced his first novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.

(Stephen) Crane

Name the son of Enoch, father of Lamech and the grandfather of Noah, who lived 969 years and is the oldest man in the Bible.

Methuselah

Identify the direct object in the following sentence: "I handed my father his briefcase."

Briefcase

In whose diary do we learn of the everyday events in London in the 1660s including the coronation of King Charles II and the Great Fire of London?

(Samuel) Pepys (peeps)

What poet left Lawrence, Kansas, at age 13 and gained fame as part of the Harlem Renaissance?

(Langston) Hughes

Correct the error in the following sentence: "Because the parking lot was full, I parked my car among two tall buildings."

"among" should be "between"

Name the title and the author of the work that begins with the lines: "Half a league, half a league/Half a league onward."

The Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred, Lord) Tennyson

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was written during a movement called "The Great Awakening" and illustrates the beliefs of what specific religious group?

Puritan

What point of view is seen when the narrator of the story knows and, at least partially, reveals the internal thoughts, feelings, and motivations of all the characters?

Third-Person Omniscient (Narration)

What are the last five words in this excerpt from a poem by Coleridge: "Water water everywhere/And all the boards did shrink./Water water everywhere ..."?

Nor any drop to drink

Who is the protagonist of John Steinbeck's The Pearl who, at the novel's conclusion, throws the pearl back into the ocean?

Kino

Restate the following sentence using the past perfect tense: "I go to school."

I had gone to school.

Give the first name of the Ernest Hemingway protagonist who is described by the following line: "Everything about him was old except his eyes, and they were cheerful and undefeated."

Santiago

Identify the Italian philosopher who wrote: "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

(Niccolò) Machiavelli

In the sentence "May you live long and prosper," "may" is an example of what verb mood?

Subjunctive (mood)

According to Shakespeare's play, who killed MacBeth?

MacDuff

What Sinclair Lewis character's last name has come to carry the unsavory connotation of someone who conforms rigidly to the standards of one's peers, who has little social conscience, and even less imagination?

(George F.) Babbitt

What term denotes the area of a theatre space, known for its framed arch outlining the stage opening that separates the stage from the auditorium?

proscenium

In H.G. Wells’ book The Time Machine, what are the two races that succeed humans in the year 802,701 A.D.?

Eloi and Morlocks

What flower, contained in "six chipped-enamel slop jars," suggests that Mayella Ewell (yule) from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird desires to be better than her surroundings?

(Red) geranium

Identify the voice of the verb in the following sentence: "Usage errors are made by everyone from time to time."

passive (voice)

Name the mythical hero who was the subject of a play by Percy Shelley and a metaphor in the subtitle of a novel by Mary Shelley.

Prometheus

Name the short story by Stephen Crane based on his own personal experience during a gun-running trip to Cuba.

"The Open Boat"

What disease took the lives of authors Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Burns, Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, and Franz Kafka?

Tuberculosis (or Consumption)

Give both the name of the sonnet and the poet for the work that contains the lines: "one short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."

(John) Donne "Death Be Not Proud"

Identify the author who stated, "A Man can be destroyed but not defeated" in his novel The Old Man and the Sea.

(Ernest) Hemingway

What is the name of the short witty sayings that Ben Franklin wrote such as, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” and “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”?

Aphorism(s)

Name the novel in which the deranged Bertha Mason causes her own death by setting fire to the mansion known as Thornfield where she is confined in the attic.

Jane Eyre

Who is the former slave, freed after the Civil War, who became an author and noted educator whose details of his life are in the autobiography Up from Slavery?

(Booker T.) Washington

Give the name of the type of punctuation that denotes an omission from a text of one or more words.

Ellipsis (or Ellipsis dots)

What late eighteenth and early nineteenth century poet and artist is well-known for his books of poetry with the titles Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience?

(William) Blake

Which Unitarian minister disputed the divine nature of Jesus in his 1838 Harvard Divinity School address and wrote about Transcendentalism in a work entitled Nature?

(Ralph Waldo) Emerson

What punctuation mark can be used between two independent clauses on a related topic in order to draw a connection between the two sentences?

semicolon

What editor gave the world an 1818 edition of Shakespeare's works that omits "those words and expressions . . . which cannot with propriety be read in a family setting"?

(Thomas) Bowdler

Name the protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 who discovers that books are flesh and blood ideas that cry out when put to the torch?

(Guy) Montag

Identify the linking verb in the following sentence: "Gasoline becomes more expensive every month."

becomes

To what Henry David Thoreau essay was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. alluding when he wrote: "As a result of his writings, we are heirs to a legacy of creative protest"?

Civil Disobedience

Name the murder mystery written by Agatha Christie that is the longest running play in the modern era, running continuously since 1952.

The Mouse Trap

When you are saying, "passed away" instead of "died," what form of figurative language are you using?

Euphemism

Which character in George Orwell’s Animal Farm is based on Tsar Nicholas II of Russia?

(Mr.) Jones

S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders includes the line "Stay golden." This line is an allusion to what Robert Frost poem?

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

What punctuation mark is used to introduce a list within a sentence, to separate parts of a ratio, to separate Bible chapter and verse, and to indicate the time?

colon

What English poet wrote, "A little learning is a dangerous thing," and "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," in his Essay on Criticism, but is best known for writing The Rape of the Lock?

(Alexander) Pope

What famous movie director, poet, author, and photographer wrote and directed The Learning Tree and was born in Ft. Scott, Kansas?

(Gordon) Parks

What do we call the representation of ideas of moral principles by means of symbolic characters, events, or objects is known as what?

allegory

The epilogue to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man makes an allusion to what Joseph Conrad novel?

Heart of Darkness

Identify the American playwright whose best known plays include Desire Under the Elms and The Iceman Cometh.

(Eugene) O'Neill

Give the name of the five-line humorous or nonsense verse form that is described as the “only fixed verse form indigenous in the English language.”

Limerick

What was the pen name used by J.K. Rowling in her first adult crime novel Cuckoo's Calling published in 2013?

(Robert) Galbraith

Name the villainous and drunken planter who had Uncle Tom flogged to death in Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel.

Simon Legree

What is the indirect object in the following sentence? "Frederick was upset, but he gave Janet a clue anyway."

Janet

Who wrote a poem in the 1700s which has become a traditional New Year's Eve end celebratory song "Auld Lang Syne"?

(Robert) Burns (also accept Rabbie or Robbie for first name)

List, in order, the three books that comprise the Hunger Games trilogy.

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay

In writing, what is it called when a writer uses the correct repetition of similar words, phrases, grammatical structure, or clauses, such as in the sentence, "Rubiel likes boxing, swimming, and wrestling"?

parallelism

Name the author of the narrative poem that details the misfortune of the Mudville nine.

(Ernest Thayer) Lawrence

Considered to be the perfect knight in Arthurian legends, whose chivalry is tested by the Green Knight when he is challenged to a beheading contest?

Sir Gawain

What is the figure of speech that uses part of something to represent the whole as in, "All hands on deck?"

Synecdoche (si-nek' da-ki)

Name the author who, in the late 1940s, wrote a novel that featured a character who became known in movies and stories as Tarzan the Ape-Man.

(Edgar Rice) Burroughs

Name the 17th century Spanish author who wrote a classic moving tale of the triumph of reason over idealism.

(Miguel de) Cervantes (sur vahn tays)

What literary term is derived from the French word meaning "to unite"and is used to designate the part of the plot in which conflicts are resolved?

Denouement (day-new-mah)

Give the first and last name of the author of the Holocaust based novels Night and Dawn?

Elie Wiesel

Name the Sophocles play in which the title character is a Greek warrior who commits suicide when the armor of Achilles is awarded to Odysseus rather than him.

Ajax

What type of verb shows action but does not have a direct object?

Intransitive (verb)

A sailor returns home to a loving fiance and father only to find himself arrested for treason. He escapes years later, assuming the identity of a wealthy nobleman. Give the title of Edmond Dantes’ quest for vengeance, published in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas.

(The) Count of Monte Cristo

Name the ironic story in which a wife sells her hair to buy a watch chain for her husband who sells his watch to buy combs for his wife.

“The Gift of the Magi”

Name both of the superlative forms of the adjective “helpful.”

Most helpful, least helpful

Name the man who is the current United States Poet Laureate whose works include Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems.

(Juan Felipe) Herrera

Known for her destructive power, what Hindu goddess is depicted wearing a necklace of skulls and a belt of severed arms?

Kali

What are the three ways in which a pronoun agrees with its antecedent?

person, number, gender (Do not accept case)

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 Charles Dickens novel originally published in 1861 includes the characters Joe Gargery, Pip and Mr. Jaggers?

Answer: Great Expectations

What is the point of greatest intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative which usually marks the turning point?

climax

Gordon Park’s novel The Learning Tree is set in what state?

Kansas

What is the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, author of "The Open Window"?

Saki

What part of speech is the word "near" in the following sentence: The road that runs near the railroad tracks is usually crowded.

preposition

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

Whose works include The Outline of History, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Time Machine, and The War of the Worlds?

(H.G.) Wells

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

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 work by which author includes the line, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”?

Divine Comedy by Dante

Name the three verbals in English grammar.

Gerund, participle, and infinitive

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

In which Shakespeare play does the plot hinge on a loan in the amount of 300 ducats?

The Merchant of Venice

In a piece of literature, what term refers to the close repetition of similar vowel sounds as seen in "blue moon."

assonance

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

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

In the English language, there are four main kinds of sentences by purpose. Name them.

Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, and Imperative

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

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"

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

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 Czech author created the character Gregor Samsa (ZAHM-zah), who woke up one morning as a giant beetle?

(Franz) Kafka

In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour,” what literary device is used in following sentence: “When the doctors came, they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.”

Irony

What Romantic poet wrote long verse narratives of American historical and mythological figures such as Hiawatha, Miles Standish, and Paul Revere?

(Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow

Which Robert Louis Stevenson story deals with the "thorough and primitive duality of man"?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Which type of punctuation should be used to join two independent clauses when a comma and coordinating conjunction are not used?

semicolon

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 hero is the protagonist in the first great epic of the people variously called Akkadians, Sumerians, and Babylonians?

Gilgamesh

In grammar, what are the two indefinite articles?

a, an

"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

What Titan from Greek mythology was punished with eternal hunger and thirst, and banished to the River Styx?

Tantalus

What is the meter of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey?

Dactylic hexameter

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

What Greek playwright composed the majority of the still existing Greek comedies?

Aristophanes (Air-is-toph-ah-nees)

What is the term for a statement that seems contradictory or absurd, but is actually valid or true?

paradox

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

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 type of pronoun begins an adjective clause?

Relative Pronoun

In what play did Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke make the education of Helen Keller come alive?

The Miracle Worker

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

What type of subordinate(or dependent) clause is always introduced with a subordinating conjunction?

adverb

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 this Irish author of Irish nationalist themes, including The Celtic Twilight and Wild Swans at Coole.

(William Butler) Yeats

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

A salamander and a phoenix are symbols in which Bradbury novel?

Fahrenheit 451

In what language did the Nobel Prize-winning author, Isaac Bashevis Singer, write all of his novels and stories?

Yiddish

What is the name for a stanza or poem made up of four lines, usually with a definite rhythm and rhyme scheme?

quatrain

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

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"

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)

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

What pen name was used by Mary Anne Evans, the Victorian novelist who wrote Silas Marner, among other works?

(George) Eliot

What are the two voices of verbs?

Active and passive

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

Which of Shakespeare's works includes a marriage between two actors playing Pyramus and Thisbe?

A Midsummer Night's Dream

What part of speech is "boy" in the following sentence? Boy! That was a hard test!

interjection

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

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)

Name the three groups into which conjunctions are divided.

Coordinating, Subordinating, Correlative

Who takes Darnay's place on the guillotine in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities?

(Sydney) Carton

Name the author of the collection of poems which includes the characters Lucinda Matlock, Emily Sparks, and Minerva Jones.

Spoon River Anthology

Name the direct object in the following sentence: The mother lectured her son about good choices.

son

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is set in which of America's Conflicts?

Vietnam (Conflict) or Vietnam (War)

Give the surname of the two German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm, who published works on grammar and language as well collecting three volumes of fairy tales.

Grimm (The Brothers Grimm)