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About This Quiz
American writers have helped define time periods and movements in American culture. Take this quiz and find out how much you know about these authors and their works!
Who defined the Iceberg theory?
Mark Twain
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway's fiction was influenced by his years as a journalist. For that reason, he often omitted information that could be found if the work was well-read.
Walt Whitman
Who wrote "Song of Myself?"
Walt Whitman
"Song of Myself" was written without any regular form or rhythm, making it a free verse poem, which broke from tradition at the time.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
William Faulkner
Jack London
Where does O Pioneers! take place?
New York
California
Nebraska
O Pioneers! is part of Willa Cather's Great Plain trilogy, which includes The Song of the Lark and My Antonia.
Georgia
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Who was NOT part of the Realist movement?
Edgar Allan Poe
Realism was a response to the over-dramatized Romantic movement that came before it. Realist authors sought to capture a more realistic world.
Mark Twain
Henry James
William Dean Howells
Who was Huck's companion in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
Jack
Tom
Mark
Jim
In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Huck and Jim make a trip down the Mississippi River, as they both try to escape the confines of their previous life.
What movement was Jack London influential in?
Modernism
Naturalism
In Naturalism, fiction served as a study of human interaction with the environment. Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is an example from the Naturalist movement.
Romanticism
The Enlightenment
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Who was the main character in The Catcher in the Rye?
Atticus Finch
Edna Pontellier
Biff Loman
Holden Caulfield
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is a rebellious teenager who runs away from a private school as he suffers through a dilemma with alienation.
Which story addresses racism in the American South?
The Rise of Silas Latham
Death of a Salesman
To Kill a Mockingbird
Set in Alabama during the Great Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows the trial of a black man named Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white woman.
Of Mice and Men
Which story is set during the Italian campaign in World War I?
The Rise of Silas Lapham
The Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms addresses the reality of war. The book is influenced by Hemingway's time as an ambulance driver in World War I.
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Who wrote Death of a Salesman?
Arthur Miller
In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller addressed themes related to the American family and human purpose.
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
John Updike
Who was NOT a character in The Great Gatsby?
Nick Carraway
Tom Joad
Narrated by the fictional character Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby follows Jay Gatsby as he tries to rekindle a relationship with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
Jay Gatsby
Daisy Buchanan
Which was NOT a play by Tennessee Williams?
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Glass Menagerie
This is Our Youth
As one of America's most prominent playwrights in the 20th century, Tennessee Williams often wrote about people's lack of communication and violent nature.
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Which of Sam Shepard's plays won the Pulitzer Prize?
True West
Buried Child
In Buried Child, Sam Shepard writes about a dysfunctional family in the American Midwest with secrets to hide.
Fool for Love
The God of Hell
Who wrote Moby Dick?
Harper Lee
Arthur Miller
Herman Melville
Melville's novel follows Captain Ahab on his quest to kill the whale, Moby Dick, who destroyed Ahab's ship and took his leg.
Ernest Hemingway
What is "Hills Like White Elephants" about?
A suicide
A marriage
A hanging
An abortion
Although never mentioned in the story, the characters in "Hills Like White Elephants" talk about an operation that is implied to be an abortion.
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Who was a character in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Brick
In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Brick suffers with his homosexual feelings towards his dead friend, Skipper.
Happy Loman
Atticus Finch
Captain Ahab
Who wrote On the Road?
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Jack Kerouac
Critics believe On the Road is an informal autobiography about Jack Kerouac and his friends.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
William Faulkner
How many Pulitzer prizes did Robert Frost win?
0
1
2
4
Robert Frost won Pulitzer prizes for A Witness Tree, A Further Range, Collected Poems, and New Hampshire.
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What influenced Langston Hughes' poetry?
Life as a seaman
Jazz music
Langston Hughes' poetry reflected the rhythm associated with Jazz music in the early 20th century. This style of poetry was influential during the Harlem Renaissance.
Life in the country
Asian history
Who wrote The Waste Land?
Robert Frost
Ernest Hemingway
Allen Ginsberg
T.S. Eliot
The Waste Land was a five part poem that helped defined Modernist poetry.
What movement was Allen Ginsberg part of?
Victorian poetry
The Beat Generation
Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" is a defining work from the Beat Generation that helped define the counter-culture that was to come.
The Realist movement
The Enlightenment
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Where does Blanche DuBois go after being evicted from her home in the play A Streetcar Named Desire?
New York
Los Angeles
Atlanta
New Orleans
When Blanche is kicked out of her family home in Mississippi, she moves in with her sister, Stella, and Stella's husband, Stanley.
Who wrote "A Rose for Emily?"
William Faulkner
"A Rose for Emily" is an example of the Southern Gothic genre that defined much of early 20th-century fiction in the South.
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allan Poe
Which was NOT a work by Edgar Allan Poe?
"The Cask of Amontillado"
"The Raven"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"The Road Not Taken"
Edgar Allan Poe's literature was defined by his unique combination of mystery and gruesome death.
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Who is the escaped murderer in "A Good Man is Hard to Find?"
The Killer
The Misfit
In Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find," The Misfit escapes from prison in Florida and runs into a family headed to Florida for vacation.
The Savage
The Man
Who was NOT part of the Lost Generation?
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald
T.S. Eliot
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Lost Generation refers to a group of writers after WWI who wrote about the purposeless life of the youth who came back from the war.
What characterizes Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown?"
Allegory
"Young Goodman Brown" is widely considered an allegory about the fall of man from the Bible.
Realism
Modernism
Neoclassicism
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When were most of Emily Dickinson's poems published?
In her 20s
In her 50s
After her death
Emily Dickinson's sister discovered around 1,800 poems after the author's death that had never been published. It would take years before a volume of Dickonson's work was finally released.
In her 30s
In The World According to Garp, who is Garp's father?
Technical Sargent Garp
In the novel, Jenny Fields has sex with a wounded soldier who is on his death bed named Technical Sargent Garp. She names their son T.S. Garp.
Dean Bodger
Duncan
Ernie Holm
Who is the male protagonist in Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier?
Dean Moriarty
Carlo Marx
Ed Dunkel
W.P. Inman
W.P. Inman is a Confederate soldier who leaves the battlefields to return to his love, Ada Monroe, but his journey is filled with tribulations.
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Who is Jimmy Cross in love with in "The Things They Carried?"
Jane
Jill
Martha
Jimmy Cross does not know if Martha returns his love, but he still carries around pictures and letters from her and fantasizes about her while at war.
Jackie
Who is John Updike's most famous character?
Captain Ahab
Harry "Rabbit" Armstrong
Harry "Rabbit" Armstrong is the central character in Updike's five part series that follows Armstrong's fictional life until after his death.
Jay Gatsby
Huckleberry Finn
Who wrote "Because I Could Not Stop for Death?"
Emily Dickinson
Dickinson's poem elegantly personifies the fact that death always finds time for us, no matter how busy we might be.
Walt Whitman
Robert Frost
Wallace Stevens
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What play was written by Lorraine Hansberry?
Angels in America
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Our Town
A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun addresses issues of racism and the power of dreaming and success.
You Got:
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