- "I can't read this!" I remember saying to Owen. He tried to help me; he helped me with everything else, but "Tess" was simply too difficult. "I can't read about milking cows!" I screamed.
For which part of his work did Thomas Hardy hope to be remembered?
- BOB SOUTHEY! You're a poet--Poet-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, --yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
Who are the Lakers?
- "Take back your "Corrine," said Maggie, drawing a book from under her shawl.
"You were right in telling me she would do me no good, but you were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her.... I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up and determined to read no further. I foresaw that light- complexioned girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable. I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca, and Flora Maclvor, and Minna, and all the rest of the dark unhappy ones."
To what four nineteenth century novels does Maggie allude? Give the titles and the names of the two authors (one of whom wrote three of the works).
- "Yes, but I want-I wanted--have you ever read "The Ordeal of Richarti Feverel"?"
Margaret nodded.
"It's a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the Earth, don't you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson's "Prince Otto"?"
Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
- Who spews out these and other allusions to Margaret, Helen, and Tibby?
- The film version of this novel won an Oscar for Best Actress. Name the
actress and the role (full name).
- What part did the same actress play on one episode of "Cheers"?
- "But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with "Udolpho"?"
"Yes, I have been reading it since I woke; and I am got to the black veil."
"Are you, indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are you not wild to know?"
"Oh! yes, quite, what can it be? But do not tell me-- I would not be told on any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it .... Oh! The dreadful black veil! My dear Isabella, I am sure there must be Laurentina's skeleton behind it."
"It is so odd to me, that you should never have read "Udolpho" before; but I suppose Mrs. Morland objects to novels."
"No, she does not. She very often reads Sir Charles Grandison herself; but new books do not fall in our way."
- What is the complete title of the Udolpho?
- Who wrote it?
- And who wrote Sir Charles Grandison?
- And what is behind the black veil, anyway?
- (A day has passed since this last sentence, and in the interim I've put in a long-distance call from my Place of Business to my sister Boo Boo, in Tuckahoe, to ask her if there's any poem from Seymour's very early boyhood that she'd especially like to go into this account. She said she'd call me back. Her choice turned out to be not nearly so apposite to my present purposes as I'd like, and therefore a trifle irritating, but I think I'll get over it. The one she picked, I happen to know, was written when the poet was eight: "John Keats/ John Keats/ John Keats/ John/ Please put your scarf on.")
- What happens to the poet in the short story by the same author called "A Perfect Day For Bananafish"?
- Is there any good reason why one might have asked John Keats (while he was still alive) to put his scarf on?
- "Oh!" said Wimsey, and thought impatiently, 'ff all these natives are as oyster-like I SHALL have to spend the night .... Well, well," he added aloud, "next time he drops in, say I asked after him."
"And who mought tha be?" inquired Mr. Smith in a hostile manner.
"Oh, only Brooks of Sheffield," said Lord Peter, with a happy grin.
"Good morning. I won't forget to recommend your beer."
- Where does the pseudonym Brooks of Sheffield originally appear?
- And what did the author of that work receive from an actual Brooks of Sheffield after that work was published?
- Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute ... if our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!
It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains...I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man.I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch I had created.
- Name the Shelley poem that appears in part in the quotation above.
- Where was this novel written?
- Of all reformers Mr. Sentiment is perhaps the most powerful .... Perhaps, however, Mr. Sentiment's greatest attraction is in his second-rate characters. If his heroes and heroines walk upon stilts, as heroes and heroines, I fear, ever must, their attendant satellites are as natural as though one met them in the street: they walk and talk like men and women, and live among our friends a rattling, lively life; yes, live, and will live till the names of their calling shall be forgotten in their own, and Buckett and Mrs. Gamp will be the only words left to us to signify a detective police officer or a monthly nurse.
Who is "Mr. Sentiment", and in which of his novels do Buckett and Mrs Gamp appear?
- Lies, lies, it's all lies. A pack of lies. I've even told lies of fact, which I had not meant to do. Oh, I meant to deceive, I meant to draw analogies, but I've done worse than that, I've misrepresented. What have I tried to describe? A passion, a love, an unreal life, a life in limbo, without anxiety, guilt, corpses; no albatross, no sin, no weariness, no aching swollen breasts, no bleeding womb, but the pure flower of love itself, blossoming out of God knows what rottenness, out of decay, from dead men's lives, growing out of my dead belly like a tulip. Reader, I loved him, as Charlotte Bronte; said. Which was Charlotte Bronte's man, the one she created and wept and longed for, or the poor curate that had her and killed her, her sexual measure, her sexual match? I had James, oh God, I had him...
- Charlotte Bronte's novel is slightly misquoted. Give the correct quotation.
- Who are the men of Charlotte Bronte to whom the author alludes?
- "Okay, Mr. Hawthorne--"
"Try Tye. Short for Tyrell. That's my name."
"Tyrell? What a dreadful name! He killed the two young princes in the Tower of London; it's right there in Shakespeare's "Richard III"."
"My father had a warped sense of humor. If my brother had been a girl, he swore he'd have called her Medea. As it happened, he was a boy, so Dad settled for Marcus Antonius Hawthorne; our mother switched it to Marc Anthony."
And what happens to Clarence in Shakespeare's "Richard III"?
- Everything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all that was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the incident occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of emotions. How it came about was at first a mystery.
The tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with what had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of applause had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his permission that Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the statue move. Hermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six inches, which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and instep, when at the given signal she should advance and descend.
"Music, awake her, strike!" said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who by special entreaty had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood). Herr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the piano, struck a thunderous chord-- but in the same instant, and before Hermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line with the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed the picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure brought out in pale definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Every one was startled, but all eyes in the act of turning towards the opened panel were recalled by a piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of attitude, but with a change of expression that was terrifying in its terror.
From which of Shakespeare's plays is the tableau of the statue bride taken?
- --And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland.
--Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron.
--O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in a book.
At this Stephen forgot the silent vows he had been making and burst out:
--Tennyson a poet! Why, he's only a rhymester!
--O, get out! said Heron. Everyone knows that Tennyson is the greatest poet.
--And who do you think is the greatest poet? asked Boland, nudging his neighbor.
--Byron, of course, answered Stephen.
- Which of the poets was elected Poet Laureate of England?
- Which female poet was also in the running for the position?
- "May we at least look?" said Roland, imagining perhaps a hidden drawer, and at the same time uncomfortably aware of the laundry lists in "Northanger Abbey."
Sir George obligingly moved the light across to the desk, restoring the little faces to the dark in which they had lain. Roland lifted the lid on a bare casket. There were empty arched pigeonholes at the back, fretted and carved, and two empty little drawers .... He felt suddenly angry with Maud, who was standing stock still, in the dark, not moving a finger to help him, not urging, as she with her emotional advantage might have done, further exploration of hidden treasures or pathetic dead caskets.
It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a "secret" at Bly-- a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement? I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had my collision; I only recall that when I reentered the house darkness had quite closed in.
- Name the heroines of the two novels to which the narrating governess alludes in this passage.
- Who played the narrating governess in the most recent film version? And what did the producers arbitrarily decide to call her?
- An upper floor was dedicated to Newland, and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen, collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good Words", and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere. (They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a gentleman" and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.)
- Like so many other authors, "Ouida" published under a pseudonym. What was her real name, and where did the pseudonym come from?
- The film version featured the late Alexis Smith in her final film role. Which
supporting character did she portray in the film?
- And in her final television role, who did she play on an episode of "Cheers"?
- An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was doing me the honor of talking to me on the playground, that I hazarded the observation that something or somebody-- I forget what now-was like something or somebody in "Peregrine Pickle." He said nothing at the time; but when I was going to bed, asked me if I had got that book.
Who wrote "Peregrine Pickle"?
- One moment more, with her head raised, she listened, as if she waited for some habitual sound, some regular mechanical sound; and then, hearing something rhythmical, half said, half chanted, beginning in the garden, as her husband beat up and down the terrace, something between a croak and a song, she was soothed once more, assured again that all was well, and looking down at the book on her knee found the picture of the knife with six blades which could only be cut out if James was very careful.
Which poem does "he" quote?
- You will laugh at my warmth, but, upon my word, I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax-- and her situation is so calculated to affect one! Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour to do something for her. Such talent as hers must not be suffered to remain unknown. I dare say you have heard those charming lines of the poet--
'Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen And waste its fragrance on the desert air.' We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax.
Who is the eighteenth century poet, and what is the poem?
- Henry, I believed, had a plan. What it was, I didn't know. He was always disappearing on mysterious errands, and perhaps these were only more of the same; but now, anxious to believe that someone, at least, had the situation in hand, I imbued them with a certain hopeful significance. Not infrequently he refused to answer his door, even late at night when a light was burning and I knew he was at home; more than once he appeared late for dinner with wet shoes, windblown hair, and mud on the cuffs of his neat dark trousers. A stack of mysterious books, in a Near Eastern language that looked like Arabic and bearing the stamp of the Williams College Library, materialized in the back seat of his car. This was doubly puzzling, as I did not think he read Arabic; nor, to my knowledge, did he have borrowing privileges at the Williams College Library. Glancing surreptitiously at the back pocket of one of them, I found the card was still in it, and that the last person to check it out was an F. Lockett, back in 1929.