Literary Quiz o' the Day

We're getting an early start for today's quiz. Today's answer comes to us from the realm of British literature. We read this poem last year in Brit Lit, so delve into the old memory bank on this Thursday morning to see if you can recall the author.

It was on this day 207 years ago that the sonnet "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" was written.

Most of this poet's poems were about nature and the joy of open spaces without people. So this sonnet is surprising, because it is written about a busy city — London had about 1 million inhabitants at the time.

The sonnet reads:
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!

Who is the poet? AND....a BONUS QUESTION....what literary period is this poet known for founding?

Good luck and happy reading!

Ulysses by James Joyce...

....was the answer for today's literary quiz. See below for more information on the banning and trial...

(from today's Writer's Almanac from American Public Media)

Ulysses stood out to United States officials for its highbrow aura and the publicity it attracted as the newest, most advanced thing in literature. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice brought The Little Review to trial under the state's obscenity law. The episode from the novel was ruled obscene, and Ulysses was banned in the United States.

The banned book was a hot item on the black market, and Joyce knew he was losing a lot of money to pirate publishers. He wanted an American readership and the royalties that came with it, so his lawyers worked with the executives at Random House to bait the U.S. government into going to trial. In 1933, Random House decided to import a single version of the French edition of Ulysses, and the company had people wait at the New York docks for the book's arrival. It was a hot day and the U.S. Customs inspector didn't want to be bothered with another inspection, but the Random House people made sure that one book was seized.

A second trial, "United States v. One Book Called Ulysses," was held over the fate of that single copy of Ulysses. Judge John Woolsey ruled that the book had no "dirt for dirt's sake" and was not, in fact, pornographic. His ruling changed the standards for literary obscenity. He disregarded the traditional standard for obscenity — whether the work would "deprave and corrupt" a vulnerable young reader — and said that the proper test is whether it would "lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts" in the average adult. Also, no longer could a single line make a whole book obscene. Woolsey pointed out that the book was so difficult to understand, people would be unlikely to read it for titillation. The Court of Appeals agreed and called Ulysses "a sincere portrayal" and "executed with real art." Ulysses was safe to sell in the United States.

In his opinion for the case, Judge Woolsey wrote: "In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring."

Literary Quiz o' the Day

Happy Friday!! Here is today's quiz. Sorry if you detect a pattern here...I can't really help myself sometimes...

It was on this day in 1934 that the United States Court of Appeals ruled in favor of what novel, previously banned in the USA?

Answers will be accepted via email and blog post. Good luck!!!

George Bernard Shaw...

...was the correct response to today's Literary Quiz o' the Day. Good work by Jill Bender and Nicole Pike on their speedy Sunday morning responses :-) Here is a bit more on GBS:

It's the birthday of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, born in Dublin (1856). He's the author of dozens of plays, including Man and Superman (1905), Pygmalion (1912), and Saint Joan (1923). Shaw won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925 and an Oscar in 1938 for his film Pygmalion. He's the only person in history to receive both the Nobel and an Oscar.

He had a precise and peculiar morning ritual: According to friend and biographer Stephen Winsten, Shaw would awaken early every day, go to his sink and fill it with cold water, dip his whole face into the sink with his eyes open, splash his eyes with water seven times, and then blot his face dry with a soft bath towel. Shaw said that when he was a boy in Ireland, a peasant instructed him to do this, and he did it ever since. After his ritual washing every day, he opened up the newspaper and read the obituaries first, while eating a breakfast that did not vary from day to day.

He's considered to be the greatest English-language dramatist after Shakespeare. Even before he had written a masterpiece, Shaw was announcing this very comparison to people, and adding that he did some things in playwriting even better than Shakespeare did. Shaw knew all of the plays he had written by memory. He was also a prolific music critic and literary critic, and he's highly quotable. He liked to quote himself. He said, "My specialty is being right when other people are wrong."

He was a great letter-writer and kept up correspondences with many people, including the British actresses Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Ellen Terry, poet Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas and writer H.G. Wells. For 75 years, he averaged nine letters a day, every day. He was lifelong friends with G.K. Chesterton and composer Edgar Elgar.

He lived to be 94 years old, and then died not of natural causes, but from injuries after falling off a ladder while pruning trees.

Shaw wrote and said a great many memorable things, including:
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That's the essence of inhumanity."

(Shaw biographical information courtesy of "The Writer's Almanac" from American Public Media)

Literary Quiz o' the Day

Today is the birthday of a playwright who is considered to be the greatest English-language dramatist after Shakespeare. Even before he had written a masterpiece, this Irish playwright was announcing this very comparison to people, and adding that he did some things in play writing even better than Shakespeare did. He knew all of the plays he had written by memory. He was also a prolific music critic and literary critic, and he's highly quotable. He liked to quote himself. He said, "My specialty is being right when other people are wrong."

Who is he??

Literary Quiz o' the Day

Happy July!!

This is the first literary quiz for the month of July, and, pending my internet access, the last one for two weeks as I leave for Ireland tomorrow. I will be able to check email via my iPhone, but I won't be responding regularly. If something comes up, please contact me and I will get back to you as soon as I am able.

And without further ado....

A TWO FOR ONE QUIZ!!! Today is the birthday of the well-known grammarian, responsible for what E.B. White called "the little book" when White was a student at Cornell University. White went on to edit a version of this author's famous guide for grammar and writing. Who is the author and what was the proper title of "the little book."

Please provide BOTH answers in order to be considered the winner. Reply either via post on the blog or by email.

Happy summer and happy reading...

Literary Quiz o' the Day winner...

It was on this day in 1613 that a historic literary landmark burned to the ground in London? What landmark was it?

Nicole Pike was the first to respond with the Globe Theatre.

On this day in 1613, the Globe Theatre burned down. It was built by Shakespeare's acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, in 1599. It was a round, wooden building with thatched-roof balconies for the gentry. A cannon was fired during a performance of Henry VIII to mark the King's entrance, the thatched roof caught fire, and the whole theater was lost in an hour. It was rebuilt the next year, but taken down in 1644 to make space for tenements, after the Puritans closed all theaters. A replica, the new Globe Theatre, was built in the mid-1990s.

Literary Quiz o' the Day

It's the birthday of the English author, born in Bengal, India, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair.
What was his pen name?

Literary Quiz o' the Day winner...

And the winner of today's quiz is....Jill Bender! Jill was the first to correctly respond to today's literary quiz:

It's the birthday of the author who is responsible for two thriller mysteries that have become Hollywood blockbusters. HINT: a Harvard symbologist appears in both of them... Who is it?

Jill's answer of Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, was received at 8:36 AM. Granted, your insane teacher was up at 5:30 AM, which is why today's quiz was announced at 6:15 AM. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to keep up with us!

Running LQotD tally..
Caroline Pfliger - 10 AP bonus points and $1
Jill Bender - 10 AP bonus points and $1

Tune in next time to see what literary trivia awaits you when we play......
BHS - AP English Lit and Comp's "Literary Quiz o' the Day"

Happy reading...

Literary Quiz o' the Day winner...

Caroline Pfliger is the Literary Quiz o' the Day winner with her speedy response to the literary significance of June 16th. See the entry from Wikipedia below...

Good on'ya Caroline! (Irish slang for "nice job)

Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin, Ireland, and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. 16 June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend.

MCC post script:
I had the good fortune to be in Dublin five years ago today for the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday. I purchased a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses (see photo above) and read 150 pages of it last summer (It's 932 pages long). I have decided to read 100 pages each Bloomsday until I am finished. At the rate I am going, it will take 9 years. Yikes...

I've read 50 pages between last night and this morning, and if I get really hooked, I may just push through until my eyes and brain get crossed with Joyce's stream-of-consciousness writing. If you look closely at the edge of Ulysses, you can see green sticky notes, indicating words I need to define. This is your teacher setting a good example :)

Happy Bloomsday and happy reading!!