History Writes Itself Trivia Quiz

Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer

The Medieval Era was one of the first to show significance in the literary world due to the rise of fiction and storytelling. At the time, most of the works were written in Latin and had strong religious overtones, and a great many involved the adventures of noble warriors. This was the time of "Beowulf".

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" was one of the most notable pieces of the era. Consisting of several tales written in a non-specific order, it was written in then-current English-- not Latin-- and featured the stories apparently told by people on a pilgrimage. During this era, literature was believed to be an important tool in reflecting and mimicking reality but at the same time it demonstrated class structure, and the overarching religiosity of that time period. "The Wife of Bath's Tale", for instance, is one of the most popular. In this story, the Wife of Bath conflicts with gender roles of the time and gives an oral recounting of her past. The tale is meant to be satirical, however, as Chaucer and other writers of the time were better known for passing on oral tales, especially in verse and poetry. Stories like "Beowulf", after all, were based on oral tradition.

Sir Thomas Malory wrote "Le Morte d'Arthur", Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote "Parzival", and Dante Alighieri wrote "The Divine Comedy" during this era. All three are famous works and act as influences for different contemporary outlets even today.

Answer: John Dryden

The Renaissance was a time of change in Europe and, as such, literature made changes as well. Since oral storytelling remained a popular method of entertainment, the poet was praised. This was an era of sonnets and lyrics.

William Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous of the authors and playwrights in this era-- his works, even today, are reviewed and adapted. Most are still acted onstage and are regarded as amongst the finest plays ever created. Shakespeare was also well-known for his poetry, particularly his collection of sonnets.

Francesco Petrarca was also a fan of sonnets. An Italian renaissance man, Petrarch's sonnets, usually about love, were among the finest of his day. He and Shakespeare both utilized different rhyme schemes, but the formula was the same-- fourteen lines in iambic pentameter. He was, however, writing before the printing press was introduced.

Edmund Spenser's great work in the Renaissance was "The Faerie Queene", a lyrical epic written in the late sixteenth century. This was a work which, like many before and after, indicated a religious subtext. While beauty, love, and musicality were praised, so was piety.

John Dryden, born in 1631, would use poetry to help usher in the next era: The Age of Enlightenment.

Answer: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Age of Enlightenment was a turn away from the piousness and regal feel of the Renaissance preceding it. With the Industrial Revolution on the rise, people turned to machinery and manufacturing. Books became a hot commodity.

This was also an era of revolutionary thought. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau started to pave the way towards the Romantic era, while others attempted to move ahead with growth, productivity, and the expansion of civilization. American freedom writers like Thomas Paine fueled revolution with "Common Sense" while Johnathan Swift published the scathing satire "Gulliver's Travels".

Rousseau's "Discourse on Inequality" was originally written as part of an essay contest in Dijon in which he was asked the question "What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?" While Rousseau wasn't even considered for the prize-- probably because of his decision to criticize the Enlightenment's ideals and values in favor of inartificiality-- the work pinpointed the ideals of eighteenth century Europe (and the expanding world) and planted the seeds for the next major era, that of the Romantics.

Answer: Nature

The Romantics stood for everything against Enlightenment ideals. While the earlier era praised and anticipated upward motion, change, progress, industry, and economy, the Romantics were free-thinkers who loved nature, love, beauty, and freedom from constraint and civilization.

Jane Austen's books, for instance, involved the search for love amongst English, female heroines. William Wordsworth's poems were beautiful odes to the countryside, the moments of clarity in an industrial world, and lovely women. Even Coleridge's works such as the fantastical "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" were Romantic; Coleridge was a Transcendentalist and sought something beyond a man-made mesh of cities. Of course, that something was opium, but we tend to disregard that when he wrote the majestic "Kubla Khan".

Gone were the days of didactic, Enlightenment writing and in came the celebration of the working class; the poet became an idealist who sought to evoke the majesty of the world. As Wordsworth said, it was about finding the "extraordinary in the ordinary" and bring poetry to the people.

Answer: Gothic literature

Although the Romantic era was a time of love and beauty, it was also a time of awe. What comes to mind when you stand atop the highest peak looking upon the jagged, snow-capped mountains below? None other than the sublime.

As time passed and the Industrial Revolution went on despite the Romantics' literary protests, a turn was seen in writing. Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe had written Gothic novels of horror and terror before the turn of the century and with the continued rise of literacy and the novel in Europe, mass production of pulpy, Gothic publications were selling by the droves. Even Jane Austen got in on the trend, writing "Northanger Abbey" as a Gothic work (though that was a tongue-in-cheek satire).

Real changes emerged when Mary Shelley wrote "The Modern Prometheus" in Geneva's Villa Diodati. This book later became known as "Frankenstein" and it clued readers into the ever-present problems of advancing scientific discovery. Man plays God, it seems. The world becomes sublime, but perhaps there is nothing more dangerous and sublime than that which man creates. The book became an instant hit; it's remade on film and reconstructed in literature even today. It also pushed a new wave in Gothic literature devoted to the paranormal; more fright and terror, less graphic horror (we can't all be Walpole).

At the same villa, John Polidori wrote a seminal vampire story, "The Vampyre", which would inspire writers like Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, and countless others.

Mary's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, didn't write much at the Villa Diodati. Neither did Lord Byron (a real chick magnet in the Romantic period, from what I understand). Both, however, were also pioneers of the era.

Answer: The era was during the reign of Queen Victoria

With industry in full swing, a turn was noted in the work of the Victorians who brought much of their writings down to the working class. A big change was noted in the depiction of children-- this was the time when "Treasure Island" and "Little Women" were written. Remember Tiny Tim from "A Christmas Carol"? Times were rough.

This era was a time for Charles Dickens; all of his works fall into this generation of writers and his stories, often about hard times in the Industrial Revolution (including "Hard Times") and the plight of the people, ended up demonstrating the circumstances perfectly. Most people don't realize that Dickens was paid by the word to write his stories.

Gothic literature continued to flourish; the ghost story became prevalent in both the UK and the U.S.; Edgar Allan Poe brought us poetry and short stories to be afraid of in the dark before creating "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", considered by many to be the first tale of ratiocination. Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" would be agreed upon by many as the first-ever detective novel in its wake.

Poetry continued to blossom. Nature was still a major topic in the works of Browning, Rossetti, and Tennyson, but the popular media of this day was prose and fiction. The Romantics got what they wanted to an extent-- the imagination soared. Perhaps it wasn't in a direction they desired, but the public was more literate than before; books were more available; even Dickens published his works in serial formats on a regular basis. Books were long (money per word!) but books were sensational.

Answer: Heart of Darkness

"Heart of Darkness" was released in serials in 1899 by Joseph Conrad, the first in a long line of Modernists. Following a man's journey down a river in Africa, the story took a metaphorical look at the evils of man.

Modernist writers approached their works with the philosophy "Make it new", and that's what Conrad did with his book. The point behind Modernism? To tear apart Victorian sensibilities. If there's one thing a good Modernist enjoyed it was redefining literary norms. In "Heart of Darkness", Conrad redefined his story with multiple narrative frameworks, configured the concept of a seaborne tale, and doused the work with heavy metaphors about humanity and civilization's underbelly. No longer could the unquestionable progress and certainty of Queen Victoria's reign be relied upon. This was a time where writers needed to pave a new way for themselves.

Conrad's book was at the start of it all, before 1900. "Dracula" was written in the same decade (in 1897) by Bram Stoker and showed signs of reinvention; Stoker freed the vampire from a foreign land and defined the interpretation of the monstrous figure. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Victorian author, perfected the detective novel before Agatha Christie would master it in the Modernist era. "The Inheritors" was written by Conrad and Ford Madox Ford in 1901-- definitely Modernist.

This was also a time for experimenting in poetry. James Joyce' "Ulysses", for instance, was a dense work which, to this day, has its meanings debated upon. Over the course of the first World War, poetry became the voice of the soldiers on the battlefield.

Answer: Ford Madox Ford

After World War I and before World War II, the world was in a bit of an upheaval. People were worried about the future and, as the Roarin' Twenties hit, changes were being made. Women got the right to vote; fun was being had by rambunctious masses; jazz started to emerge with the birth of Tin Pan Alley.

At the same time, the writers were getting snootier-- at least the major authors. It was at this time that certain writers were flying to Paris to live together and write books that they would enjoy amongst themselves. Hemingway, Pound, Ford, Woolf, and others would meet each other in different venues to discuss their manuscripts and disseminate the fact that nothing was ever truly knowable, especially in such a tumultuous, revolutionary time.

And if nothing was ever truly knowable, then everything in their novels was unstable and impulsive. Hemingway's "In Our Time", a collection of seemingly unrelated short stories, showed a deftness for writing but purposely jilted its style. Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" showed a Prohibition-era New York, a time of roaring parties and fast cars and carelessness. Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway", "To the Lighthouse", and "A Room of One's Own" spoke out for women's rights amongst their layers of meaning (oh-- the Lighthouse is a complex metaphor!) as did the work of Gertrude Stein.

Ford Madox Ford's "The Good Soldier" embodied what these writers were looking for; characters were unstable and almost too impulsive. The book followed a group of four people going about their activities in the UK; two of them would be dead by the end of the story, but how they died is the issue. Because the narrator, John Dowdle, is so unreliable, the reader has to question every inch of every page. I guess that's uncertainty in a nutshell.

By the time the Depression (and Faulkner) showed on the scene, these authors were devoted to many different new practices (Faulkner, for instance, chose verisimilitude). But when World War II began and ended, a new generation of writers found the Modernists too pretentious and hoity-toity. Of this they were certain.

Answer: Jack Kerouac

After the war, a small group of writers started something new, but something which slowly began to change the minds of younger generations, especially in the United States. The Beat Generation, headed by Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg, created the image of the beatnik and spoke for openness and change to the systems in place (don't all of these new eras speak for change?).

This time, there was heavy drug use (wait...didn't the Romantics do that with opium and laudanum?) and a certain sexual openness. Like the Romantics, it was all about a feel and evoking an unmistakeable quality which had to be sensed, with all the senses, to be believed and understood. This was an era of jazz music, beat poetry, and bebop.

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" epitomized the poetry scene in 1956; a long rant of a poem meant to be read in one breath, it was an outcry against the ways of the nation and an urging for true freedom. Unlike the Modernists who felt that nothing could be known, the Beat Generation felt that either it could be known if you searched and felt hard enough or, likely, it didn't matter so long as you explored yourself and the world...and the music.

Kerouac's "On the Road" was a roman a clef with himself and other Beat figures in the major roles; Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty spent the novel traveling the United States, usually in their cars, and meeting people along the way. En route to wherever they wanted to go, they uncovered more about themselves, lost themselves again and again (usually in the music), and sped along to the crazy, syncopated beat of the times.

"On the Road" almost seemed like "Howl" in a novel; it advocated freedom in a unique way. While "Howl" was written in a breath, Kerouac's novel was written entirely on a single scroll of paper and submitted to publishers in the same way. They thought he was mad and broke up the prose to make it palatable for readers. Kerouac wasn't thrilled.

Answer: Metafictive

Postmodernism is characterized by a number of things, most notably mish-mashing, which is a horrible word for me to use. A postmodern novel is not easily defined, but what is notable is a tendency to combine genres, styles, and tropes to complicate (or perhaps understand) identity. A lot of works from minority writers seeking their place in the world were created during this period, often with magic realist and sci-fi elements.

Postmodernist writers have also been very clever to make their works (and by association, themselves) seem smarter by alluding to other works, even just in passing. By deepening their works with intertextuality, they create metaphors, much like the Modernists did early on. We just happen to be in a pop culture-laden world. This plays a big role in this era; with so much technological advancement and higher population than ever, these writers feel we get lost in the mix.

Most importantly, postmodern work is extremely metafictive; by this I mean that the stories allude to themselves as works of fiction. This can be done in complicated ways, but often it's as easy as making the narrator or main character a writer or referring to the reader as actually reading the book in question. It's all about self-reflexivity which, in turn, forces the reader to confront themselves and the world around them.

Some notable works of this period vary in style and genre a great deal. Examples include Kurt Vonnegut's collective fictional works, William Gibson's sci-fi novel "Neuromancer", the lengthy works of David Foster Wallace, and Mark Z. Danielewski's dense, uniquely-formatted "House of Leaves".