Pass, Door, Word and Code Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hermeneutic

Roland Gérard Barthes (1915-1980) was a French philosopher, literary theorist, essayist, critic, and semiotician. One of his most influential works is the essay "The Death of an Author", in which he formulated his theory of literature.

His five narrative codes are:

1) Hermeneutic code: the code of enigmas or puzzles; 2) Proairetic code: the code of actions; 3) Semantic code: the accumulation of connotative elements; 4) Cultural code: the voice of science or knowledge; 5) Symbolic code: the voice of the symbols.

Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation of texts.

Answer: Othello

"Othello, the Moor of Venice" is a tragedy by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

"My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange" is part of a speech in Act 1, Scene 3, in which Othello, a general of the Venetian army, talks of his relationship with his wife, Desdemona. Othello is manipulated by the treacherous ensign Iago, who makes him believe his wife is unfaithful to him; maddened by jealousy and anger, he murders Desdemona. At the end of the play, when he learns that Desdemona was innocent, he commits suicide.

As an adverb, "passing" means, in Shakespeare's works, exceedingly or extremely.

Answer: Hope

The "Inferno" is the first part of the 14th century epic poem "La Divina Commedia" ("The Divine Comedy") by Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a voyage through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. At the beginning of their journey, Dante and his guide Virgil pass through the gates of Hell, and above them they read the prophetic inscription, "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" ("Abandon all hope, ye who enter here").

Answer: William Wordsworth

Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the main figures of the so-called Lake School, a group of English poets and writers of the 19th century belonging to the Romantic movement.

The definition derives from their residence in the Lake District, Cumbria.

William Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, where he wrote, among other poems, the famous "I wandered lonely as a cloud" and "Ode: The Pass of Kirkstone". Kirkstone is the highest pass in the Lake District traversed by a road.

Answer: "I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed"

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is considered one of the greatest American poets of all time. She was a very prolific writer, but only a small part of her 1800 poems was printed during her life.

"I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed" is a lyrical poem first published on May, 4 1861. Through the metaphor of alcohol and intoxication, the poet expresses her overwhelming joy and her intense emotional involvement with nature and its beauty.

Answer: 17,000 - 40,000

A novella is a narrative work of fiction shorter than a novel but longer than a short story, with a word count between 17,000 and 40,000 words.

Famous examples of novellas are "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville and "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.

A short story can be very short with 1,000 words, or not that short with 15,000 words. Most published short stories, though, have 3,000-5,000 words. Novels have never less than 50,000 words and, of course, an open-end (as long as the publishing house agrees to print it).

Answer: Cow creamer

Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster is the narrator and the central character of almost all Jeeves novels and short stories by humorist P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975). He is an amiable and goodhearted, albeit naďve, young gentleman, and the perpetual victim of his domineering aunts.

Stealing the cow-creamer in "The Code of the Woosters" causes him lots of hilarious (for the readers) troubles. But as always, his loyal and intelligent valet Jeeves solves all the problems and saves him.

Answer: "Ulysses" by James Joyce

"Ulysses" by James Joyce (1882-1941) is widely considered a masterpiece and one of the most influential literary works of the 20th century.

All events and actions take place in Dublin within a single day. It is conceived as a modern parallel to Homer's Odyssey and follows Leopold Bloom in his wandering through the city.

Not only is Leopold Bloom intended as a contemporary Ulysses, also the other two central characters of the novel, Stephan Daedalus and Molly, are conceived as counterparts of Telemachus and Penelope.

The final chapter, the famous Molly's inner monologue, is a stream-of-consciousness soliloquy of more than 20,000 words without any punctuation. It contains several extremely long sentences, the last of them with around 4,300 words, which makes it the "longest" sentence in English literature.

Answer: The Door

"The Door" spans the years-long relationship between the narrator Magda, a young aspiring novelist at the onset of the plot (it is considered a semi-autobiographic book), and Emerence, her aging housekeeper who is at the wake of her hard and unrewarding life. The door is a metaphor on Emerence's closure to the outside world, on which she prefers to shower witty, sarcastic comment from inside out. With time, the door shall open, just once.

The book was made into a film in 2012 by Szabó's compatriot István Szabó (no family relation between the two), starring Martina Gedeck and Helen Mirren.

Answer: Acrostic

There are several famous examples of acrostic poems, such as "An Acrostic" by Edgar Allan Poe, which spells out the name "Elizabeth".

Acrostics, not always in poetic form, are very useful as mnemonics, or to convey a veiled (or not so veiled) message to people we dislike, pretending afterwards that the offending word spelled out by the first letters of each line, was accidental. There are many examples of it in messages between politicians.

Cryptogram, rebus and jumble are all types of puzzles.