Literary Allusion in Songs and Movies Quiz

Answer: William Shakespeare

In "Hamlet", Shakespeare writes: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. . . " The 1998 movie stars Robin Williams.

Answer: T.S. Eliot

This drama, released in 2002, stars Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter. The title comes from Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Answer: Hamlet

The words come from Hamlet's famous soliloquy, in which he contemplates suicide: "To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?" Mel Brooks took the title from the original 1942 film of the same title, starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard.

Answer: Hartley Coleridge

This comes from Sonnet VII: "Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No. / It is immortal as immaculate Truth."

Answer: Hamlet

The movie is based on a play by Tom Stoppard. The characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play a minor role in Shakespeare's play: they are friends of Hamlet.

Answer: Polonius

Cher says she knows it was the "Polonius dude" who said the words and not Hamlet, because she knows Mel Gibson. This is part of Polonius's advice to his son Laertes, which also includes, "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be."

Answer: Robert Frost

They also mention to Dickinson: "You read your Emily Dickinson, and I my Robert Frost / And we note our place with bookmarkers / That measure what we've lost."

Answer: Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis Kerouac was born of French-Canadian parents in Massachusetts. In addition to "On the Road", he is also famous for his "The Dharma Bums". In the 10,000 Maniacs song, the singer laments, "What a tear stained shock of the world / You've gone away without saying / Goodbye."

Answer: Christina Rossetti

The Cure sings, "Remember me and smile... / For it's better to forget / Than to remember me /And cry." Rossetti said it with a little more literary refinery: "Yet if you should forget me for a while / And afterwards remember, do not grieve: / For if the darkness and corruption leave / A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, / Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad."

Answer: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dylan sings, "You've been through all of / F. Scott Fitzgerald's books / You're very well read / It's well known."

Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Rime" is a "supernatural" poem written in ballad stanza which gives us the famous lines: "He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all."

Answer: Scylla

This saying appears in the modern English idiom as "stuck between a rock and a hard place." The song also has an allusion to Faust: "Mephistopheles is not your name."

Answer: Petrarch

Petrarch lived and wrote in the 14th, not the 13th century. It is possible that Dylan did not have a specific poet in mind, but rather a general school of poets known for their love lyrics.

Answer: Samuel Beckett

To what "exile" does Morrison allude? When in World War II the Germans occupied France, Beckett, who was involved in the French resistance movement, was forced to flee to Roussillon in the unoccupied zone. Morrison also references Oscar Wilde in the song.

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Most known for his plays, Wilde also wrote "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Other literary characters in the movie include Captain Nemo, Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, Tom Sawyer, Allan Quartermain, and Mina Harker.