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Jorge Luis Borges Trivia Quiz

Jorge Luis Borges is widely recognized as one of the most innovative writers of the 20th century. This quiz sheds some light on a few details about the writer and his work.

A multiple-choice quiz by stigsby. Estimated time: 6 mins.

Author
stigsby

Time
6 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
231,243

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Tough

Avg Score
5 / 10

Plays
228

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 24, 1899. Which of these renowned writers was also born in 1899? Hint

Virginia Woolf

Bertolt Brecht

Vladimir Nabokov

Samuel Beckett

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Question 2 of 10

2. Borges considered himself primarily a poet, but is best known for his short fictions and essays. How many novels did he publish during his lifetime? Hint

3. Referring to his erudite upbringing, Borges once commented that his "household was so bilingual that he was not even aware that _______ and Spanish were separate languages until later in his childhood." Which other language was he referring to? Hint

German

Portuguese

French

English

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Question 4 of 10

4. Which animals were particularly fascinating to Borges throughout his life? Hint

Tigers

Horses

Snakes

Condors

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Question 5 of 10

5. As a student at the College Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, Borges became acquainted with the works of his "favorite" philosopher and a poet whose style he then believed "the culmination of all the subtle aims of poetry." Name the two visionaries in question. Hint

Descartes and Baudelaire

Hume and Donne

Rousseau and Heine

Schopenhauer and Whitman

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Question 6 of 10

6. In the early 1920s, while producing many poems celebrating the local color of his native Buenos Aires, Borges and some friends brought out an "ultraist" publication called "Prisma". Ultraism was a short-lived movement established primarily in opposition to which contemporary movement? Hint

Surrealism

Modernism

Futurism

Dadaism

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Question 7 of 10

7. After dismissing his earlier foray into avant garde poetry as worthless, Borges endured a series of wrenching youthful disappointments. Which of these was NOT one of them? Hint

His eyesight began to fail

The woman he loved dumped him in favour of a literary rival

His apartment and studio burned down

He became politically disenchanted

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Question 8 of 10

8. In 1937, forced to earn a regular income, Borges took a job as a first assistant at a municipal library in Buenos Aires, a post he held for nine years, but a period he later described as one of "solid unhappiness." Which of the following, however, did he accomplish during this time? Hint

He wrote and published a short biography of Miguel Cervantes

He composed hundreds of catalogue entries for books that didn't exist

He translated several hundred "gaucho" poems into English

He became the first to translate William Faulkner into Spanish

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Question 9 of 10

9. "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" was a breakthrough work for Borges. What is the remarkable novelty or premise of this short, fascinating piece? Hint

Cervantes is exposed as a fraud, and a 13th-century Alsatian cleric is praised instead as the father of the modern novel

The story has nothing to do with either Menard or Cervantes

A French cleric is discovered in possession of the original Cervantes' manuscript, which reveals that the version handed down to posterity has been significantly bowdlerized

A fictional author rewrites Don Quixote word for word, but not as an act of plagiarism

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Question 10 of 10

10. Denied the Nobel Prize for Literature, Borges was honored in 1961 as co-winner of the second-ever International Publishers' Prize. With which author did he share this honor and $20,000 in prize money? Hint

Ivo Andric

Samuel Beckett

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

William Golding

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August 24, 1899. Which of these renowned writers was also born in 1899?

Answer: Vladimir Nabokov

Woolf was born in 1882, Brecht in 1898, and Beckett in 1906. Unlike Borges in virtually every way, Ernest Hemingway was also born in 1899.

2. Borges considered himself primarily a poet, but is best known for his short fictions and essays. How many novels did he publish during his lifetime?

Answer: 0

Borges, whose own appetite for literature was as gargantuan as it was diverse, argued that it made little sense go on for 500 pages "developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes!"

Answer: English

Both of the author's parents also spoke and read English.

4. Which animals were particularly fascinating to Borges throughout his life?

Answer: Tigers

Fond of animals in general, the young Borges spent many hours at the zoo, which was where he first saw these exotic big cats.

Answer: Schopenhauer and Whitman

It was also during this influential period that Borges discovered that the idea of "inventing" a book could be just as effective as writing one.

Answer: Modernism

Modernism had dominated Spanish poetry since the end of the 19th century; while not as radical or influential as the other movements listed above, Ultraism proposed aesthetic changes to its Modernism's deeply entrenched influence.

7. After dismissing his earlier foray into avant garde poetry as worthless, Borges endured a series of wrenching youthful disappointments. Which of these was NOT one of them?

Answer: His apartment and studio burned down

Borges' first real disappointment in love came at the hands of a darling of the Buenos Aires avant garde scene, Norah Lange, who chose the more extroverted Oliverio Girondo instead; after being an enthusiastic supporter of Hipolito Yrigoyen for Argentine president, the leader's subsequent election, ineffectiveness and eventual overthrow by a military junta led to the author's complete disgust with politics; most significantly, Borges began to suffer from cataracts, and eight further operations were unsuccessful in preventing the onset of total blindness by the end of his life.

Answer: He became the first to translate William Faulkner into Spanish

He was also the first to translate Virginia Woolf into his native tongue.

9. "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" was a breakthrough work for Borges. What is the remarkable novelty or premise of this short, fascinating piece?

Answer: A fictional author rewrites Don Quixote word for word, but not as an act of plagiarism

Written in the form of a tribute to a recently deceased, fictional author, Menard is praised for attempting to rewrite the Don Quixote book through real life experience as Cervantes.

Answer: Samuel Beckett

Reacting to continually being passed over for the Nobel Prize, Borges remarked that the annual slight had become "something of a Scandinavian tradition."

Source: Author stigsby

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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