The Family Ties that Bind Us Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bronte

Patrick Bronte (1777-1861), named for the day he was born, St. Patrick's Day, followed his Protestant father's faith despite his having been born in Ireland to an Irish Catholic mother. After becoming a parish curate, he also became known for his poetry, such as "Cottage Poems" in 1811.

His children Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne achieved greater fame. All of them wrote poetry, but Branwell was often more recognized for his painting while the sisters would achieve great fame as novelists. Charlotte wrote "Jane Eyre" and three other lesser known novels; Emily, "Wuthering Heights", her only novel; and Anne, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and "Agnes Grey". All four of the siblings died young. Emily and Anne died of tuberculosis while Branwell died of tuberculosis aggravated by his addiction to laudnum.

The cause of Charlotte's death is more uncertain; some argue that she died because of complications during her pregnancy while others attribute her demise to tuberculosis or typhus.

The Bronte siblings actually had two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who died from tuberculosis as children. Their father Patrick outlived all of his children as well as his wife, who died of cancer while Emily and Anne were still little children.

Answer: James

Henry James, Sr., (1811-1882) was an American theologian who subscribed to the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg and became one of his primary apologists. His views, whcih included a separation of nature and God (or spiritual reality) and a criticism of selfhood as the root of evil, caused him to be out of step with many of the popular American thinkers of his time, such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, with all of whom he was friends.

He was highly instrumental in his children's education, and they grew up to be as well known as he if not more so. William James (1842-1910) was the first born, and he became perhaps America's most well-known philosopher as well as a physician, psychologist, and educator.

His advocacy of pragmatism highly influenced psychology, education, and religious thought in America and around the world.

Henry James, Jr., (1843-1916) is one of America's greatest novelists, from a critical standpoint, and several of his works of fiction have become successful films, such as "The Wings of the Dove", "The Golden Bowl", "The Portrait of a Lady", and "Daisy Miller".

Some may also recognize the following titles: "The Turn of the Screw", "The American", "The Bostonians", "Washington Square", and "The Beast in the Jungle". James was a primary motivational force during America's literary realism period, and his characters were given such rich psychological depth that both his literary theory and creativity influence writers to this day. Finally, Alice James (1848-1892) wrote a diary that she kept for the last few years of her life. Not only does it expose rather candid views of her family, friends, and colleagues, but it also allows insight into both the experiences of being female and suffering mental illness during this age.

Answer: Rossetti

Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854) emigrated to England in 1824 after living in Malta for three years following his enforced exile, a result of his political beliefs that differed from those of Italy's king at that time, Ferdiand I. Rossetti often claimed that his early patriotic poetry was of an inferior or mediocre quality; however, he continued to write a few other poems in the Romantic style as well as a great amount of literary criticism and an autobiography.

His son, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was also a poet, who was named, obviously, after his father's favorite Italian poet, Dante Alighieri.

Interestingly, Dante Rossetti buried the bulk of his unpublished poetry with his wife, who died of a laudanum overdose that occurred shorlty after the stillborn death of their child.

However, years later at the insistance of friends, he exhumed his wife's coffin to retrieve his poetry for publication. Dante Rossetti reacted poorly to some of the harsh criticism his poetry received, and he entered into a depression and drug addiction from which he never really recovered.

He is more remembered for his painting. As a Pre-Raphaelite, he was tremendously responsible for the revival of interest in medieval art and the growing interest in sensuality in the images depicted in the art of his time. His later paintings also had an influence on the Symbolist movement. His sister, Christina, whom he sometimes used as a model, often for his depictions of the Virgin Mary, is recognized as the greatest poet among the Rossetti family. She is often celebrated for her early feminist themes and for her Freudian imagery. In addition to her reputation as a significant Victorian poet, she was also known for work in various social causes; she frequently visited women in prison and supported causes like abolition of slavery and the prevention of cruelty to animals.

Answer: Lowell

The Lowell family has indeed been a sginificant American family. The first Lowells were among the early settlers of the Massachussetts Bay Colony, the family eventually founded the town of Lowell as well as Lowell Mills, and later helped found MIT. Many of the Lowells have held important federal legal positions since the time of George Washington's presidency. Percival Lowell founded the Lowell Observatory and led to the discovery of Pluto. Of course, the Lowells have also had a tremendous influence on America's literature. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) was influenced by Swedenborg and was of the belief that poetry was a result of an "inner light" within each individual; his spiritualism was an influence on American writers of the 1800s.

However, much of his poetry was also rather witty and satirical and, thus, he was also an incluence on later American writers like Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken. He also used his poetry to advance the social causes he supported, primarily the abolition of slavery. Amy Lowell (1874-1925) did not publish her first book of poetry until 1912 when she was thirty-eight years old; its title was "A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass".

She became quite popular, achieving a celebrity status, and used her position to push for imagism, a poetic strategy of presenting only one image in a short poem that was free of explication and declamation as well as rhyme and meter. Scholars now argue that her poetry, however, never really represented pure imagism. Despite her great popularity, many poets of her time did not look favorably upon her; for example, T. S. Eliot referred to her as that "demon businesswoman of poetry", and Ezra Pound made fun of her obesity (the result of a glandular problem) by referring to her as a "hippopoetess". Robert Lowell (1917-1977) was initially influenced by the Fugitive Movement at Vanderbilt University, and much of his earlier poetry reflects a more traditional style of writing poetry that also relied heavily on symbolism. However, his publication of "Life Studies" in 1959 introduced many Americans to a new style of writing--the confessional style. This poetry was rather straightforward with little symbolic meaning and relied more on a conversational style that also involved the poet's rather frank and candid admission to private matters in his own life. For example, his "Memories of West Street and Lepke" is an open criticism of the "tranquilized fifties", a decade of complacency he feels Americans are guilty of, and he openly admits to his own embarrassing complacent lifestyle as well as to details of his stay in prison during his earlier rebellious years.

Answer: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) is most famous for her gothic novel "Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus". However, she wrote other novels, such as "Mathilda" and "The Last Man" as well as short stories and non-fiction works. In 1814, she ran away to France with Percy Bysshe Shelley, while he was still married to another woman who was pregnant with his child; both Percy and Mary felt justified in their behavior because they believed marriage to be an illegitimate institution of repression and they believed that a partner's remaining in a relationship without loving the other was immoral. Mary remained with Percy until he drowned off the coast of Italy in 1822; his body eventually washed up on shore, and his remains were cremated on the beach. Mary Shelley's parents were, of course, very well known themselves. William Godwin (1756-1836) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) met in Joseph Johnson's literary circle; their relationship began slowly but soon blossomed into a very powerful and passionate affair.

When Wollstonecraft became pregnant, she and Godwin decided to get married so that the child would have a "legitimate" reputation. They lived in the Polygon, two adjoining houses, so that they could maintain their privacy while also continuing their romance. When their daughter Mary was born, Wollstonecraft's placenta tore and infection set in. Wollstonecraft died a painful death a few days later as a result of septicemia. Godwin raised Mary himself and was devastated by her eventual elopement with Percy Shelley.

Answer: Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the primary motivational poets during the English Romantic movement. His collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1798, "Lyrical Ballads", turned the world of poetry on its head. It contained not only Wordsworth's famous "Preface", which argued that poetry was the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" resulting from "emotion recollected in tranquility", but also Wordsworth's poem from the question, "Lines (written above Tintern Abbey)", as well as Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Wordsworth also served as England's Poet Laureate from 1843 to 1850, the year of his death.

His sister, Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855), was also a writer--a diarist and a poet. Their parents died when they were young, and the Wordsworth siblings were scattered as they were sent to live with various other relatives.

However, Dorothy later reunited with William and remained with him for most of the rest of her life, despite his marriage to Mary Hutchinson in 1802 and the births of their subsequent children. Dorothy accompanied Wordsworth on many tours of Europe and many walks, particularly in the Lake District, a northwestern section of England near Scotland.

This area remains a popular tourist attraction today because of its former residents--the Wordsworths, Coleridge, and Southey, in particular. Dorothy became seriously ill in 1829, and her health continued to wane for the rest of her life so that she gradually became invalided as well as senile.

Answer: Updike

John Updike (1932-2009) is widely recognized for his Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom novels--"Rabbit, Run", "Rabbit Redux", "Rabbit Is Rich", and "Rabbit at Rest"--as well as the novella "Rabbit Remembered". "Rich" and "Rest" each won a Pulitzer Prize, making Updike one of only three writers by the year 2013 who have won two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction. William Faulkner and Booth Tarkington are the other two. John Updike also published eight volumes of poetry, several short story collections, and several essays; thus, he remains one of America's most prolific writers.

His son, David Updike, has made his mark as well. In addition to the works mentioned in the question, he has also published the short story collection "Old Girlfriends". Four of his childrens books--"A Winter Journey", "An Autumn Tale", "A Spring Story", and "The Sounds of Summer"--are about a boy named Homer and his dog named Sophocles. "A Helpful Alphabet of Cheerful Objects" contains his own photographs.

Answer: Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf's father, Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), was at one point an Anglican clergyman, but eventually he abandoned his faith and held an agnostic view of life. He was a friend of several authors--the American writers Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and Henry James as well as the British writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Hardy.

He was, of course, an author in his own right, publishing primarily biographies and books on literary criticism and philosophy. He was also one of Britain's prominent mountain climbers; not only was he among the first to climb nine major peaks of the European continent, but he was also a founding member of the Alpine Club in 1857 and later served as its president from 1865 to 1868. Adeline Virginia Stephen (1882-1941) was his third child born to Julia Prinsep Duckworth (née Jackson).

She later married the writer Leonard Woolf in 1912, and together they founded Hogarth Press, which published poems by T. S. Eliot. The Bloomsbury Group was an English gathering of intellectuals, philosophers, writers, and artists whose liberal ideas had a tremendous impact on British culture during the twentieth century.

Its members consisted of the Woolfs, Vanessa Bell (Virginia's sister), Clive Bell (Vanessa's husband), John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry, E. M. Forster, among several others as well. It is through this group that Virginia Woolf met Vita Sackville-West, with whom she eventually had an affair. Despite this situation, her husband Leonard was an understanding spouse and remained loyal to her until her death by suicide in 1941. She had suffered from depression most of her life, but this time she was unable to cope with her situation: she and her husband were on Hitler's black list, their home had been destroyed in the German Blitz of London, her recent biography of her friend Roger Fry had received bland reviews, and she found she was unable to write. Fearing she would never recover from her misery, she filled the pockets of her coat with stones and walked into a river to drown herself. Some of Virginia Woolf's other works include the novels "To the Lighthouse" and "Orlando" and the book "A Room of One's Own".

Answer: Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), affectionately known as "Papa", received the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery after he was wounded as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I; the medal was for his valor demonstrated while carrying a wounded Italian soldier to safety while he himself was wounded. Later, he would serve as a correspondent reporting on the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

While on safari in Africa in 1952 and was severely injured after two airplane crashes in a row; he never fully recuperated and suffered from pain and ill health for the remainder of his life.

He eventually entered into depression when he found he could no longer participate in many of the activities he enjoyed and was beginning to experience writer's block unlike anything he had ever experienced previously. Eventually, he took his own life at his home in Idaho by inserting a shot gun barrel into his mouth and firing.

Hemingway had been diagnosed with hemochromatosis in in 1961, a genetic illness that prevents those suffering from it from metabolizing iron. Doctors now understand that such a situation leads to physical as well as mental deterioration; certainly this condition contributed to his mental stability when he chose to kill himself.

Hemingway wrote a number of American classics, including "The Sun Also Rises", "A Farewell to Arms", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "To Have and Have Not", and "The Old Man and the Sea", which won him the Pulitzer Prize. He also wrote a significant number of short stories, including "Hills like White Elephants", "Big Two-Hearted River, I and II", "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". His son, Jack Hemingway (1923-2000), who was the son of Hemingway's first wife Hadley Richardson, served in the military during World War II and was nearly caught by Germans while he was fly fishing after he parachuted into German-occupied France. Jack's daughter Mariel (1961) has acted in numerous films and television programs. Her sister Margaux (1954-1996) was also a famous actress and model; however, she overdosed on phenobarbital in her apartment in Santa Monica, California after struggling with alcoholism and depression as her grandfather had done. Interestingly, she took her life one day prior to the anniversary of Ernest Hemingway's own suicide.

Answer: Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) began his career as a travelling salesman peddling wares in the South. His goal originally was to earn enough money to help his parents with their debt, but after using his income to buy a new suit, he decided that a career whose primary goal was to make money led to the corruption of the soul.

He then for the remainder of his life devoted himself to transcendentalism and to pursuits that would lead to the perfection of his soul. He created the Temple School because he believed learning rested not in the memorization of facts but in reflection and self-analysis.

He became great friends with his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, created the Transcendental Club with him, and spent a significant amout of time in lengthy evening discussions with him.

He also developed "Fruitlands", a 90-acre transcendental communal living experiment. Because of his dedication toward living for the acquisition of ideals, he rarely made much money, and his wife and children lived often in poverty or depended on loans from friends and other family members until one of his daughters found tremendous success following the publication of her novel "Little Women".

As a child, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was allowed by Emerson to explore his library and borrow any texts she desired. Of course, her father supported a her pursuits of knowledge more than most fathers supported their daughters' quests. All of this coupled with the fact that she lived in Concord, a town known for great writers like Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne and a town quite near Cambridge, the location of Harvard University, led to her own great love of writing. Before writing "Little Women", Louisa May Alcott wrote a few passionate novels under the penname of A. M. Barnard, titles such as "A Long Fatal Love Chase" and "Pauline's Passion and Punishment". With the publication of "Little Women", however, she began making enough money that she, her parents, and her sisters still at home were able to live quite comfortably. She followed "Little Women" with "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys", both of which focused on the character of Jo from "Little Women", a character loosely based on her own life. Of course, while Jo marries in the books, Louisa May Alcott never did. Interestingly, the only reason Alcott chose to have Jo get married was to satisfy fans who were pressuring her to allow Jo to wed. Louisa May Alcott died two days after her father's own death, most likely due to a combination of the effects of an autoimmune disease and the effects of mercury poisoning that occurred from an injection of medicine she received as a nurse during the Civil War to help her battle a case of typhoid fever.