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Quiz about Who Literally Said What About Which Literary Great

Who Literally Said What About Which Literary Great Quiz

Who literally made the following praiseworthy or not so praiseworthy statements about which literary heavyweights? Multiple choice.

A multiple-choice quiz by Engadine. Estimated time: 4 mins.

Author
Engadine

Time
4 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
100,516

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Average

Avg Score
6 / 10

Plays
804

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. "I heard the cheerful clatter of his cans as he went round with the milk of human kindness." A British historian and biographer said this in 1920 about whom? Hint

Daniel Defoe

James Barrie

James Brolin

James Joyce

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Question 2 of 10

2. "He has plenty of music in him, but he cannot get it out." Was said by whom about Robert Browning? Hint

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alexander Pope

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

G K Chesterton

3. "He had not the intellectual equipment of a supreme modern poet; except for his genius he was an ordinary nineteenth century gentleman, with little culture and no ideas." British poet and critic, Matthew Arnold, wrote this in 1865 about whom? Hint

Lord Byron

George Eliot

Percy Bysshe Shelley

T S Eliot

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Question 4 of 10

4. Van Wyck Brooks, a US critic, once said, "He is to poetry what the barrel-organ is to music." Which poet was he talking about? Hint

A A Milne

A E Housman

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

G K Chesterton

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Question 5 of 10

5. The young Henry James once described her as "magnificently, awe-inspiringly ugly." Who was she? Hint

Georgia Eliot

Harriet Beecher Stowe

D H Lawrence

George Eliot

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Question 6 of 10

6. When US writer Max Eastman asked, why his book was written in such a difficult style, who replied, "To keep the critics busy for three hundred years."? Hint

Henry Fielding

James Joyce

Henry James

William Somerset Maugham

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Question 7 of 10

7. Of whom was it once said, "He would not blow his nose without moralising on conditions in the handkerchief industry."? Hint

George Eliot

T E Lawrence

Rudolf Eric Raspe

George Orwell

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Question 8 of 10

8. Henry James said of which US essayist and poet, "He was imperfect, unfinished, inartistic; he was worse than provincial - he was parochial."? Hint

Henry David Thoreau

Charles Lamb

John Milton

Dr Samuel Johnson

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Question 9 of 10

9. "People who can do these things must be dead to all senses of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them." This was said about which famous poet and dramatist?
Hint

Robert Louis Stevenson

Oscar Wilde

Lord Alfred Douglas

William Makepeace Thackeray

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Question 10 of 10

10. John Dunlop, a British writer said of whose writing, "Evidence of a diseased mind and a lacerated heart."? Hint

Samuel Richardson

Jonathan Swift

John Keats

Lord John Hervey

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. "I heard the cheerful clatter of his cans as he went round with the milk of human kindness." A British historian and biographer said this in 1920 about whom?

Answer: James Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie was a Scottish playwright and novelist, one of nine children. Peter Pan was his most celebrated work, first presented in 1904. He wanted his work to benefit children in more ways than one, so he donated the rights to Peter Pan to a London children's hospital.

2. "He has plenty of music in him, but he cannot get it out." Was said by whom about Robert Browning?

Answer: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, British poet laureate, was credited with this quip in 1897 in "A Memoir by his Son". He served 42 years as poet laureate and his works reflected the moral and intellectual values of his time.

Answer: Lord Byron

Born with a club foot, George Gordon, Lord Byron, said of himself that everything he swallowed immediately turned to tallow and deposited on his ribs! His first poetry collection appeared in 1807.

4. Van Wyck Brooks, a US critic, once said, "He is to poetry what the barrel-organ is to music." Which poet was he talking about?

Answer: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow, popular 19th century US storyteller and poet was born in Maine in 1807. In 1855 he published the "Song of Hiawatha". He died in England in 1882 and there is a marble image of him in Westminster Abbey, London, in Poet's Corner.

5. The young Henry James once described her as "magnificently, awe-inspiringly ugly." Who was she?

Answer: George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot), of whom D H Lawrence once wrote, "It was really George Eliot who started it all, it was she started putting action inside" was the daughter of a carpenter. Her first written work was published in 1858 when writing was considered only as a male profession, hence the male nom-de-plume.

6. When US writer Max Eastman asked, why his book was written in such a difficult style, who replied, "To keep the critics busy for three hundred years."?

Answer: James Joyce

The book was "Finnegans Wake", James Augustine Joyce's last work. Dublin born, Joyce began his career as a journalist and teacher, he even worked as a bank clerk! When he wrote "Finnegans Wake", he was suffering from glaucoma. He died in Zurich in 1941.

7. Of whom was it once said, "He would not blow his nose without moralising on conditions in the handkerchief industry."?

Answer: George Orwell

A British critic wrote this in 1973 about the English novelist, essayist and critic. George Orwell, who was born in India, is best known for his novels "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen Eighty-Four", both classic political satires.

8. Henry James said of which US essayist and poet, "He was imperfect, unfinished, inartistic; he was worse than provincial - he was parochial."?

Answer: Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was an influential essayist who died in 1863. Born in Massachusetts, his "Civil Disobedience" had a huge influence on both Martin Luther King Jnr and Gandhi in their passively resistant stances.

9. "People who can do these things must be dead to all senses of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them." This was said about which famous poet and dramatist?

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His mother was a poet, an Irish nationalist and an early campaigner for women's rights; his father was a gifted surgeon. Oscar Wilde is best known for his comic masterpieces, including "The Importance of Being Ernest". Oscar Wilde died penniless in Paris at the age of 46.

10. John Dunlop, a British writer said of whose writing, "Evidence of a diseased mind and a lacerated heart."?

Answer: Jonathan Swift

This was said in reference to "Gulliver's Travels" in "The History of Fiction", written in 1814. Irish born Swift was an author and journalist. From the age of 20 he suffered from deafness and was thought insane in the last years before he died.

Source: Author Engadine

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