71 results:

2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Yale B and Northwestern A - #21
Literature -- American

The narrator of this work leaves a letter on a table for the servant Luke to deliver, but one character later admits to stealing and burning it, leading to speculation that stealing letters got him expelled from school. This work is presented as a manuscript written by an employee of Douglas' sister, and much of the criticism of this work debates the narrator's sanity in her revelation to Mrs. Grose that she saw her predecessor Mrs. Jessel hanging around the country estate of Bly. For 10 points, name this work in which an unnamed governess suspects Peter Quint of conspiring with the children Miles and Flora, a ghost story by Henry James.

Answer: The Turn of the Screw


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by OSU and Carleton A - #16
Literature -- American

This author created the furniture dealer Gregory Solomon who brokers a deal between cop Victor Franz and and his brother in one work. Another of his plays takes place in the protagonist's head represented as a concentration camp as he relives memories of ex-wives Louise and Maggie. In addition to The Price and After the Fall, this playwright wrote about the discovery that Joe Keller sold defective airplane parts during WWII in All My Sons. In one of this author's plays, Abigail Williams tries to seduce John Proctor, and in another, the husband of Linda kills himself to give insurance money to Happy and Biff. For 10 points, name this playwright of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.

Answer: Arthur Miller


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #9
Literature -- American

One character in this work drops his towel to reveal boxer shorts covered in whales after brushing his teeth with soap. The protagonist of this novel plays a three day game of monopoly with Cheswick and Martini, before raising a vote to allow watching the World Series, and organizing a fishing trip with the prostitutes Sandy and Candy.  The narrator of this work is a Columbia Indian who smothers the protagonist with a pillow before escaping. For 10 points, name this Chief Bromden narrated work in which Randle McMurphy is lobotomized after challenging the tyrannical Nurse Ratched at an Oregon psychiatric hospital, a novel by Ken Kesey.

Answer: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Maryland A and CWRU - #21
Literature -- American

A character named Hamlet in this work hallucinates that Tennyson comes to him wearing the face of Euripides to explain the meaning of the phrase “divine despair.” Mrs. Merrett spends thirty years in jail after her nineteen year old lover shoots her husband. While most of the characters in this work are miserable, the story teller and fiddler Blind Jack now spends his afterlife listening to Homer recount the fall of Troy. This collection includes a recitation by Anne Rutledge, the “Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln.” For 10 points, identify this poetry collection in which the dead of the title town make one final statement, the masterpiece of Edgar Lee Masters.

Answer: Spoon River Anthology


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Brandeis and UCLA A - #3
Literature -- American

In one of this man's novels, jazz drummer Rufus Scott commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. This author wrote another novel about a man who deceives his fiancée Hella until the title character is guillotined for killing the Paris gay bar owner Guillaume. This author of Another Country and Giovanni's Room also wrote a work divided into two parts, “My Dungeon Shook” and “Down at the Cross,” in which he urged racial acceptance and warned of a title conflagration. In one novel by this author, a preacher named Gabriel steals his wife's savings; that novel opens on the fourteenth birthday of the protagonist John Grimes. For 10 points, name this author of The Fire Next Time and Go Tell it On the Mountain.

Answer: James Baldwin


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Maryland A and CWRU - #10
Literature -- American

This story mentions an object that spent a year in the post office, some time on the shelf of Mr. Martin's grocery, and a year in Mr. Graves's barn. One character in this story is criticized for his decision to modernize by ending the use of wooden chips in favor of paper. The owner of a local coal company, Mr. Summers, organizes this story's title event. Eva is spared the consequences of her father Bill's misfortune by virtue of her marriage to Don. Instead, Bill, Nancy, Bill Jr., Dave and Tessie Hutchinson are picked at random, causing Mr. Delacroix to lift a giant stone to hurl at Tessie. For 10 points, name this short story that caused cancellations of New Yorker subscriptions, a work of Shirley Jackson.

Answer: The Lottery


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Furman, Claremont A, Illinois A, and ULL A - #15
Literature -- American

The narrator of this novel fails to complete his thesis on Cass Mastern when he experiences a lack of focus he terms his “Great Sleep.” Miss Littlepaugh's brother commits suicide in this novel when he loses his job at the power company due to the bribery Judge Irwin. Sugar-Boy O'Sheean is the hotheaded chauffeur of one character in this work. In this novel, one character's affair with Anne Staunton is revealed by Tiny Duffey, causing the surgeon Adam to shoot a character known as “The Boss.” For 10 points, name this novel narrated by Jack Burden, a chronicle of the rise of the southern politician Willy Stark written by Robert Penn Warren. 

Answer: All the King's Men


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #6
Literature -- American

One of this author's protagonists helps William T. Knife market the caffeinated beverage Okey-Dokey. That satire of the fundraising culture, Gideon Plainish, features a character who manages the career of the evangelist Sharon Falconer in another of this author's novels. This author set his novel about the Jolly Seventeen's conflict with Carol Kennicott in the town of Gopher Prairie. Another town created by this author is in the fictional state of Winnemac, and is home to the car salesman Samuel Dodsworth, the preacher Elmer Gantry, and the real estate agent George Babbit. For 10 points, name this author of Main Street.

Answer: Sinclair Lewis


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Furman, Claremont A, Illinois A, and ULL A - #2
Literature -- American

One version of this work was published as “Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil,” after its author translated a French version back to English word for word. One character in this story tells of a mare with asthma and a dog named Andrew Jackson. The narrator goes to Angel's Camp looking for information for an article about a Reverend Leonidas, but instead, Simon Wheeler tells him about how a stranger used quail shot to win forty dollars off of Jim Smiley. For 10 points, name this short story in which the title creature named Daniel Webster loses a bet for its owner because it can't leap, a work by Mark Twain.

Answer: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” [or “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” or “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Dunbar HS and Minnesota - #15
Literature -- American

This poet wondered if the title concept could “govern in a thing so small” in a poem about a white spider on a white flower holding a white moth. This poet admitted “I have passed by the watchman on his beat and dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain” in his tirza rima poem “Acquainted With the Night.” This author of “Design” wrote that “He is all pine and I am apple orchard” in one work, and concluded another of his poems with the concession “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” For 10 points, name American poet who wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and quoted the adage “'Good fences make good neighbors” in his poem “Mending Wall.” 

Answer: Robert Frost


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by St Anselm’s HS and Truman State A - #2
Literature -- American

This poem's author expressed a desire to restrict it to “the limit of one sitting” in “The Philosophy of Composition.” The narrator wheels a cushioned seat in front of his visitor, who “beguiles all” his “sad soul to smiling.” Shortly after, the air grows “denser, perfumed from an unseen censer / swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.” The narrator calls the title character a “thing of evil,” and demands to know whether he will be reunited with “the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore.” For 10 points, name this poem set “once upon a midnight dreary,” an Edgar Allen Poe poem about an “ebony bird,” who only says “nevermore.”

Answer: "The Raven"


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Duke A and Harvard Zhao - #13
Literature -- American

This work describes a “hung jury” that “threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism.” This poem's description of “twenty five thousand mad comrades” is reference to the population of Pilgrim State, a mental institution where one person mentioned in this poem received shock therapy. This poem's end references a “sea-journey on the highway across America in tears.” This work repeats the word Moloch and tells Carl Solomon “I'm with you in Rockland.” This poem opens with the line “I saw the best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness, starving hysterical.” For 10 points, name this paragon of beat poetry by Allan Ginsberg. 

Answer: “Howl”


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Washington A and South Carolina - #11
Literature -- American

The narrator of this poem mentions the “tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men” after noting that “not one escaped to tell the fall of the Alamo.” In another section, a woman watches “Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore.” In the sixth of this poem's fifty two sections, the narrator suggests answers like the “handkerchief of the lord” to a child's query of “What is the grass?” The narrator justifies the line “very well then I contradict myself” by declaring “I am large, I contain multitudes.” For 10 points, name this poem which opens with the line “I celebrate myself,” the longest poem Walt Whitman included in his Leaves of Grass.

Answer: “Song of Myself”


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by UCLA B - #1
Literature -- American

One character in this novel annoys the protagonist with a story about how he used to walk around with crab apples in his mouth. One character creates panic by saying only “T.S. Elliot” into the phone after calling another character, and Corporal Popinjay is imprisoned for being overly specific at Clevinger's trial before the Action Board.  Only those with temperatures higher than 102 degrees are treated by Doc Daneeka in Pianosa, and “M&M Enterprises” buys all the Egyptian cotton in the world under the treasonous war profiteer Milo Minderbinder. For 10 points name this novel in which Yossarian is in the 256th airborne as a bombardier under Major Major Major Major, a work of Joseph Heller.

Answer:  Catch-22


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #13
Literature -- American

In one work, this author parodied the condescending Henry James as “Mr. Nixon.” The title character of that work by this author writes “medallions” in an attempt to “resuscitate the dead art of poetry.” Another poem by this man consists of the lines “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” This author of “In a Station of the Metro” and “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” translated several works of the Chinese poet Li Po. This author included Chinese characters in a work that has “Rock-Drill” and “Pisan” sections and was largely written in an Italian jail. For 10 points, name this fascist sympathizer, an American modernist poet who wrote The Cantos.

Answer: Ezra Weston Loomis Pound


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #2
Literature -- American

The narrator of this novel hangs up on a character after being asked to send out some tennis shoes. Another character in this novel talks about “Oggsford College” and is alleged to have fixed the World Series. The narrator of this novel becomes involved with a professional golfer who cheated to win her first tournament. A man known as Owl-Eyes is one of the few who shows up at the title character's funeral after he is shot in his pool by George Wilson, who incorrectly believes that the car that killed Myrtle Wilson was driven by the title character rather than Daisy Buchanan. For 10 points, name this novel narrated by Nick Carraway, a Jazz age work by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Answer: The Great Gatsby


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Yale B and Northwestern A - #15
Literature -- American

This author included a short story about a husband and wife team that harvests babies for producing oil in his collection The Parenticide Club. This man wrote about a murderous chess playing robot in “Moxon's Master. This author wrote of a six year old deaf-mute playfully interacting with retreating soldiers before returning to find his parents and home burned in “Chickamagua.” This man also wrote a short story in which a confederate sympathizer imagines an escape from certain death after being hanged from the title structure. For 10 points, name this author who introduced Peyton Farquhar in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and wrote The Devil's Dictionary.

Answer: Ambrose Bierce


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Caltech and Dartmouth A - #2
Literature -- American

One speaker in this poem remembers “They called me the hyacinth girl” after quoting a German song that translates to “Fresh blows the Wind.” This poem notes the “falling towers” of “Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London.” This poem also references an “unreal city” and a “famous clairvoyante” with “a bad cold” and “a wicked deck of cards.” Madame Sosotris appears in the section of this poem called “The Burial of the Dead” which opens with the line “April is the cruelest month.” For 10 points, name this poem which ends with the Sanskrit mantra “Shantih shantih shantih,” a work of T.S. Eliot.

Answer: The Waste Land


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Yale B and Northwestern A - #1
Literature -- American

This poet used the “road to the contagious hospital under the surge” as the setting of the title poem in his collection Spring and All.  This author of Asphodel, that Greeny Flower included “Hunters in the Snow” and “Peasant Wedding” in his collection Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems. He also wrote In the American Grain as a lead up to his five-book epic about a New Jersey city.  This poet justified having “eaten the plums that were in the icebox” because they were “delicious, so sweet, and so cold” in his “This is Just to Say.” For 10 points, name this author of Patterson, a pediatrician and poet who wrote about an object “glazed with rain” upon which so much depends in “The Red Wheelbarrow.”

Answer: William Carlos Williams


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Vanderbilt, Brown A, and Iowa - #11
Literature -- American

This author wrote an eleven part series about the wealthy son of an arms manufacturer who becomes a secret agent for Franklin Roosevelt. In addition to writing a series about the anti-fascist hero Lanny Budd , this author developed the “End Poverty in California” program as part of his unsuccessful campaign for governor. In one novel by this author, the baby Antanas drowns when left unattended, and the protagonist meets the safecracker Jack Duane in jail. This author wrote about Ona's death during childbirth in his novel in which Jurgis Rudkus is rescued from the meatpacking industry by the promise of the socialist party. For 10 points, name this author of The Jungle.

Answer: Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Chattahoochee - #9
Literature -- American

In one of this author's novels, Pavel tells a story about how he threw a newlywed couple out of a carriage to save himself from wolves. In a second novel by this author, Frank shoots his wife Marie when he finds her cavorting with the protagonist's brother Emil in an orchard. In the former novel by this author, the protagonist first works for the Harlings and then takes a job with Wick Cutter after establishing a relationship with Jim Burden in Black Hawk.  The latter work of this author centers on Carl Linstrum's relationship with Alexandra Bergson and is set in Hanover, Nebraska. For 10 points, name this author of O Pioneers! who wrote about the Bohemian Shimerdas in My Antonia.

Answer: Willa Cather


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Vanderbilt, Brown A, and Iowa - #21
Literature -- American

One character in this novel is disturbed by an insulting figurine inscribed with the words “At Yo' Service” while working at the house of a family that wants to send her to Oberlin. Another character in this work describes his heart as a tin tobacco box and escapes from a chain gang in Alfred, Georgia. The protagonist of this novel marries Baby Suggs' son Halle, before giving birth to Denver while escaping from the Gardner owned Sweet Home Plantation. For 10 points, name this novel in which the title character returns to haunt Paul D and Sethe, her mother who mercy killed her to free her from slavery, a novel by Toni Morrison.

Answer: Beloved


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Caltech and Dartmouth A - #14
Literature -- American

A prologue by this author decries singing of “wars, of captains, and of kings, Of cities founded, commonwealths begun.” This poet whined “My burning flesh in sweat did boil” in a poem about a fever, and in another poem wrote of “piteous shrieks of dreadful voice” and “fearful sound of ‘fire' and ‘fire.'” This author of “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House” addressed one collection as an “ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,” and opened another poem with the line “If ever two were one, then surely we.” For 10 points, name this poet who included “The Author to Her Book” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” in her collection The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America.

Answer: Anne Bradstreet


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Vanderbilt, Brown A, and Iowa - #12
Literature -- European

In one of this author's novels, Sir Hargrave Pollexfen kidnaps Harriet Byron, until she is rescued by the title character. In addition to that novel which was a favorite of Jane Austen, this author wrote a work in which Mr. Williams is jailed after smuggling the title character's letters. This author of Sir Charles Grandison wrote a novel in which Robert Lovelace elopes with the title character after her father Mr. Harlowe locks her in her room. In addition to that “History of a Young Lady,” this author wrote about the domineering “Mr. B” in his novel about “Virtue Rewarded.” For 10 points, name this rival of Henry Fielding and author of the long epistolary novels Clarissa and Pamela.

Answer: Samuel Richardson


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Maryland A and CWRU - #18
Literature -- European

In Melville's Billy Budd, Captain Vere takes his nickname “Starry” from this author's poem “Upon Appleton House.” He wrote that “the Irish are ashamed / to see themselves in one year tamed” in a “Horatian Ode.” This poet also wrote a series of poems about a figure “against Gardens” and “to the Glowworms.” This author of “The Mower” is most famous for a narrator who discusses his “vegetable love” growing until “the conversion of the Jews,” but regrets “Time's winged chariot hurrying near.” For 10 points, name this British poet who penned the lines “Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime” in “To His Coy Mistress.”

Answer: Andrew Marvell


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Yale B and Northwestern A - #19
Literature -- European

Names of relations and names of the dead are among the “tabooed words” discussed in Chapter 22 of this work, and its discussions of the fire-festivals of Europe are inspired by the myth of the Norse god Balder. It begins by discussing the ritual murder of a priest of Nemi, and argues that the worship and sacrifice of the Sacred King of the Wood is central to most mythologies. It heavily influenced Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. For 10 points, identify this work that takes its name from an object used by Aeneas, a “study in magic and religion” by James Frazer.

Answer: The Golden Bough


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #15
Literature -- European

One character created by this author has a heart attack while playing in a cimbalom band after organizing the poorly attended Ride of the Kings. A character in another of this author's novels abides by the “rule of threes” for committing infidelity and is given the epitaph “He wanted the Kingdom of God on Earth” after dying in a car accident while working at a dairy collective. Ludvik Jahn writes “Optimism is the opium of the people!” on a postcard, resulting in his expulsion from the Communist Party in this author's The Joke. For 10 points, name this Czech author who wrote about the photographer Tereza's relationship with the Tomas in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Answer: Milan Kundera


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Rice and Michigan  - #2
Literature -- European

During his last night in Ossenburger Hall, this character reads Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. Acquaintances that he makes include a nun with whom he discusses Romeo and Juliet. His voyeurism at the Edmont Hotel results in his seeing a transvestite and a couple that spit their drinks at each other. He backs out of a tryst with the prostitute Sally, and asks where the ducks in Central Park go during the winter. Amidst his wandering, he recalls his relationships with Jane Gallagher and Sally Hayes while reflecting on the suicide of James Castle and the death of his younger brother Allie. For ten points, name this main character of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

Answer: Holden Caulfield [accept either name]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Rice and Michigan  - #10
Literature -- European

The protagonist of this novel forgets to turn off his scent tap before flying by helicopter to Malpais. Other characters in this work include a Polish boy named Reuben Rabinovitch, who learns English in his sleep. Technologies introduced in this work include Malthusian drills, Podsnap's technique, and Bokanovsky's human egg fertilization process, which is used to distinguish between Alphas and Epsilons. When Lenina brings John the Savage back to London, he gains instant celebrity. This novel is set in 632 Year of our Ford, and ends when Mustafa Mond exiles Helmholtz  and Bernard  Marx. For ten points name this dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley.

Answer: Brave New World  


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Rice and Michigan  - #20
Literature -- European

The protagonist of this novel learns that one character is a printer named Gerard Duval after finding his wallet. In one scene in this novel, three characters swim naked across a canal carrying only boots full of food. Earlier, the main character is attacked by a bull mastiff when he and Kat steal a goose. This novel's brief final section features an abrupt shift to the third person, and earlier in this novel, Mueller takes a pair of boots from the dying Himmerich. The protagonist of this novel helps beat up Himmelstoss, the drill sergeant who trained Paul Baumer's squad before it was sent to the trenches. For 10 points, name this World War I novel by Erich Maria Remarque. 

Answer: All Quiet on the Western Front [or Im Westen nichts Neues] 


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #3
Literature -- European

In one scene in this play, two characters tie their belts together to trap another character. Earlier, the protagonists employ tennis scoring in their Game of Questions. Two characters in this play hear music emanating from some barrels before the arrival of pirates prompts them to hide. The protagonists encounter the Player, who leads a troupe of actors called the Tragedians in a performance of the Murder of Gonzago. This play opens as one character continuously wins a coin flipping game, and ends with the English ambassador announcing the deaths of the title characters at Elsinore Castle. For 10 points, name this Tom Stoppard play centered on two minor characters from Hamlet.

Answer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by UCLA B - #3
Literature -- European

This poet wrote that to “get with child a mandrake root” is more likely than to find a “woman true, and fair” in one poem. This author delivered a deathbed sermon about “Death's Duel” and wrote that “virtuous men pass mildly away” in a poem that uses a compass metaphor to connect him to his love. This author of the lines “Go and Catch a Falling Star” tells the listener to "mark this" titular creature that “suck'd me first, and now sucks thee" in his poem “The Flea.” This poet coined the phrase “For whom the bell tolls” in his Meditation XVII and wrote the sonnet “Death Be Not Proud.” For 10 points name this English poet of “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.”

Answer: John Donne


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #7
Literature -- European

This relation was discovered by Irving Fisher in the 1920s, thirty-two years before its namesake published his work on it. The New Classical version of it was developed by Robert Lucas. Robert Solow and Paul Samuelson showed that this it applied to the United States. It was criticized by Edmund Phelps and Milton Friedman, who argued that it could not hold in the long run. This relation, which is similar to Okun's law, came under increasing attack in the 1970s due to stagflation. For 10 points, identify this curve in economics that gives an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment.

Answer: Phillips curve


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #11
Literature -- European

One work by this author centers on a play about the pilot Rico Verri directed by Dr. Hinkfuss's. The protagonist of one of this author's novels abandons his wife Romilda and wins big at Monte Carlo before trading identities with a dead man. This author of Tonight We Improvise and The Late Mattia Pascal wrote about a man who falls off of his horse and believes he is the title Holy Emperor. One of his plays is partially set in Madame Pace's shop and sees the Father, the Mother, the Stepdaughter, the Son, The Boy, and the Little Girl ask the Stage Manager to put them in a play. For 10 points, identify this Italian author of Henry IV and Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Answer: Luigi Pirandello


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by St Anselm’s HS and Truman State A - #8
Literature -- European

In this work, the protagonist's uncle introduces him to Huld, whose nurse becomes the protagonist's lover. After the protagonist encounters a tradesman named Block, he is unable to sway the Whipper from beating two agents. Despite the nosy Assistant Manager, the protagonist manages to obtain the address of Titorelli, a painter of the Magistrates who sells the protagonist a set of identical landscapes. The protagonist of this novel describes his own death as “Like a Dog!” when he is stabbed by two men. For 10 points, name this work about the bank clerk Joseph K., an unfinished novel by Franz Kafka about the title mysterious legal proceeding.

Answer: The Trial [or Der Prozess]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Vanderbilt, Brown A, and Iowa - #2
Literature -- European

One character in this novel adorns a cave with marble after burying the protagonist's severed head in it. The protagonist of this novel steals Voltaire books from a library, and his friend Foque offers him a position in his lumber business. The corrupt poorhouse official Valenod writes an anonymous letter that results in the protagonist losing his tutoring job. After he leaves the seminary at Besancon, the protagonist of this work has his marriage to the wealthy Mathilde de la Mole ended when he shoots at Madame de Renal after she reveals his affair with her. For 10 points, name this novel in which the Napoleonic ambition of Julien Sorel results in his downfall, a novel by Stendhal.

Answer: The Red and the Black [or Le Rouge et le noir]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by St Anselm’s HS and Truman State A - #11
Literature -- European

While staying at the Villa Esmeralda, the title character of this work meets the gondoliers Daniele and Giovanni and is urged to marry the abstract painter Duncan Forbes by her older sister Hilda. Bertha Coutts spreads rumors about her husband's infidelity, and one character in this novel has an affair with the playwright Michaelis, one of the intellectuals who gather at the estate of Wragby. The owner of that estate drives a motorized wheelchair after being paralyzed in World War I, an injury that leads the title character to seek companionship from the gamekeeper Oliver Mellors. For 10 points, name this novel in which Clifford is cheated on by Constance Reid, a work of DH Lawrence.

Answer: Lady Chatterley's Lover


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by St Anselm’s HS and Truman State A - #20
Literature -- European

This poet wrote about “the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones, Are consistently homesick for” in one work. In another of this poet's works, “the thin-lipped armorer, Hephaestos” carves a martial scene instead of a bucolic one into the title object. This author of “In Praise of Limestone” and “The Shield of Achilles” began one poem in “one of the dives, On Fifty-second Street.” This poet opened his “Funeral Blues” with “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” and wrote about a “delicate ship” ignoring “a boy falling out of the sky” in a poem based on a Breughel painting. For 10 points, name this author of “September 1, 1939” and “Musee des Beaux Arts.”

Answer: Wystan Hugh Auden


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Washington A and South Carolina - #14
Literature -- European

This author mentions “Callimachus, Who handled marble as if it were bronze,” in a poem that includes “a long legged bird” and “Two Chinamen, behind them a third” inscribed into the title gem. The narrator of another of his poems wishes for “such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make,” and asks “sages standing in God's holy fire” to “be the singing-masters” of his soul after leaving a place that is “no country for old men.” This author of “Lapis Lazuli” also asked “what rough beast” “Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born” in a poem in which “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” For 10 points, name this Irish poet of “Sailing to Byzantium,” and “The Second Coming.”

Answer: William Butler Yeats


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by UCLA B - #19
Literature -- European

The switchboard operator Madelaine argues with her husband about how to get rid of a constantly growing corpse in the next room in this author's play Amédée. The title character lures people to their death by offering to show them “a picture of the colonel” in his The Killer. The Orator is a deaf mute who is left alone after the Old Man and Old Woman jump out windows in this author's play The Chairs. This author used the recurring character of Berenger in Exit the King and a play in which Berenger's girlfriend Daisy and the rest of the world transform into the title horned animals. For 10 points, name this Romanian-French playwright whose absurdist works include The Bald Soprano and Rhinoceros.  

Answer: Eugene Ionesco


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Duke A and Harvard Zhao - #7
Literature -- European

One poet from this country asked if the title animal would “climb the walls” in her poem “Cat in an Empty Apartment.” This country is the setting for a Spanish play in which Basilio locks his son in a tower and convinces him that he only imagined actual events. This setting of Life is a Dream has a national epic sometimes titled Mister Thaddeus. One author from this country wrote a novel in which Nero burns down Rome for the sake of artistic accuracy and  Marcus Vinitius falls in love with the persecuted Christian Ligia. For 10 points, name this home of Quo Vadis author Henryk Sienkiewicz and Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska.

Answer: Republic of Poland


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Brandeis and UCLA A - #10
Literature -- European

The declaration of one character in this play that “Our revels now are ended” is sometimes seen as its author's farewell to the stage. One character in this play allies with the clownish Trinculo and the drunken butler Stephano to plot a rebellion. One character in this play guides another character by singing the lines “Full fathom five thy father lies.” The deceased witch Sycorax is the mother of one character in this play, which opens after Antonio usurps the throne of Milan. In this play, Caliban fails in his attempts at revolt and Ariel serves a central character after being freed from a tree. For 10 points, name this Shakespeare play in which Miranda and her magician father Prospero are stranded on an island.

Answer:  The Tempest


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Brandeis and UCLA A - #14
Literature -- European

In one work, this author describes a conversation in the Café de la Regence that pits his own moralist views against the passionate opinions of a composer's relative. In another work by this author, a servant trying to tell the story of his loves is constantly interrupted, but does reveal his philosophy that all events are written already on a great scroll in the sky. This author of Rameau's Nephew and Jacques the Fatalist may be best known for working with Jean D'Alambert in creating a “Figurative system of human knowledge” and editing articles on philosophy, politics, and religion. For 10 points, name this French chief editor of The Encyclopedia.

Answer: Denis Diderot


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Caltech and Dartmouth A - #8
Literature -- European

The protagonist of this novel believes that his grandfather is a paper magnate living in Buffalo, New York under the name Joe Colchic. Its protagonist is accused of the murder of Sister Dorothea Kongetter after falling in love with Roswitha Raguna while working for Bebra's troupe. Alfred swallows a party pin in this novel, and his son is the protagonist who helps Bronski steal a necklace for Agnes by cutting a hole through glass with his voice. The protagonist of this novel grows a hump after he stops growing at the age of three. For 10 points, name this novel about Oskar Matzerath who plays the title musical instrument, the first book of the Danzig Trilogy by Gunter Grass.

Answer: The Tin Drum [or Die Blechtrommel]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Caltech and Dartmouth A - #20
Literature -- European

A version of this play that added the servant Arante and a happy ending was created by Nahum Tate. The servant Oswald urges his killer to deliver a letter in this play, and another character in this work is prevented from committing suicide by his son, who takes him to some imaginary cliffs. One character in this play disguises himself as Tom O Bedlam to escape his bastard half-brother Edmond. After demonstrating loyalty to the title character, Gloucester is blinded by Cornwall and Regan.  For 10 points, name this Shakespeare play in which Cordelia is the only faithful daughter of the title British king.

Answer: King Lear


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Chattahoochee - #10
Literature -- European

In one poem by this author, the gossip Miriam Lane reveals the identity of the title character after he returns from being lost at sea to find his wife Annie married to Philip. This author of “Enoch Arden” noted that his sorrow came from the “depth of some divine despair” in “Tears, Idle, Tears.” In another work, this poet wrote “Sunset and evening star, /And one clear call for me!” and expressed his hope to see his “Pilot face to face.” He also described a group of six hundred who rode “Half a league onward” “into the valley of death.” For 10 points, name this poet of “Crossing the Bar” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” the longest serving Poet Laureate of Great Britain.

Answer: Alfred, Lord Tennyson


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Chattahoochee - #18
Literature -- European

This author detailed the life of an old bookseller named Iambo Bodoni who wakes from a coma and relives his lost memories in his novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. One character created by this author saves Niketas Choniates, is adopted by Frederick Barbarossa, and travels to Constantinople in search of Prester John. This author wrote about Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who set out to invent a conspiracy called “The Plan.” This author of Baudolino is better known for a novel in which Adso of Melk helps William of Baskerville solve a murder mystery in a Benedictine abbey. For 10 points, name this author of Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose.

Answer: Umberto Eco


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #11
Literature -- European

This author wrote about an innocent silk-winder whose journey connects the sordid lives of four others in a poem that coined the phrase “God's in His heaven All's right with the world.” This author of Pippa Passes wrote a poem in which the title painter urges “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” This poet documented an Italian murder in his The Ring and the Book, and included “Rabbi Ben Ezra” among his dramatic monologues. One of this author's poems concerns a character who had a “heart too soon made glad,” and whose portrait by Fra Pandolf is “painted on the wall.” For 10 points, name this English poet of “My Last Duchess,” the husband of Elizabeth Barret.

Answer: Robert Browning


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #19
Literature -- European

This book closes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of Spanish and Swiss forces. Chapter twenty of this work concludes that the best fortress is to not be hated, while chapter nineteen examines the downfall of Roman emperors like Pertinax. Chapter eight praises the example of Agathocles, and another leader praised in this work is Cesare Borgia. Chapter eighteen of this work advises that a ruler should be both a fox and a lion and feign many good traits rather than have them. For 10 points, name this political tract which begins with a dedication to Lorenzo de' Medici, written by Niccolò Machiavelli.

Answer: The Prince [or Il Principe]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #21
Literature -- European

One character in this novel has written a textbook which is used by Gaston Godin at the Beardsley College for Women. The narrator of this work believes he is being followed by an Aztec Red Convertible driven by Inspector Trappe. The narrator of this novel stays in the Enchanted Hunters Hotel after driving to Camp Q. In this novel, Charlotte is run over by a car after reading her husband's diary, and the title character eventually marries Dick Schiller after running away with by the playwright Clare Quilty. For 10 points, name this work in which Dolores Haze is the subject of Humbert Humbert's proclivity for “nymphets,” a novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

Answer: Lolita


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Duke A and Harvard Zhao - #3
Literature -- European

One character in this novel uses the deceitful governess Mrs. Younge to plan an elopement with Georgiana. One character in this work stays with the Gardiners while visiting London. This novel features the haughty Catherine de Bourgh, who supports the clergyman Mr. Collins, a man who marries the protagonist's best friend Charlotte Lucas. The protagonist's youngest sister Lydia causes a scandal by eloping with the villainous officer Mr. Wickam in this novel. The protagonist of this novel helps match up her sister Jane with Mr. Bingley, before finally accepting Fitzwilliam Darcy's second proposal. For 10 points, name this Jane Austen novel about Elizabeth Bennet.

Answer: Pride and Prejudice


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by OSU and Carleton A - #21
Literature -- European

This author wrote a poem about a dog's collar inscribed with the phrase “Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?” Another brief work by this author concludes “God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light.” This poet concluded in one work that “One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.” This author wrote “To err is human, to forgive divine” in his poem “An Essay on Criticism.” This author of “An Essay on Man” also wrote a poem in which the spirits Umbriel and Ariel unsuccessfully prevent Lord Petre from cutting off a piece of Belinda's hair. For 10 points, name this British poet who used heroic couplets in mock epics like The Dunciad and The Rape of the Lock

Answer: Alexander Pope 


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Duke A and Harvard Zhao - #16
Literature -- European

Characters in this novel include a consumptive boy who forgets to put a firing cap on his pistol after reading his “Essential Statement.” That boy, Hippolite, dies after befriending Kolya the younger son of General Ivolkin. Other characters include Burdovsky who tries to scam the protagonist out of part of his inheritance. The protagonist of this novel has an epileptic fit after breaking an expensive vase at a party. Aglaya Yepanchin is abandoned by a Polish count in this novel, and Rogozhin offers Nastassya one hundred thousand rubles but ends up stabbing her. For 10 points, name this work about the kind but naive Prince Myshkin by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Answer: The Idiot


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by OSU and Carleton A - #13
Literature -- European

He compared Alexander Pope's Illiad to George Chapman's Odyssey in his lecture series On Translating Homer. This author wrote that one of the title concepts was the “best that has been thought and said in the world” in his nonfiction Culture and Anarchy, and he exclaimed “Go, for they call you, Shepherd!” in “The Scholar Gypsy.” After the death of his friend Arthur Clough, this man penned a monody titled Thyrsis. Another of his works opens “The sea is calm to-night” and notes that “Sophocles long ago, Heard it on the Agaean.” For 10 points, name this critic and poet who wrote about a "darkling plain" where "ignorant armies clash by night" in “Dover Beach.”

Answer: Mathew Arnold


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Dunbar HS and Minnesota - #20
Literature -- European

He included the Syrian governor Vitellius and the executioner Mannaeus in his retelling of the John the Baptist story titled after Herod's wife. He considered his masterpiece to be a work about a saint who is confronted by Frailty, Science, the Queen of Sheba, and a version of the devil called Hilarion during a night in the desert. In addition to “Herodias” and The Temptation of Saint Anthony, he wrote about a daughter of Hamilcar who is pursued by the mercenary leader Matho in Salammbo. In another of his novels, Charles botches a foot surgery and the title character runs up huge debts after having affairs with Leon and Rodolphe. For 10 points, name this French author of Madame Bovary.

Answer: Gustave Flaubert 


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Furman, Claremont A, Illinois A, and ULL A - #11
Literature -- European

This poet noted that “the gift of a kid goat” will “stain your ice-cold waters with crimson blood” in a poem about the Bandusian fountain. One work of this author compares the title discipline to painting, and expresses annoyance at continuity errors in stating that even “Homer nods.” This author claimed that “brave men lived before Agamemnon” in one work. This writer also noted that Homer didn't begin his story with “the double egg” in a treatise which coined the phrase “In Medias Res.” This author also inspired a rebuttal from Wilfred Owen with his patriotic claim “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” For 10 points, name this Roman author of Ars Poetica and a series of Odes.

Answer: Horace [or Quintus Horatius Flaccus]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Furman, Claremont A, Illinois A, and ULL A - #19
Literature -- European

His series of five plays spanning 4,000 BC to 32,000 AD includes characters who will themselves to great ages to avoid creative evolution. In another of his works, Reverend James Morell realizes his dependence on his wife after she rejects Eugene Marchbanks. This author of Back to Methusalah and Candida wrote a play in which Raina discovers that the Swiss soldier Bluntschi carries chocolate instead of pistols. Another of his characters rejects the arms manufacturer Andrew Undershaft's donation to the Salvation Army. For 10 points, name this playwright of Arms and the Man and Major Barbara who wrote about Henry Higgins instructing the cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle in Pygmallion.

Answer: George Bernard Shaw


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by OSU and Carleton A - #7
Literature -- European

He wrote a political romance about a barmaid who refuses to kill the czar, but it only lasted a week on the stage. Before the failure of Vera, he wrote about Mrs. Cheveley's attempt to blackmail Sir Robert Chiltern in his play An Ideal Husband. He wrote that “each man kills the thing he loves” in a poem about of a prisoner who “did not wear his scarlet coat,” “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” He is better known for a novel centering on a painting by Basil Hallward and a play which includes the young Cecily Cardew and the friends Jack and Algernon. For 10 points, name the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Answer: Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Maryland A and CWRU - #9
Literature -- European

A group of drunken farmers sings “There came two ladies out of the woods” during an incidental ballet in this play. One character in this play claims that he attempted to commit suicide by sleeping in a bed of oats and elderberry blossoms, and that he learned French while serving at the largest hotel in Lucerne. That man appalls the title character by beheading Serena, the title character's pet canary, and in the end that man, the butler Jean, hands the title character a razor. For 10 points, name this play in which the titular countess seduces and then is persuaded to commit suicide by Jean, a work of August Strindberg.

Answer: Miss Julie


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Furman, Claremont A, Illinois A, and ULL A - #21
Literature -- European

The protagonist of this work cuts out an advertisement for Kruschen Salts from a newspaper to place in a photo album before noticing the robot like actions of a woman in a restaurant. The fact that the narrator had taken his girlfriend to a comedy with Fernandel in it, the testimony of the warden of the Home for Aged People in Marengo, and the use of four superfluous bullets, all outweigh the efforts of Marie Cardona and the pimp Raymond Sintes to defend the narrator. Above all, the fact that the narrator failed to cry at his mother's funeral results in his death sentence. For 10 points, name this novel in which Mersault shoots an Arab, a work of Albert Camus.

Answer: The Stranger [or L'Etranger]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Dunbar HS and Minnesota - #1
Literature -- European

This author included events like the Four Days Battle and the Great Fire of London in his long poem about the year 1666. This author used Sicily as the setting for a comedy in which Rhodophil and Palamede fall in love with each other's fiancés while Leonidas overthrows the usurper Polydamas. This author of Marriage a la Mode and Annus Mirabilis depicted Antony and Cleopatra in his All for Love. This writer used the story of a rebellion against King David as an allegory on current events like the Popish plot in one work. For 10 points, name this Restoration author who mocked Thomas Shadwell in MacFlecknoe and wrote The Hind and the Panther and Absalom and Achitophel.

Answer: John Dryden


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #10
Literature -- Language Arts

Loglan was designed in order to investigate this theory, although it failed to produce a definite result. Eric Lenneberg developed a framework to test this theory with experiments involving color terminology. Steven Pinker criticized this theory as the product of “long-time leanings toward mysticism.” One of its namesakes illustrated it with an example involving so-called “empty gasoline drums,” and argued for it by contending that Hopi speakers have a fundamentally different concept of time from English speakers. For 10 points, identify this principle which states that one's language affects one's thought and perception.

Answer: Sapir-Whorf hypothesis [accept linguistic relativity]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Princeton A and Cornell - #12
Literature -- Language Arts

In Scandinavian languages, these words typically take the form of suffixes, such as the Icelandic suffix inn. French uses the partitive variety of these where English would use a quantifier such as “any” or “some.” In Romance languages, one type of these commonly derives from the Latin demonstrative ille. A second type of these is frequently identical with a language's word for “one.” Those two types are definite and indefinite. For 10 points, name this category of words, examples of which include German der, Spanish una, and English the.

Answer: articles [prompt on determiners before “partitive variety”]


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Rice and Michigan  - #13
Literature -- World

One character in this novel tells a story in which the tortoise loses the smoothness of his shell after being invited to a feast by the birds. Reverend Smith replaces the tolerant Mr. Brown in this novel. The protagonist of this work wrestles with Amalinze the Cat, and is given custody of Ikemefuna. An exploding gun causes the protagonist of this work to accidentally kill a boy. Enoch unmasks the egwugwu causing the rampage and eventual suicide of the protagonist of this work. This novel takes place in Umuofia and takes its title from the Yeats poem “The Second Coming.” For 10 points name this novel about the Igbo Okonkwo, a work of Chinua Achebe.

Answer: Things Fall Apart


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Maryland A and CWRU - #1
Literature -- World

In one of this author's novels, Father Paez convinces Catalina that she has corrupted her soul by marrying the title character. King Philip II appears in this author's novel in which the eve of the new millennium sees an act of love between Celstina and Pollo Phoibe. This author of Terra Nostra included a frame story about a group of diggers discussing an exhumed corpse in a novel that ends with the revelation that the narrator is Ambrose Bierce. His most famous novel follows the titular corrupt politician on his deathbed as he reflects upon his life. For 10 points, name this Mexican author of The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz.

Answer: Carlos Fuentes


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Chattahoochee - #4
Literature -- World

One character in this work leaves a note saying “I divorce you” after Emerald reveals he has been hiding in the basement. Its narrator describes his grandfather falling in love with his grandmother after examining her medically through a perforated sheet. Mary Pereira works at the Braganze Pickle factory that the narrator starts to manage just before his son Aadam says his first word, Abracadabra. One character founds a street gang, becomes a war hero, and helps the government sterilize the title characters after discovering he was switched at birth with the protagonist. For 10 points, name this novel about Saleem, Shiva, and other Indian children born on August 15, 1947, a work of Salman Rushdie.

Answer:  Midnight's Children


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by CMU and LASA A - #18
Literature -- World

One character created by this author writes a Ulysses retelling entitled The House on Eccles Street. Before creating the Australian author Elizabeth Costello, this novelist wrote of a Third Bureau officer named Colonel Joll, whose cruelty and decisiveness shocks The Magistrate. In one of this author's novels, Lucy is raped by some thugs after her professor father David Lurie is forced to leave the university when he seduces a student. Another of his characters is a hare-lipped gardener who travels to Prince Albert to deliver his mother's ashes. For 10 points, name this South African author of Disgrace, Waiting for the Barbarians, and The Life and Times of Michael K.

Answer: John Maxwell Coetzee


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Washington A and South Carolina - #19
Literature -- World

In one of this author's novels, the narrator admires the gambler Hat, and tells of the carpenter Popo who never builds anything useful and the poet B. Wordsworth who is still working on the first line of his epic poem. In addition to Miguel Street, this author wrote about Salim, who opens a shop across from a Big Burger franchise in a country ruled by the Big Man. In another novel, this author wrote about a six fingered journalist who is tricked into marrying into the Tulsi family while working as a sign painter. For 10 points, name this Trinidadian author of A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River.

Answer: Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Brandeis and UCLA A - #20
Literature -- World

This author wrote of a character known as "superbrain" who participates in a title event after meeting Ambrosio at a dog pound. In another of his works, Fushia travels to a leper colony, Chapiro loses a game Russian Roulette to Lituma, and the harpist Don Anselmo runs the title bordello at the edge of the rainforest. This author of Conversation in the Cathedral and The Green House wrote about a series of cadets at The Leoncio Prado Military Academy in one work, and in another of his novels, Pedro Camacho writes radio soap operas and Mario falls in love with the older title character. For 10 points, name this Peruvian novelist of The Time of the Hero and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

Answer: Mario Vargas Llosa


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Rice and Michigan  - #22
Literature -- World

Richard Wright was inspired by the work of this author to spend the final months of his life writing poetry. This author's first book written without collaborators was Seashell Game, and he created a new subgenre with his collection Winter Days. He was inspired by Butcho to publish A Visit to the Kashima Shrine. He wrote a famous poem about a frog leaping into a pond, and took his name from the banana plant hut he once lived in. Many of his works were based on the idea of sabi, the perfect spiritual serenity obtained by immersing oneself in nature. For ten points, name this poet of Narrow Road to the Deep North, an Edo period Japanese author and master of the Haiku.

Answer: Matsuo Basho


2009 ACF Fall - Packet by Dunbar HS and Minnesota - #8
Literature -- World

In one novel by this author, the foundling daughter of a dress shop owner discovers her identical twin, confusing the weaver Hideo. This author also wrote a novel in which Uragami reports on a six month long match between the materialistic Otake and the spiritual Shusai. This author of The Old Capital wrote a novel in which the protagonist has a fling with his father's mistress Mrs. Ota. In addition to writing The Master of Go, this author wrote a novel in which the self appointed western ballet expert Shimamura has an affair with the geisha Komako. For 10 points, name this Japanese author of Thousand Cranes and Snow Country.

Answer: Kawabata Yasunari