Special Sub-Topic: English Literature Through the Ages Click Here To Play: English Literature Through the Ages

In what work would you find the Red Cross Knight?

The Faerie Queene. The Red Cross Knight is the hero of Book One of Spenser's 16th-century epic--'The Book of Holiness'.

Who wrote the work in which the Houyhnhnms appear?

Jonathan Swift. They're the superior race of horses in Book 4 of Swift's Gulliver's Travels

Aphra Behn was the first English woman to make a living from what literary activity?

writing plays. Behn was a prolific and popular writer in the late seventeenth century.

Who wrote the sonnet in which the following line appears: 'I am a little world made cunningly'?

John Donne. This is Donne's Holy Sonnet no. 5.

In a classic epic poem, who is described as 'For contemplation he and valor formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace'?

Adam and Eve. Satan's first view of Adam and Eve, in Book 4 of Milton's Paradise Lost

Which medieval character wed five 'husbands at church door'?

The Wife of Bath & Wife of Bath & the Wife of Bath. Chaucer's prosperous and worldly Wife of Bath argues in favour of experience rather than the authority of book-learned clerics regarding marriage.

Which REAL English county is the setting for the 'Wessex' of Thomas Hardy's novels?

Dorset. Many of Hardy's locations are based on actual places which bear similar names to the ones he created.

Mrs. Radcliffe's novel 'The Italian' was a response to what sensational gothic novel?

The Monk. Radcliffe wanted to show how the gothic genre could be used to promote good morals and religious sentiment.

Who wrote the narrative poem, 'The Rape of Lucrece'?

William Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare's two early narrative poems dedicated to his patron, the Earl of Southampton.

Which of the following titles was not written by E.M. Forster?

Orlando. Orlando was written by Virginia Woolf.

'The Expedition of Humphry Clinker' was written in which narrative form or style?

epistolary. As with many eighteenth-century novels, Smollett 'Humphry Clinker' it as a series of letters.

Which one of the following novels by Graham Swift won the Booker Prize for Fiction?

Last Orders. 'Waterland', Swift's most acclaimed novel, was short-listed but didn't win.

Julian of Norwich, the 15th-century mystic who wrote Revelations, lived her life as what?

anchoress. Julian spent most of her adult life in a small cell attached to the church in Norwich from which she chose her name.

Lady Mary Wroth was the niece of what other Renaissance poet?

Philip Sidney. Wroth's poetry and prose narrative are quite reminiscent of Sidney's works, but she retains a unique perspective.

Which well-known poet recently wrote a translation of an old English epic?

Seamus Heaney. Heaney's version of Beowulf is highly regarded among critics.