Early English Prose

15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit  

1. One of the earliest prose works in English is the anonymous work 'Ancrene Riwle', the title of which can be translated to modern English as 'Rule for .....'. What does 'Ancrene' mean? Archers Archivists Anchoresses Ancillaries

2. A strange piece of prose is to be found at the very end of 'The Canterbury Tales'. In his so-called 'Retraction', the author abandons verse and turns to prose to excuse himself for what he has written (as if there's any need to do that). Who wrote 'The Canterbury Tales'? Answer: (The most influential author before Shakespeare)

3. 'The Book of Showings', also called 'The Book of Revelations', is a collection of 16 mystical visions written by a woman who was born in 1342 and died in 1416. She was a religious recluse, confined to a cell attached to the church of St. Julian in Norwich. By what name is this woman still known? Jennifer Lopez Margery Kempe Julian of Norwich Anne Askew

4. Who wrote the famous 15th century King Arthur story 'Morte D'arthur'? This is a wrong aswer, pick one of the other three. Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Wyatt

5. Who wrote the early 16th century prose work 'Utopia'? Sir Thomas Malory Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas Wyatt This is a wrong answer, pick one of the other three.

6. One of the most influential books of the Renaissance was 'Il Cortegiano' by an Italian writer. It was translated into all the major European languages. The English translation, 'The Courtier', was made by Sir Thomas Hoby (yet another Sir Thomas). Which Italian author wrote 'Il Cortegiano'? Pico della Mirandola Leonardo da Vinci Baldassare Castiglione Giordani Bruno

7. I'm looking for the man who wrote 'Adventures of Master F.J.', one of the first novel-like prose narratives in English. The man lived between 1539 and 1578 and also wrote a lot of poetry ('A Hundreth Sundrie Flowers') and translated some plays. His poem 'The Still Glass' was the first original poem in blank verse in English literature. What is the name of this man? George Gascoigne William Langland Henry Howard Edmund Spenser

8. Also plays can incorporate some prose, which gives me a good excuse to sneak Shakespeare into this little quizzy. In Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' there are 4 groups of characters, each of which have their own style of speaking. One group speaks in blank verse (a kind of verse without a rhyme), another group combines blank verse and rhyming couplets. A third group speaks in rhyme. But which group speaks in prose? The king and the queen The faeries The workers The lovers

9. Who wrote 'The Anatomy of Melancholy'? Robert Burton Aemilia Lanyer Francis Bacon John Donne

10. Who wrote 'Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners' and 'The Pilgrim's Progress'? John Dryden John Locke John Milton John Bunyan

11. Which extraordinary woman wrote 'Oroonoko' and the unfinished epistolary novel 'Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister'? Isabella Whitney Aphra Behn Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Queen Elizabeth

12. Time for an easy one: who wrote 'Gulliver's Travels'? Answer: (Two Words)

13. In 'Gulliver's Travels', what are Houyhnhnms? Apes Horses Giants Eagles

14. Which of the following novels is NOT by Daniel Defoe? Robinson Crusoe Tom Jones Moll Flanders Roxana

15. Who wrote 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy' (1760-1767)? Samuel Richardson Lawrence Sterne Henry Fielding Tobias Smollett