Literary Ladies on Canvas Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ophelia

A tragic character from Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Ophelia begins to lose her sanity due to the behavior of the titular character, who was seen as her potential husband. She threaded together a garland of flowers prior to her drowning, which can be seen floating atop the water in the painting.

It is believed that this detail might be based on a 1569 autopsy report to which Shakespeare would have had access. Ophelia's death is often considered one of the most poetic in his canon.

Answer: Alfred Tennyson

Based on a character in Arthurian legend, Tennyson penned the tragic tale of a woman who becomes captivated by a knight she sees but cannot interact with. She suffers the curse of never being able to go outside and view the world, but can only glance upon it through the reflection of a mirror in her quarters. There she sees the reflection of the knight Sir Lancelot, and when she looks upon him directly, her mirror cracks.

In this scene, the Lady of Shalott takes a boat, desperate to reach Camelot and the knight she spotted. She is aware that the journey will likely lead to her death, and indeed it does not end with her survival.

Answer: Esmeralda

A Roma dancer, Esmeralda was one of the few characters to show compassion to Quasimodo in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame". Though originally kidnapped by the hunchbacked man, she is later rescued by him from execution. While multiple men, including Quasimodo, fall in love with her, she instead falls for a captain named Phoebus, whom she mistakenly believes will become her savior.

The goat in the painting is a reference to Esmeralda's pet goat, Djali, which she trained to perform tricks with her on the street. When she is arrested for witchcraft, the goat's training is used as evidence that she is a witch.

Answer: Dante and Virgil

"The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri features the author himself traversing the nine circles of Hell, accompanied by his guide, Virgil. The scene with Francesca da Rimini was based on a real event involving a real woman, who had been forced into a political marriage with the crippled son of a condottiero. She instead fell in love with the man's brother, and the two carried out an intense affair. When her husband found them in bed, he murdered them both.

In Dante's work, he sees the two in the second circle of Hell (for sins of lust), whirling within an eternal storm, a symbol of the couple's passions. Dante recognizes the woman, guessing at her identity after she provides him with a few clues. Eventually, he faints out of pity for her story.

Answer: She buried her murdered lover's head there.

Love dominates this sad tale, in which a young woman meets a young worker named Lorenzo and falls in love. Her brothers, who would prefer that she be married into a wealthy family to further their own ambitions, instead lure her lover into the forest and murder him. Of course, they tell their sister that Lorenzo has just gone away on business and that he would not be returning for quite some time.

After a dream in which Lorenzo appears to her, Isabella discovers the body of her love in the forest. But what can a young girl do in this situation? She decides to remove the head of her lover and bury it in a basil pot to keep it close. As seen in the painting, she never strays too far from the pot, grieving Lorenzo's death as she clutches it, something her brothers begin to suspect is a bit odd.

The brothers dig up the pot and find the head, then flee with the pot so no one else can know the murder has been discovered. Isabella laments once more, as Lorenzo has been taken from her a second time.

Answer: Othello

Desdemona is the daughter of a Venetian nobleman, who wishes for his daughter to marry politically instead of eloping with the Moorish general, Othello. (This seems to be a recurring theme). The villain Iago convinces Othello that his wife is unfaithful, going so far as to steal Desdemona's handkerchief and plant it in another man's possession.

Othello, believing Iago's lies, strangles Desdemona before the truth comes out through Iago's wife. Horrified by his own actions, he attacks Iago before ending his own life.

Answer: Lady Godiva

Mother to nine children, Lady Godiva was a patron of many religious establishments in her role as an earl's wife. All of this is to say that the legend that comes to mind when hearing the name "Lady Godiva" involves a woman of propriety...and one who wanted to end the suffering of her subjects.

After numerous pleas to her husband to lower his harsh taxation against Coventry failed, he finally had enough and said he would do it only if she rode naked through the streets. Lady Godiva, not one to be dissuaded so easily, made a plan in which she would do just that. Everyone in the streets of Coventry was to stay indoors, ensuring that Lady Godiva would keep her dignity, even though she only had her own hair to cover herself.

Everyone complied, save for a certain tailor, who wanted a peep. This earned him the lifelong nickname of "Peeping Tom," a phrase we use to this day.

Answer: swan

Alexander Pushkin wrote "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" (1831), a narrative poem based on pre-established Russian folklore. In it, Tsar Saltan marries a young woman who promises to bear him a heroic son, but her jealous sisters trick him into believing she has given birth to a monster. The tsarina and her son, Prince Gvidon, are sealed in a barrel and cast into the sea, eventually washing ashore on a distant island where Gvidon grows to adulthood.

On the island, Gvidon rescues a magical swan, who reveals herself as the Swan Princess. She rewards him by transforming the island into a thriving kingdom and helping him reunite with his father through a series of magical journeys. In the end, the truth is revealed, the family is restored, and the Swan Princess, who can take human form, becomes Gvidon's bride.

Answer: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Despite the Italian heritage behind the name, the Rossetti family was firmly entrenched in the British artistic scene, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti helping found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood alongside other British painters of the time. The unique thing about Dante Rossetti, however, was that he was an accomplished poet on top of being a painter.

The word "damozel" refers to a young woman (similar to "damsel"), and in Rossetti's poem, she is observing her love on the earth from the heavens and pondering over him. It is seen as a reversal of poems like "The Raven," in which the narrator ponders over their lost love while still alive (Rossetti admitted to Poe's poem being an inspiration).

Answer: Sleeping Beauty

Briar Rose was the name that the Brothers Grimm gave to the character of Sleeping Beauty (a character previously written about by author Charles Perrault, though in French). The character is generally considered to have been first recorded by Italian author Giambattista Basile.

In the story, an evil fairy puts a curse on the woman so that she will sleep for one hundred years before a prince can wake her. Another fairy, this one with less malice in her heart, softens the curse so that Sleeping Beauty sleeps instead of dying, and the sleep spreads to the rest of the castle so all awaken at the same time. You can see the others asleep next to her in the painting.