Quiz about Jorge Luis Borges and his prose
Quiz about Jorge Luis Borges and his prose

Jorge Luis Borges and his prose Quiz


Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Test your knowledge of his biography and prosaic oeuvre.

A multiple-choice quiz by ogonczyk. Estimated time: 6 mins.
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Author
ogonczyk
Time
6 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
187,738
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
20
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
11 / 20
Plays
237
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 111 (5/20), Guest 157 (4/20), Guest 37 (1/20).
This quiz has 2 formats: you can play it as a or as shown below.
Scroll down to the bottom for the answer key.
1. Borges is mostly famous for his short stories. What major literary genres did he never practise? Hint

Drama and poetry
Poetry and essay
Novel and drama
Novel and essay

2. What was the title of Borges's first collection of stories? Hint

Fictions
In Praise of Darkness
The Aleph
A Universal History of Infamy

3. Which of the following does NOT belong to Borges's typical repertoire of symbols? Hint

rings
swords
coins
labyrinths

4. Borges co-authored several books with which Argentinian writer? Hint

Leopoldo Lugones
Martin Fierro
Silvana Ocampo
Adolfo Bioy Casares

5. In his writings Borges repeatedly refers to a number of his favorite books. Which title does not belong among them? Hint

Heaven and Hell
An Experiment with Time
On Heroes and Tombs
The Anatomy of Melancholy

6. In his early period Borges was particularly fascinated by the folklore of which social group? Hint

The compadritos (hoodlums) of Buenos Aires
Spanish conquistadors
Gauchos (Argentinian cowboys)
Native Indians

7. We are halfway through, so here's an easy one: What was Borges's idea of the paradise? Hint

A museum
A library
An archive
A bookshop

8. Borges was quite interested in the Jewish Kabbalah. Which one of the following stories with Jewish themes includes direct kabbalistic references? Hint

The Immortal
Deutsches Requiem
Death and the Compass
The Secret Miracle

9. Similarly, Borges had a lifelong interest in the Nordic mythology. The plot of which story from the list below DOES NOT reflect this preoccupation? Hint

Ulrikke
Ragnarok
'Undr'
The Disk

10. Borges was also fascinated by Islamic mysticism. In which story does Borges talk about a magical object the name of which means "the manifest" in Arabic? Hint

The Zahir
Averroes' Search
The Aleph
The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim

11. One of Borges' favorite subjects was secret societies. Which of the following stories does not contain this motive? Hint

The Lottery in Babylon
The Congress
The Sect of the Thirty
The Cult of the Phoenix

12. Shortly before his death Borges married Maria Kodama, his long-time companion. Which of the following female characters in his stories is based on Kodama? Hint

Ulrikke in "Ulrikke"
Ravenna in "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden"
Emma Zunz in "Emma Zunz"
Maria Justina Rubio de Jauregui in "The Elderly Lady"

13. Since this is question number 13, here's a tough one: What is the most characteristic figure of speech in Borges's prose? Hint

Metonymy
Oxymoron
Litotes
Pleonasm

14. Borges once denounced (at a substantial personal risk) one dictatorship only to praise another at a much later date. Who were the dictators involved? Hint

Francisco Franco and Antonio Salazar
Joseph Stalin and Nicolae Ceaucescu
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini
Juan Peron and Augusto Pinochet

15. What important event in Borges's life took place on December 24, 1938? Hint

He received a major international literary prize
He married Elsa Astete Millan
He met his double
He badly hurt his forehead which in time lead to his near-complete blindness

16. After Borges had been sacked by Juan Peron from his library job, what position was officially offered to him? Hint

Seller of lottery tickets
Inspector of poultry and rabbits in the public markets
Editor of a literary journal
Columnist for a Buenos Aires daily

17. What caused Borges to say, "I speak of God's splendid irony in granting me at once 800,000 books and darkness"? Hint

He became head manager of the largest bookstore in Argentina
He was nominated Director of the National Library in 1955
He inherited a gigantic library
He had heard of the Internet

18. What was the first language learned by Borges in his childhood? Hint

English
Jargon of the Palermo district
Spanish
Ladino

19. Which one of these short stories by Borges was turned into a feature film in 1996? Hint

The Garden of Forking Paths
Death and the Compass
The Man on the Threshold
The Duel

20. Borges received a Nobel prize for literature in 1985.

True
False


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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Borges is mostly famous for his short stories. What major literary genres did he never practise?

Answer: Novel and drama

The only alleged attempt of Borges to write a novel was "The Congress" which ultimately appeared as a short story in the collection "The Book of Sand" (1975). To the best of my knowledge, he never tried to compose a play.
2. What was the title of Borges's first collection of stories?

Answer: A Universal History of Infamy

"A Universal History of Infamy" was published in 1935, while "Fictions" appeared in 1944, "The Aleph" in 1949 and "In Praise of Darkness" in 1975. His other prose collections include "The Maker" (a.k.a. "Dreamtigers", 1960), "Brodie's Report" (1970), "The Book of Sand" (1975) and "Shakespeare's Memory" (1983).
3. Which of the following does NOT belong to Borges's typical repertoire of symbols?

Answer: rings

For some reason Borges never showed much interest in rings (I'm not even sure if he has read J.R.R. Tolkien) but all the other symbols appear frequently in his texts. He was also fond of mirrors, chess, knives, tigers, etc.
4. Borges co-authored several books with which Argentinian writer?

Answer: Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914-1999) collaborated with Borges on "Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi"(1942, published under the collective pseudonym of Bustos Domecq), "Chronicles of Bustos Domecq" (1969), "Extraordinary Tales" (1971) and "New Chronicles of Bustos Domecq" (1977). Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938), a poet, short story writer and historian, committed suicide; Borges published a book about him in 1955. Silvana Ocampo, wife of Bioy Casares, just like the three others was a writer of fantastic stories and a poetess. Martin Fierro is the main character of the famous Argentinian gaucho epic by Jose Fernandez (published in two parts in 1872 and 1879) which was one of Borges's favorites.
5. In his writings Borges repeatedly refers to a number of his favorite books. Which title does not belong among them?

Answer: On Heroes and Tombs

"On Heroes and Tombs" is a 1962 novel by Ernesto Sabato, a fellow Argentinian writer, in which Borges appears briefly - and rather unflatteringly - as a character. Borges's all-time favorite was J.W. Dunne's "An Experiment with Time" (which Borges admired mostly for its title), while Emanuel Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" (1758) and Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy" (1621) are frequently cited in Borges' texts. Borges was also very fond of "The Odyssey", "One Thousand and One Nights", "The Divine Commedy", "Don Quixote", "Martin Fierro" and the writings of Stevenson, De Quincey, Schopenhauer, Kafka, Shakespeare and Chesterton.
6. In his early period Borges was particularly fascinated by the folklore of which social group?

Answer: The compadritos (hoodlums) of Buenos Aires

The knife-wielding and tango-dancing toughs of the Palermo district of Buenos Aires (his hometown) were Borges's favorite subject at the beginning of his literary career. Gauchos were a close second, while the conquistadors and native Indians appear in Borges's oeuvre only occasionally.
7. We are halfway through, so here's an easy one: What was Borges's idea of the paradise?

Answer: A library

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." (Jorge Luis Borges, poem "The Gifts" in the collection "The Maker" (1960, published in English as "Dreamtigers".)
8. Borges was quite interested in the Jewish Kabbalah. Which one of the following stories with Jewish themes includes direct kabbalistic references?

Answer: Death and the Compass

The plot of "Death and a Compass" is expressly based on the kabbalistic idea of the power contained in the Tetragrammaton (the four-letter name of God.) Also, one of the characters is a Jewish expert on the Kabbalah. "Deutsches Requiem" and "The Secret Miracle" contain Jewish protagonists but they are respectively a poet and a writer. "The Immortal" includes references to the myth of the Wandering Jew but without any kabbalistic overtones.
9. Similarly, Borges had a lifelong interest in the Nordic mythology. The plot of which story from the list below DOES NOT reflect this preoccupation?

Answer: Ragnarok

Despite its title, "Ragnarok" contains no textual references to anything Nordic. The other three stories, especially "Ulrikke", are full of them.
10. Borges was also fascinated by Islamic mysticism. In which story does Borges talk about a magical object the name of which means "the manifest" in Arabic?

Answer: The Zahir

"Az-zahir" (the manifest, the visible) is one of the ninety-nine names of Allah in the "Qur'an". Incidentally, in this story Borges makes one of his rare factual mistakes by mentioning "a synagogue in Cordoba" with 1,200 marble pillars - he obviously means the famous mosque (La Mezquita).
11. One of Borges' favorite subjects was secret societies. Which of the following stories does not contain this motive?

Answer: The Congress

Although all of these plots are centred around an organized group of people, the organization in "The Congress" is not really secret.
12. Shortly before his death Borges married Maria Kodama, his long-time companion. Which of the following female characters in his stories is based on Kodama?

Answer: Ulrikke in "Ulrikke"

Maria Kodama confirmed this by placing an inscription signed "Ulrikke" on Borges's tombstone. Ravenna is, of course, a city in northern Italy, not a woman.
13. Since this is question number 13, here's a tough one: What is the most characteristic figure of speech in Borges's prose?

Answer: Litotes

Borges was very fond of litotes (i.e., emphasizing the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite), for example, "...one of [the tales]...is not wholly innocent of symbolism" (foreword to "Fictions"). A relatively frequent use of this rhetorical device gives Borges's prose a stoically ironic flavor.
14. Borges once denounced (at a substantial personal risk) one dictatorship only to praise another at a much later date. Who were the dictators involved?

Answer: Juan Peron and Augusto Pinochet

In the 1930s and 1940s Borges was outspokenly anti-totalitarian, thus earning an enmity of Juan Peron, the dictator of Argentina from 1945 to 1955 and again in 1973-74. However, in the 1970s Borges visited Chile, then under the rule of a military junta led by Gen. Pinochet; he also accepted honors and accolades from the ruling Argentinian junta.

This appears to have been not so much a result of deeply held political convictions as a show of naive independence of opinion.
15. What important event in Borges's life took place on December 24, 1938?

Answer: He badly hurt his forehead which in time lead to his near-complete blindness

Although Borges's blindness seems to have been hereditary (his father became completely blind by 1937), the accident in question very likely sped up its progress. Borges received the Prix Fomentor (conjointly with Samuel Beckett) in 1961, and married Elsa Millan in 1967 (they divorced about three years later.) As for meeting his double, it could have happened - well, sort of - on August 25, 1983 (see his short story called just that.)
16. After Borges had been sacked by Juan Peron from his library job, what position was officially offered to him?

Answer: Inspector of poultry and rabbits in the public markets

He refused it.
17. What caused Borges to say, "I speak of God's splendid irony in granting me at once 800,000 books and darkness"?

Answer: He was nominated Director of the National Library in 1955

By 1955 Borges's congenital blindness was very advanced.
18. What was the first language learned by Borges in his childhood?

Answer: English

Borges's family included British ancestry, so he learned English before Spanish. On his father's side the family lineage contained some Sephardic Jewish blood but Borges never learned their language, Ladino. Learning any jargons was out of the question as Borges's family was upper middle-class.
19. Which one of these short stories by Borges was turned into a feature film in 1996?

Answer: Death and the Compass

"Death and the Compass" was filmed under the same title by Alex Cox, the director best known for "Sid & Nancy" and "The Repo Man". "The Duel" happens to be the title of an early Steven Spielberg movie which has nothing to do with Borges.
20. Borges received a Nobel prize for literature in 1985.

Answer: False

Deserving as he was, Borges never received a Nobel prize. This was evidently due to his rather naive support of Gen. Pinochet's regime in Chile. Well, too bad for the Nobel Prize!
Source: Author ogonczyk

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