Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Experience

"The Tyger" is one in a collection of 26 poems called "Songs of Experience", while "The Lamb" is among "Songs of Innocence". Bound together in a volume, "Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul" was written and illustrated by the visionary poet William Blake, published in 1794.

These poems were set to music many times, including by poet Allen Ginsberg, and sung in haunting beauty by blues/folk musician Greg Brown. Blake asks the sinewy tyger, "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

Answer: The House at Pooh Corner

"The House at Pooh Corner" by A.A. Milne, 1928, is the second volume about Winnie-the-Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. After Tigger showed up at Pooh's doorstep, Pooh began a search for what Tiggers like. They tried thistles, and honey, and various breakfast things until they hit upon extract-of-malt. "Tigger looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes, and his tongue went round and round his chops, in case he had any left outside, and a peaceful smile came over his face and he said, 'So that's what Tiggers like!'".

Answer: Smooth butter

In revisions "The Boy and the Tigers" (2004), "The Story of Little Babaji" (1996), and the original, "The Story of Little Black Sambo" written by Helen Bannerman in 1899, fierce jungle tigers accepted the beautiful clothes off a little boy in return for his life. Jealous of each other, they raced around a tree, and turned into creamy butter! The original was popular, but racially offensive and sometimes banned, due to the East Indian slur "sambo" and negative depiction of the boy and his family. In the US the boy was depicted as an African-American, adding fuel to the national fires.

Answer: Dream tigers

"Dreamtigers" is a short story in a collection of the same name by acclaimed author and poet Jorge Luis Borges (1960). He writes, "...suddenly I know I am dreaming. Then I think: this is a dream, a pure diversion of my will; and now that I have unlimited power, I am going to cause a tiger."

"The Other Tiger" is a poem: "A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here, Exalts the vast and busy Library, And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom; Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek; It wanders through its forest and its day..." Borges spent much time in his youth entranced by the tigers at the nearby zoo.

Answer: Red Dragon

In 1981 Thomas Harris wrote "Red Dragon", a thriller in which we first meet the killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, made famous in a sequel, "The Silence of the Lambs" (1988). In "Red Dragon" a serial killer who calls himself the "Tooth Fairy" takes his blind girlfriend to the zoo, where he secretly thrills to watch her caressing a sleeping tiger.

Incarcerated Hannibal Lecter was consulted for help capturing the Tooth Fairy, and so we are introduced to a chilling killer.

Answer: Mowgli

In Rudyard Kipling's 1893, "Jungle Book", chapter "Mowgli's Brothers", Father Wolf tells the tiger Shere Khan that Wolves do not take orders from "any striped cattle-killer". Shere (which means tiger) roars in protest. Mother Wolf leaps forward and claims Mowgli for the Wolves. Elsewhere Shere Khan is described as cunning, bold and reckless, "But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down". Mowgli returns to humanity in the short story, "Tiger!Tiger!" and will fight Shere Khan. Tarzan was reared by great apes in the African jungle.

The mythical Romulus was suckled by a she-wolf, but in ancient Rome.

Answer: burned

"What Dies in Summer" (2012), invites us "to feel the tiger as it burned". Here Tom Wright's character Biscuit senses the tiger (a human killer) out there waiting, anticipating, burning. Wright's thriller is about a rapist and murderer stalking young girls, and the helpless feeling that he is out there, in some ordinary yet terrifying way, where no one can protect their loved ones from him. "Like having a tiger in your bathtub without knowing it".

The words "burning" and "thunder" are often used to describe tigers in literature and poetry. Perhaps because of the enticing yet dangerous nature of both.

Answer: Fantine

In Victor Hugo's 1862 novel "Les Miserables" Fantine is a beautiful and naive working-class girl made pregnant and abandoned by a wealthy student. She languishes in poverty and prostitution, hoping to provide some life for her child. Her anguish and sacrifice is captured in the song by Andrew Lloyd Webber, "I Dreamed a Dream", for the musical production of the novel. The velvet and thunderous dichotomy of the tiger is distinct and moving, perfect for the unrelenting, tragic destruction of Fantine.

Answer: Tora! Tora! Tora!

"Tora! Tora! Tora! - Pearl Harbor 1941" was written by Mark Stille, released in 2011. The book is one of hundreds about events at Pearl Harbor. While many believe "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!" was a code used to convey that a surprise attack had been achieved, some argue the command was "to-ra, to-ra, to-ra", short for togeki-raigeki, meaning "Attack-torpedo-attack". Typically in the military a code is used, and a tiger is a perfect symbol of surprise attack.

In any case, it was not "Tara! Tara! Tara", which would have been shouted by Scarlet O'Hara.

Answer: Richard Parker

In "Life of Pi", (2001) Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger, formerly an occupant of the zoo owned by Pi (Patel) and his family. They planned a trip across the ocean but the ship sank, leaving animals and boy to survive. Author Yann Martel chose the name Richard Parker based on accounts of ocean victims of cannibalism.

The 2005 edition gained an illustrator (Croatian Tomislav Torjanac) who brought the tiger to visual life. In the 2012 film, directed by Ang Lee, the tiger is primarily digital. President Barack Obama called the award-winning novel, "An elegant proof of God...". Martel gives a nod to author Moacyr Scliar, who wrote an earlier but very different novel about a man stranded on the ocean with a jaguar (1981).