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Who said "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation?"
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
2425 times |
| Correct: |
1610 times (54.3%) |
| Difficulty: |
medium |
| Incorrect: |
815 times (27.5%) |
| Skipped: |
541 times (18.2%) |
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Who said that "great geniuses have the shortest biographies?"
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
204 times |
| Correct: |
74 times (25.3%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
130 times (44.5%) |
| Skipped: |
88 times (30.1%) |
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Who first defined a category of thoughts known as "transcendental?"
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
202 times |
| Correct: |
58 times (22.3%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
144 times (55.4%) |
| Skipped: |
58 times (22.3%) |
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Of which American author (whom he greatly admired) did Henry James publish a critical study in 1879, one which proved rather controversial in the USA?
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
800 times |
| Correct: |
351 times (28.7%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
449 times (36.7%) |
| Skipped: |
423 times (34.6%) |
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Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the poem: "Give All to Love." It seems to countered by the poem "Never Give All the Heart" written by which of these poets?
Hint: Irish poet with many refused proposals
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
210 times |
| Correct: |
117 times (26.3%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
93 times (20.9%) |
| Skipped: |
235 times (52.8%) |
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To whom did Herman Melville write: "I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality"?
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
633 times |
| Correct: |
301 times (31.8%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
332 times (35.0%) |
| Skipped: |
315 times (33.2%) |
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Who wrote a lengthy, flattering letter to Walt Whitman on the first publication of Leaves of Grass, saying: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career"?
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
520 times |
| Correct: |
297 times (41.0%) |
| Difficulty: |
medium |
| Incorrect: |
223 times (30.8%) |
| Skipped: |
204 times (28.2%) |
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Which writer wrote., " The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
800 times |
| Correct: |
494 times (50.5%) |
| Difficulty: |
medium |
| Incorrect: |
306 times (31.3%) |
| Skipped: |
178 times (18.2%) |
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Which author and abolitionist refused to pay a tax and spent a short time in jail?
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
783 times |
| Correct: |
503 times (51.1%) |
| Difficulty: |
medium |
| Incorrect: |
280 times (28.5%) |
| Skipped: |
201 times (20.4%) |
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Who described Jane Austen as "the most perfect artist among women?"
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
321 times |
| Correct: |
118 times (18.5%) |
| Difficulty: |
very difficult |
| Incorrect: |
203 times (31.8%) |
| Skipped: |
317 times (49.7%) |
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Who wrote this, and to which "genius" is he referring?
"It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier, have wasted their oil. The famed theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont, have vainly assisted. Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, dedicate their lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. The genius knows them not."
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
320 times |
| Correct: |
155 times (29.0%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
165 times (30.9%) |
| Skipped: |
214 times (40.1%) |
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What writer served as handyman and assistant to Ralph Waldo Emerson?
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
625 times |
| Correct: |
426 times (49.1%) |
| Difficulty: |
medium |
| Incorrect: |
199 times (22.9%) |
| Skipped: |
243 times (28.0%) |
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Fill in the missing name in this excerpt from John Updike's Bech A Book:
"_________, it happened, was Bech's favorite American author, in whom he felt united the strengths that were later to go the separate ways of Dreiser and James. Throughout dinner, back at the hotel, he lectured Petrescu about him. 'No one,' Bech said, ... 'more courageously faced our native terror. He went for it right between its wide-set little pig eyes, and it shattered his genius like a lance.' ...
'You do not consider,' Petrescu said, 'that Hawthorne also went between the eyes? And the laconic Ambroce Bierce?' ...
'Hawthorne blinked,' Bech pronounced, 'and Bierce squinted.'"
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
60 times |
| Correct: |
28 times (31.5%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
32 times (36.0%) |
| Skipped: |
29 times (32.6%) |
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The Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon
Name the quoted poet:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
84 times |
| Correct: |
31 times (27.9%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
53 times (47.7%) |
| Skipped: |
27 times (24.3%) |
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From The Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon:
Name the quoted poet:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!
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see if you know the answer
| Answered: |
55 times |
| Correct: |
26 times (36.6%) |
| Difficulty: |
difficult |
| Incorrect: |
29 times (40.8%) |
| Skipped: |
16 times (22.5%) |
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