Test your knowledge of world literature

[Aiculík]

Do you think you know world literature? Do you think it wouldn't be difficult to write down 100 great world authors? So did I. Until, 3 years ago, one of my professors gave us this test. I scored 52 points in it... which means I failed :brickwall. I found it yesterday (scored 94 this time:banana:) and thought you might be interested.

Try it. No need to cheat, you'd only lie to yourselves. Write down authors you know. Then after you finish, check your answers in some encyclopaedia or Google.
1. 5 British authors
2. 5 French authors
3. 5 German authors
4. 5 authors from other countries of Western Europe
5. 5 authors from Central and Eastern Europe
6. 5 Slavic authors (except Russian and Czech)
7. 5 Russian authors
8. 5 Czech authors
9. 5 authors from Southern Europe (except Italian)
10. 5 Italian authors
11. 5 African authors (NOT African-American!)
12. 5 Asian authors
13. 5 authors from Australia and New Zealand
14. 5 authors from South America
15. 5 authors from USA
16. 5 authors from Canada
17. 5 current authors (published works after or since 1980)
18. 5 antic authors
19. 5 classics
20. 5 authors that won Nobel prize

1 point for every correct name.
• In questions 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19 and 20 (i.e. all questions where you have to name authors from certain region), count down 1 point if all authors you stated are from the same country. (Count down another point if that country is your own.)
• In question 18, count down 1 point if all authors are from Antic Rome or Greece.
• In question 20, count down 1 point if all authors are anglophones.
• In all questions where you have to give names of authors from only one country, count down 1 point, if all authors are from the same literary period or movement (e.g., if you state 5 Russian authors, but they are all 19th century authors, you scored only 4 points)

You need 76 points to pass the test.
76 – 80 points – E
81 – 85 points – D
86 – 90 points – C
91 – 95 points – B
96 – 100 points – A

NOTE: I know it may seem that the test is more oriented on Europe. Other professors from other countries might come with quite different test. But I still like it, because it covers also countries and regions that aren't usually considered.

Well? How much did you score? :)

[aabbcc]

I scored 91, which is barely a "B" on this test. :bawling:
Basically, to my great shame - take me away from my beloved Europe, and I am having difficulties to name famous authors. I named all European authors within seconds, same with antique, classics and Nobel Prize winners, and USA authors.
Surprisingly enough, I remember quite quickly five South American authors!

Everything else, though, was disastrous; I could think only of one or two authors for each category left, save the Australian and New Zealand authors. It took me quite a few minutes to think of more, but I could still not name a single author from Australia and New Zealand, and I missed a few in other categories. So overall, my result was 91.:smash:

P.S. I used to play a similar game with my grandfather when I was younger; he would ask me to name 20-30 German/French/Russian/etc authors off the top of my head, which is probably why I thought of all European authors within seconds. Unfortunately, European literature remains the only one for which I truly can say that I know it. When I was checking my answers on Wikipedia, I encountered a lot of names I have never heard of...

[Adolescent09]

I scored 91, which is barely a "B" on this test...

Are you kidding me? I would score an outright "F". I don't think I could answer one of those questions without "googling". I read a lot and I know the backgrounds of a lot of authors but I don't know 5 from almost every country on the globe!! That's a great score.. Man you must be smart...:idea:

[kandaurov]

No way, I'm too eurocentric and poorly-read to take up a test like this. It seems like a great idea though! :)

[Niamh]

Dont think i could do it either! I i work in a book shop so would know a lot of authors! but Alas, I'd be constantly saying irish authors, and four out of the five nobel prize winners i'd have written down would have been irish.:(

[Irsehlenn]

I'd also fail terribly on this one.. But still got many years to come, maybe I'll be able to answer all of them in.. let's say.. 10 years? ;)

[cuppajoe_9]

1. 5 British authors Virginia Woolf, Douglas Adams, George Orwell, John Milton, William Shakespeare
2. 5 French authors Molière, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Proust.
3. 5 German authors Goethe, Kant, the Grimms (two for the price of one!), Schiller and Hegel.
4. 5 authors from other countries of Western Europe Miguel de Cervantes, Hans Christian Andersen, Samuel Beckett (was ten when Ireland declared independence from Britain), Jónas Hallgrímsson (Iceland is a part of Europe, according to my Risk board), Henrik Ibsen.
5. 5 authors from Central and Eastern Europe Joseph Conrad, Tom Stoppard (both born in Poland).
6. 5 Slavic authors (except Russian and Czech) Not going to happen, I'm afraid.
7. 5 Russian authors Fyodor Dostoevski, Aleksandr Pushkin, Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
8. 5 Czech authors Couldn't even name one.
9. 5 authors from Southern Europe (except Italian) Plato, Aristotle, Euripides, Aesop, Homer (Greece is in Southern Europe, Right?)
10. 5 Italian authors Dante, Virgil, Cicero, Machiavelli, Michelangelo (wrote poetry). Rome counts as Italy, right?
11. 5 African authors (NOT African-American!) J.M. Coetzee, Nelson Mandella, Desmond TuTu, Chinua Achebe,.
12. 5 Asian authors Confucius, Lao Tzu, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi
13. 5 authors from Australia and New Zealand Bah.
14. 5 authors from South America Pablo Neruda. That's all I got.
15. 5 authors from USA Robert Frost, W.C. Williams, F. Scot Fitzgerald, R.W. Emerson, Henry Thoreau.
16. 5 authors from Canada Margaret Atwood, Margaret Lawrence, Mordecai Richler, Alice Munro, W.O. Mitchell.
17. 5 current authors (published works after or since 1980) Thomas Pynchon (one of his just came out, didn't it?), Stephen King, Danielle Steel (gag), Neil Gaiman, Tom Robbins (again, gag).
18. 5 antic authors John Wilmot, Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings (once shot himself in both legs with a machine gun which he was using to hunt sharks), Wiliam Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg.
19. 5 classics Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, La Morte D'Arthur, Romeo and Juliet
20. 5 authors that won Nobel prize (aside from the above I presume?) Seamus Heaney, Albert Camus, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway, William Faulkner.

76/100, a squeeky pass. I will admit that I did look a few things up, but not the nationalities or names of authors (how to spell a lot of the authors' names, and the date of the Easter Rising).

[cuppajoe_9]

Also, I apparently don't know what 'antic' means. 61, then. Holy crap that was difficult.

[Aiculík]

I scored 91, which is barely a "B" on this test. :bawling:
Basically, to my great shame - take me away from my beloved Europe, and I am having difficulties to name famous authors. I named all European authors within seconds, same with antique, classics and Nobel Prize winners, and USA authors.
Surprisingly enough, I remember quite quickly five South American authors!


Wow! It took me 3 years of reading to get there! Congratulations. I think that's the best anyone scored on the first try (that I know of).

But I found out that often I knew authors from Africa, Australia or Canada - but, for some reason, I automatically considered them to be American authors. So now I pay more attention to the author. Also, sometimes it helps to understand cultural context of the book and by that, the meaning of the text as well.

[Nightshade]

hehe I failed glad Im not the only one to thinkk of Danielle steel---

I did know a nonanglophyl nobel winner but I could only think of the one naguib mahfouz...