Auntie's Quiz O' the Week

[Virgil]

Whoa, Aunty, somehow I missed the one on the movies. But it's a good thing. I knew nothing there, not one, zippo. I know nothing of those things.

Now this week on women, well I apparently know women very well. And I love my wife and my mother and my sister and all the women in my life and on lit net.

Ok on this quiz I got twelve: 1,3,5,7,8,9,10,12,14,15,16,18.

[DickZ]

thank you, Dick Z. I'm assuming that Frank and Anthony are the songwriters who came up with the title of the bonus question. (I just knew the song, not the composers. Shame on me.)...

No, Frank Patterson and Anthony Kearns are singers, who sing the song that happens to be the bonus question. I have no idea who the composers might be.

[AuntShecky]

Now this week on women, well I apparently know women very well. And I love my wife and my mother and my sister and all the women in my life and on lit net.

As well you should! (But God Bless ya, for't!)

12 out of 20 correct? Good. Then I'm on the right track.
My goal is to write a quiz, not too difficult and not too easy,
in which somebody hits 'em all.

[qimissung]

I got 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8,14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 20! Which means that I still got only about half of them right, whcih is how I usuallly do with your quizzes, Auntie. I got half of 11-I knew her first name was Katherine.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the last bonus question is: Ireland.


‘Tis March and your aunt’s arrived once more,
this time to bring minutiae of Celtic legend and lore:
how tiny Esirt, the poet of King Iubhdan’s band,
could fit in the palm of the dwarf, Aedh’s, hand;
toward tyranny, old and new, vows ever t’ renounce
in language of wit in words I can never pronounce;
how the strangers ‘cross the sea, stirring mighty dread,
well met the shillelagh’s wrath upside o’ the head;
or wrenching one’s back for a hard kiss o’ the Stone
brings a gift o’ the blarney to cajole ye t’ the bone;
the Inferno’s circles that did Dante once tell,
naught but fairy rings beside the Saint’s vision of Hell,
inspiring Eire’s Faithful toward God’s judgement to fear
with His love for the auld sod forever kept near.
Yet in all of these grand t’ings that Eire has held dear
not one, I’ll be tellin’ ya, mentions green beer.

Sure, and t’is well to be goin’ straight to th’ quiz now:

1. A plant from several species of Trifolium and Oxalis, used by St. Patrick to explain the Trinity, serves as the national symbol of the Republic of Ireland. In ancient Rome Pliny the Elder said it was the only plant that a serpent wouldn't touch.

2. And speaking of serpents, legend says that St. Patrick once drove them all off an cliff into the Irish Sea. It’s true that no snakes exist in Ireland, but this is the result of which geophysical phenomenon from the earth’s history?

3. No Country for Old Men is an award-winning film derived from the first line of which poem by William Butler Yeats?

4. Which Irish-born playwright refers to the Emerald Isle in a play called John Bull’s Other Island?

5. This satirist and cleric (1667-1745) was born of English parents in Dublin. One of his works features tiny creatures resembling leprechauns. Who was he?

6. Who was the Galway-born noblewoman (1852-1932) who was also a scholar of folklore, a patroness of literature, and a playwright in her own right as well as creating the Abbey Theatre?

7. James Joyce’s masterpiece is Number One on the list of most important books of the twentieth century, but it took a Federal District Court decision to reverse its ban in the United States. What is the title of this novel?

8. Who was the poet, born in 1939 (the year that Yeats died), who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995? His works include Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark.

9. What is the general name for the turmoil-tossed region from which in 1920 six counties were placed under the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland while the remaining three stayed in the Republic of Ireland?

10. The beauty of this Irish patriot, philanthropist, and actress(1866-1953) was widely- renowned, but her chief claim to fame was her nearly-omnipresent role as the muse for W.B. Yeats. Who was she?

11. Born in a slum, he grew up to be not only a fierce fighter for Irish independencebut also one of Ireland’s most important playwrights, though some productions caused riots. He wrote Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars. Who was he?

12. The notion that there have been more people of Irish heritage in the United States than have ever lived in Ireland has inspired the themes for many Irish-American works. The assimilation of Jewish and Irish immigrants into American life was the topic of a 1922 long-running play by Anne Nichols that held the Broadway record for decades. What was the title of this romantic comedy?

13. What catastrophic event occurring in Ireland in 1845 caused a million people to starve?

14. What is the nuclear particle which quantum physicists named after a word they found in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce?

15. James Stephens (1882-1950) collected and translated Irish folklore but is best known for a prose fantasy whose title is a symbol for the elusive treasure that allegedly sits at the end of the rainbow. What was the name of this 1912 work?

16. One of the most significant figures in 20th century literature, this playwright, novelist, and poet (1906-1989)was Irish-born but he wrote his works mainly in French. Still he often exemplified the dual Gaelic character of twinkling wit and deep despair. One of his most famous lines is “I can't go on, I'll go on. . .” Who was he?

17. And finally, name the Irish county which gave the always-funny and often-bawdy 5-line rhyming verse its name.



Answers
1. Shamrock
2. The ice age.
3. “Sailing to Byzantium”
4. George Bernard Shaw
5. Jonathan Swift
6. Lady Gregory
7. Ulysses
8. Seamus Heaney
9. Ulster
10.Maude Gonne
11. Sean O’Casey
12. Abie’s Irish Rose
13. The Potato Famine
14. quark
15. The Crock of Gold
16. Samuel Beckett
17. Limerick
and begorra, here’s the Bonus now, which will be givin’ ye the topic of the next quiz.
Fill in the blank:

The Aran Islands on the West coast of Ireland often form the _______ for J. M. Synge’s plays.

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. I was able to get the bonus question from last week, but I still missed more than I got right on this week’s quiz. I got numbers 1, 7, 9, 12, 13, and 17 right. I’m taking credit for number 13, although I said the Potato Latke Famine, after placing too much importance on number 12. I hope that’s all right.

[Niamh]

Got all of them bar no. 12! Go me! lol!
I know the ins and outs of the bonus question too, but i will go on forever if i write it down. I'll get carried away. J.M.Synge is after all my favourite Irish Playwright!

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for takin' the quizz, DickZ and Niamh. For the both of ye
as well as the rest o' ye now, a heartfelt toast from th' auld sod:

Slainte 'gus Saol agat!

[Niamh]

Go raibh mile maith agat!

[Virgil]

I got nine right: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17. I should have gotten a few others but memory lapses suck. I'm actually taking credit for number 1, even though I called it a three-leaf clover. I think that's the same thing.

[AuntShecky]

The answer to the previous bonus question is: setting.

If you're a fan of the Science Channel, you might have seen various programs about string theory and “parallel universes,” in which could exist a multitude of different versions of our world and everything on it (including you me.) I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that just one of me is more than enough for any number of universes!

But if you buy the parallel universe notion, then it would also make it theoretically possible for a person to be simultaneously in more than one place. I've got news for you – it’s already possible to be in two places at once. Case in point: At this moment you are sitting in front of your computer, out there in Upper Sandusky or
Outer Mongolia, wherever. Yet at this self-same moment, you are also “on” the LitNet, ergo, two places at once. Yeah, I know, that’s neither here nor there. Let’s make it three places and go to the quiz:

Everybody’s Got to Be Someplace

1. Who was the 20th century poet whose trademark lower-case letters could be found in such graceful poems as “somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond”?

2. When a well-known character asks a fairy where she’s been, she answers “Over hill, over dale. . .” adding, “I do wander everywhere.” Name the Shakespearean comedy in which this passage appears.

3. An anonymous saying, cited by the author of The Romance of the Rose as well as St. Bonaventure, defines “a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.” Whose “nature” is so described?

4. In 1923, what was the question posed to George Leigh Mallory in which he famously replied, “Because it was there”?

5. The Unnameable, the last part of a novel trilogy, consists of a stream of conscious monologue by a narrator whose head is encased in a glass jar set in an alley behind a downscale restaurant. Who was the author?

6. What is the title of E.M. Forster’s first novel, culled from a line by Alexander Pope?

7. Because of theological technicality, some souls, which are barred from heaven and hell yet not guilty enough to be sentenced to purgatory, required a kind of permanent holding area. What is the name of this place, which is also the name of a dance which originated in the Caribbean islands?

8. Inspired by a passage in Plato’s Republic and written in Latin, Utopia depicts an idealized island community. Who wrote this 1516 fantasy?

9. On a similar theme, Samuel Butler’s 1872 satire uses a future world to poke fun at social and political institutions which actually existed circa 1872. Name the title, which is an anagram of a common English word we use every day.

10. Where did heroic Scandinavian warriors go after they were slain on the battlefield?

11. According to songwriters Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, where do “bluebirds fly”?

12. What is the title of Sartre’s absurdist play in which three characters are imprisoned in a room where the door won't open?

13. And finally, in 17th century England it was rare for women to forge literary careers, but one woman fought the tide and became a celebrated playwright. Even though most of us never heard of Aphra Behn, we often quote her lines. Finish this famous saying:
“Here today. . .” and what?


Answers
1. e e cummings
2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
3. God
4. “Why did you climb Mount Everest?”
5. Samuel Beckett
6.Where Angels Fear to Tread
7. Limbo
8. Sir (or Saint) Thomas More
9. Erewhon (an anagram for “nowhere”)
10. Valhalla
11. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
12. No Exit
13. “. . .gone tomorrow.”

Bonus Question
( in which is set a hint about the next topic.) Finish this phrase from a line from King Lear:
“That way madness ____” (what?)

[DickZ]

Thanks, Auntie. For number 1, I knew it was either kd lang or ee cummings because they are the only two people with brains that I know of who use lower case letters for everything. I tossed a coin and it came up ee cummings so I’ll take credit for a right answer. I also guessed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I started out really strong.

After missing number 3, probably because I don’t go to synagogue as often as I should, I got number 4. I guessed To Err is Human as the title borrowed from Alexander Pope for number 6, so it shows that you can’t just keep guessing and do all that well on an Auntie Quiz. I also guessed calypso instead of limbo for number 7, again proving it’s better to know the material than to guess.

Since I remember seeing The Wizard of Oz when I was about five, and a few times since, I got number 10 right. I got numbers 11, 12, and 13 correct also, and I didn’t even have to guess on them.

So to recap, I got 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you for taking the quiz, DickZ. I appreciate your feedback.

[Virgil]

Ooh, I did extremely well on this one, even thouogh I felt tentative with each answer, but they turned out to be correct. I got eleven correct, all correct from 1 through 10 and 13. I think you transposed the answers for 10 and 11 in your answers list.

[AuntShecky]

[QUOTE=Virgil; I think you transposed the answers for 10 and 11 in your answers list.[/QUOTE]


Whoops! Won't be the first time I made a foolish mistake on the "Internets." All fixed, mehopes. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Virgil.