Religious Lit
In the New Testament there are four canonical gospels…
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Writer John Green has had a fairly active literary career, giving us “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Paper Towns,” and this novel about a man who has been dumped by nineteen women all with the same name.
The titular hero of this Anglo-Saxon epic fights the monster Grendel without armor. To make the fight fair of course.
Beowulf
This early American author of “Rip Van Winkle” and other similar stories published his comical history of New York under the pseudonym Deidrich Knickerbocker, pretending to have found the fictional Dutchman’s memoirs after his disappearance.
Washington Irving
In J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic, “The Lord of the Rings,” this free kingdom stands with Gondor as the principal opponents to the dark wizard Sauron.
Rohan
The first five books of the Old Testament are known to Jews as “The Torah.” In Christianity, it is often referred to by this Greek term meaning “five scrolls.”
The Pentateuch
In 2001, Yann Martel published this ocean survival narrative, featuring a mathematically-named title character and a Bengal tiger.
The Life of Pi
Chaucer’s pilgrims in “The Canterbury Tales” are travelling to visit the shrine of this English saint.
This towering giant of 19th century American literature’s given name was Samuel Clemens.
This ferocious feline is the only character to appear in all seven of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia novels.
Aslan
A treasure trove of religious texts were unearthed in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s in the Qumran Caves, some of them dating to the third century BC. They are often referred to collectively by this term, derived from the body of water nearby.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Author Salman Rushdie went into hiding in 1989 after this novel was deemed “offensive to Islam” by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran.
The Satanic Verses
The shield Sir Gawain carries on his quest to find the Green Knight has a pentangle painted on the outside that symbolizes this.
The Five Wounds of Christ
The Five Joys of Mary
The Five Fingers
The Five Senses
The Five Knightly Virtues
This 19th century British author of “Mill on the Floss” and “Middlemarch” published her works under a male pseudonym.
George Eliot or Mary Ann Evans
In George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series, this noble family are the most influential in the north and are symbolized by a grey wolf.
House Stark
In Islam, traditions containing the additional sayings of Muhammad are contained in this text (meaning “talk” or “discourse” in Arabic). They are an important source of Muslim daily practice.
The Hadith
This Haruki Murakami novel about a man reminiscing over his college experiences shares its title with a song by the Beatles that appeared on their 1965 album “Rubber Soul.”
Norwegian Wood
In Boccaccio’s “Decameron,” a group of gentlepeople flee Florence due to this catastrophe.
The Black Plague, The Black Death, or the Plague
This Founding Father used the pen name “Silence Dogood” to get his letters published in the New England Courant.
Benjamin Franklin
In this novelized retelling of Arthurian myth, T.H. White has the wizard Merlin aging backwards.
The Once and Future King
The destructive power of the atomic bomb prompted J. Robert Oppenheimer to quote Vishnu as they appear in this Sanskrit scripture, “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”
The Bhagavad Gita (or the Mahabharata)
This 1996 novel by David Foster Wallace features “subsidized time,” with each year having a corporate sponsor.
Infinite Jest
In Canto XII of the “Inferno,” Dante places these two famous conquerors in the River Phlegethon, a river of blood.
Alexander the Great
Attila the Hun
Theodor Geisel is a beloved children’s author known under this pen-name. He is less famous for his inflammatory political cartoons published during the Second World War.
Dr. Seuss
In the Discworld series by this prolific British fantasy author, the world sits on the back of four elephants standing on the back of a spacefaring turtle.
Terry Pratchett