Lit@MIT
Authors
Characters
Titles
Literary Trivia
100

This tier of subject offerings include classes that introduce students to canonical texts and authors (Foundations of Western Literature or Shakespeare, for instance), or to a literary form (Reading Poetry), or to particular national literatures (American Literature)...

What is The Introductory (21L.000 – 21L.048)?

100

Tender is the Night, The Beautiful and the Damned, The Last Tycoon, The Great Gatsby

Who is F. Scott Fitzgerald

100

Unseen in the Shakespeare play, Rosaline gets her story told from this titled character's perspective.

Who is Romeo?

100

A young girl becomes increasingly aware of the hypocrisy and prejudice in her small southern town in this coming-of-age story; it won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 depicting racial injustice in a small Southern town

What is To Kill a Mockingbird?

100
These three sisters published their novels under the names Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell.
Who are Anne, Charlotte and Emily Bronte?
200

Thematic Complex or Historical Period Major/Breadth Requirement? Genre; Author Study; Film, Media & Popular Culture; Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Theory

What are Thematic Complexes?

200
Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Pearl
Who is John Steinbeck?
200

"Seedy"-sounding narrator of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel

Who is Nick Carraway?

200

A disillusioned teen is fed up with all the "phoniness" in the world in this novel; "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye."

What is The Catcher in the Rye?

200
This banned book was first published in 1922 by the owner of the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.
What is Ulysses by James Joyce.
300

Thematic Complex or Historical Period Major/Breadth Requirement: Ancient & Medieval; Renaissance; Restoration and 18th Century; 19th Century; 20th Century & Contemporary

What are Historical Periods?

300

Lilith's Brood: The Xenogenesis series (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago), Kindred, Parable of the Sower

Who is Octavia Butler?

300

According to Homer, Penelope agreed to marry the one who could string this man's huge bow

Who is Odysseus?

300

With this book Jane Austen satirized the fashion for novels like those of Ann Radcliffe

What is Northanger Abbey?

300

This major city is recognized for its excellence in publishing both Spanish & Catalan literature

What is Barcelona?

400

A Literature Minor lays the foundation for advanced study by enhancing the student’s appreciation of major narrative, poetic and dramatic texts in relation to the cultures that produced them. Minors must complete a total of 6 subjects. What are the two track categories?

What are Film Track or Literature Tracks? (400 points if you can name one Spring 2021 course) 

400

To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves

Who is Virginia Woolf?

400

Created around 1831, he's literature's most famous bell-ringer

Who is Quasimoto?

400

In the satiric 1729 essay, Swift suggested dining on poor Irish children to control poverty

What is A Modest Proposal?

400

"Never Let Me Go" is by this Japanese-born British writer, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature

Who is Kazuo Ishiguro?

500

Seminars are designed for students who have completed two prior subjects in Literature and focus in Literary Methods, Studies in Fiction/Drama/Poetry/Film/Literary History, Major Authors, or Problems in Cultural Interpretation. What are Spring 2021 Seminars?

(500 points for each Spring 2021 answer)

500

Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd

Who is Thomas Hardy?

500

One minute, this 1890 title guy is young & handsome; the next, his old corpse is only identifiable by his rings. In literature Basil Hallward is the artist who paints the picture of him

Who is Dorian Gray?

500
Winston Smith is arrested by the Thought Police in this dystopian novel.
What is 1984?