This reclusive poet is now well known for her distinctive uses of punctuation, capitalization, and slant rhyme, in spite of the fact that she requested that her work be burned after her death.
Who is Emily Dickinson?
100
This iconic poem by T. S. Eliot is packed with allusions and musings from an underwhelming would-be lover who can't drum up the courage to speak to his beloved.
What is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?"
100
This renowned American literary figure gained fame for his gripping slave narrative and his impressive mastery of rhetoric.
Who is Frederick Douglass?
100
The dry, barren countryside of this North African country serves as the backdrop for cultural conflicts in Albert Camus's "The Guest."
What is Algeria?
100
This realistic Russian novella chronicles the terribly ordinary death and life of an unremarkable middle class man.
What is The Death of Ivan Ilyich?
200
This pioneering American poet takes on a range of differing personas in his lengthy poem "Song of Myself."
Who is Walt Whitman?
200
This prolific modern poet takes his inspiration from such varied sources as classical mythology and the Irish fight for independence from British rule.
Who is William Butler Yeats?
200
This wandering yet well-known figure is portrayed as a mysterious holy man with healing powers in a short story by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.
Who is Zaabalawi?
200
This lovely ruined church inspires English Romantic poet William Wordsworth to reflect on the glories of nature, humanity, and writing poetry.
What is Tintern Abbey?
200
Two ill-fated lovers from different social spheres give up life and honor to die together in this tragic drama by Chikamatsu Monzaemon.
What is The Love Suicides at Amijima?
300
Thanks to work like "Cry of the Children" and Sonnets from the Portuguese, this British poet built herself a reputation to rival that of her husband and fellow esteemed poet, Robert.
Who is Elizabeth Barrett Browning?
300
An unnamed empire anticipates--but is ultimately denied--a visit from a conquering people group in this modern poem by Constantine Cavafy.
What is "Waiting for the Barbarians?"
300
This isolated schoolteacher is forced to involve himself in the punishment of an Arab criminal in Albert Camus's "The Guest."
Who is Daru?
300
This predominantly African American Manhattan neighborhood sets the scene for the personal and cultural tensions woven throughout James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son."
What is Harlem?
300
This grieving Spanish poet pens "The Lament of Ignacio Sanchez Mejias," an elegy mourning the death of his bull-fighting friend.
Who is Federico Garcia Lorca?
400
This visionary poet wrote, illustrated, and printed his own work, including his famous volume Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Who is William Blake?
400
This Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet composed urban poetry including "I Speak of the City" and "Central Park."
Who is Octavio Paz?
400
This beautiful mortal woman from classical mythology appears in modern poems by Ruben Dario and William Butler Yeats, which depict her fateful encounter with Zeus in swan form.
Who is Leda?
400
Salman Rushdie's short story "The Perforated Sheet" takes place in this largely Muslim region of northern India.
What is Kashmir?
400
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda composes this powerful political poem following the brutal assassination of a friend and fellow poet during the Spanish Civil War.
What is "I'm Explaining a Few Things?"
500
This groundbreaking Parisian poet is best known for combining beautiful verse forms with revolting subject matter, as evidenced in his famous volume The Flowers of Evil.
Who is Charles Baudelaire?
500
This modern German poem by Rainer Maria Rilke portrays a striking statue that inspires its speaker to conclude, "You must change your life."
What is "Archaic Torso of Apollo?"
500
Dr. Yu Tsun shoots this innocent Sinologist to convey a coded message in Jorge Luis Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths."
Who is Dr. Stephen Albert?
500
This fictional university sets the scene for Virginia Woolf's musings on women and fiction in A Room of One's Own.
What is Oxbridge?
500
Romanian poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan writes this poem describing the inhuman behavior of an SS officer who forces Jewish prisoners to play music while digging graves.