Creatives

Lives of the Poet

GET IT WRIT(ER)

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Multiple Choice

ROUND 1

Which of the following people were NOT related to each other?  

• Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, & Percy Shelley, poet

• Ada Lovelace, pioneering mathematician, & Lord Byron (poet)

• The poets George Eliot and T. S. Eliot

• The poets Elizabeth Barret Browning & Robert Browning

• The novelists Kingsley Amis & Martin Amis

​Percy and Mary Shelley were married, as were Robert and Elizabeth Barret Browning.

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​Kingsley & Martin Amis were father and son.

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​Ada Lovelace, who worked on Charles Babbage's computing engine, was Lord Byron's only daughter from wedlock.

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​ROUND 2 - MEN BEHAVING BADLY

Multiple Choice

Which of the following things is NOT true of famous poet and ladies man Lord Byron? 

• Lost a suitcase full of his manuscripts

• Swum the Hellenspont between Europe & Asia  

• Had a deformity of his right foot

• Fought in the Greek war of independence 

​Byron did not loose a suitcase full of his manuscripts...

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... but famous author and ladies man Ernest Hemingway did...

Multiple Choice

Which of the following things did Hemingway NOT do?

• Get married four times

• Survive the crash of the plane that was rescuing him from another plane crash

• Die from a self inflicted gunshot wound

• Win the Nobel Prize for 'For Whom The Bell Tolls'

​Hemingway did win the Nobel Prize...

​... but he won it for 'The Old Man and the Sea'.

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​He also inspired a generation of other writers, including renowned journalist and recreational drug user Hunter S Thompson

Multiple Choice

Which of the following did Hunter S. Thompson NOT do?

• Write 'Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas'

• Get married four times

• Die from a self inflicted gunshot wound

• Have his ashes shot out of a cannon

​Hunter was only married twice.

​ROUND 3 - LITERARY MASHUPS

Prolific Argentian ​author and polyglot Jorge Luis Borges once met prolific English author and polyglot Anthony Burgess.

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Although both spoke Spanish and English, they decided that it would put the other at a disadvantage if they carried on the discussion in either of their native languages.

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​They picked a language that they were both equally proficient in.

Multiple Choice

What language did Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Anthony Burgess converse in?

• Old Norse

• French

• Basque

• Italian

Multiple Choice

Which of these writers was William Burroughs, heroin addict and author of The Naked Lunch, not friends with?

• Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

• Allan Ginsberg (Howl)

• Charles Bukowski (Post Office)

​Bukowski admired Burroughs...

​... but was snubbed by him at a literary function.

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FINAL ROUND - WOMEN BEHAVING BADLY

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Multiple Choice

Which is NOT true of George Eliot, author of Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda?

• Had an affair with the musician Chopin

• George Eliot was not her real name

• Addicted  to laudanum

Multiple Choice

Which of these female authors did not kill themselves?

• Sylvia Plath

• Dorothy Parker

• Virginia Woolf