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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, The Writer's Nature, Pages 34-72.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who developed the style of the "epiphany story" in The Dubliners?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Beckett.
(c) McKinley.
(d) Conrad.

2. Of which writer does Gardner say, "the brilliant language with which he describes a minor character cannot help but suggest that the words he chooses are more important to him than the token secretary behind the desk"?
(a) John Updike.
(b) William Faulkner.
(c) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(d) Dylan Thomas.

3. What is one of the philosophers who has maintained that words inevitably distance us from the brute existence, according to Gardner in Chapter 1?
(a) Plato.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Socrates.
(d) Kierkegaard.

4. Gardner states in Chapter 1 that Canterbury Tales is a disguised what?
(a) Shakespearean ode.
(b) War poem.
(c) Sermon.
(d) Love poem.

5. Gardner states that in the works of Shakespeare, language always serves character and what?
(a) Irony.
(b) Aesthetic.
(c) Wit.
(d) Action.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Raymond Carver move to Chico, California from?

2. In what novel does Gardner note the rooftop scene as being one of surprise in Chapter 1?

3. Of what author does Gardner say his heroes are clown-heroes knocked around by the universe?

4. Who wrote Divine Comedy?

5. What word does Gardner use to mean a phrase is worn out and overused?

(see the answer key)

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