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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. With what older colleague did Gardner publish an anthology of fiction at Chico College?
(a) David Wellesley.
(b) Lennis Dunlap.
(c) Michael Ewing.
(d) James Fenway.

2. Gardner notes in Chapter 1 that all writing requires some measure of a ____ state.
(a) Fearful.
(b) Brave.
(c) Trance.
(d) Confident.

3. Of whose writing does Gardner say that no reader can doubt the impulse to capture real life, "the special quality of country-Welsh craziness"?
(a) John Updike.
(b) Dylan Thomas.
(c) Shakespeare.
(d) Samuel Beckett.

4. Which sci-fi author wrote A Canticle for Liebowitz?
(a) J.D. Salinger.
(b) Jack Humphries.
(c) Walter M. Miller, Jr.
(d) Kurt Vonnegut.

5. Gardner suggests that the dazzling poetry of Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is not the same poetry that who speaks?
(a) Petrucio.
(b) Hamlet.
(c) Juliet.
(d) Macbeth.

Short Answer Questions

1. What author does Gardner remark has a persistent mean streak in his writing?

2. What does Gardner say we call a writer who has less feeling for his characters than we feel they deserve?

3. In Chapter 1, Gardner states that "In a literary culture where the very notion of a 'masterpiece' is commonly thought" what?

4. What does Gardner compare to the floors and structural supports in a fine old mansion in Chapter 1?

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

(see the answer key)

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