View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Chapter 1, Gardner writes that one is unable to write for everyone, "try to win the audience both of Saul Bellow and" whom?
(a) James Joyce.
(b) Stephen King.
(c) Charles Dickens.
(d) Anton Chekhov.

2. What painter does Gardner remark in Chapter 1 never sold a painting in his life?
(a) Picasso.
(b) Van Gogh.
(c) Matisse.
(d) Monet.

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

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

5. What masterpiece of James Joyce does Gardner suggest typing out for language growth in Chapter 1?
(a) "Ulysses."
(b) "The Wall."
(c) "The Dead."
(d) "Finnegan's Wake."

6. What is the name of the man who moves next door to his teenage daughter in Gardner's hypothetical story in Chapter 1?
(a) Frank.
(b) James.
(c) Bill.
(d) Bob.

7. Gardner refers to boring, worn out language as being what kind of mask?
(a) Hamlet.
(b) Need-for-approval.
(c) Dramatic.
(d) Pollyanna.

8. What psychologist suggests that Jack and the Beanstalk is about penis envy?
(a) Madison Thomas.
(b) Bruno Bettelheim.
(c) Carl Jung.
(d) Sigmund Freud.

9. What is the honest answer to the question most young writer's ask of "Do I have what it takes to be a writer?" according to Gardner?
(a) "You'll know in time."
(b) "Definitely no."
(c) "Definitely yet."
(d) "God only knows."

10. What magazine does Gardner suggest for good literary work in Chapter 1?
(a) The Reader's Digest.
(b) The Londoner.
(c) The London Book Review.
(d) The New Yorker.

11. Who wrote Finnegan's Wake?
(a) Nabokov.
(b) Joyce.
(c) Flaubert.
(d) Robbe-Grillet.

12. Which author wrote A Tale of Two Cities?
(a) Bedlow.
(b) Steinbeck.
(c) Dickens.
(d) Melville.

13. What is, according to Gardner, the one quality in fiction that cannot be faked?
(a) Honor.
(b) Beauty.
(c) Love.
(d) Strangeness.

14. What kind of intelligence does Gardner say is important to the writer in Chapter 1?
(a) Mathematics.
(b) Psychological.
(c) Storyteller's.
(d) Philosophical.

15. Which author does Gardner state had "gazelle eyes" which dominated the room in Chapter 1?
(a) Anthony Trollope.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) James Joyce.
(d) Joyce Carol Oates.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?

2. Who is the author of All the King's Men?

3. What does Gardner claim is helpful, if it can be kept in partial control, to keep the novelist driven?

4. Which title does Raymond Carver say is the only one he recalls of John Gardner's manuscripts in the Forward?

5. Who is one of the writers Gardner notes in Chapter 1 as having both a fine ear for language and also a fascination with the materials?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 434 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample