Portal:Literature/Did you know/old
This page contains all DYK's of a year.
Today is June 29, 2024, week number 26.
- Week 1 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Urmuz_Marcel_Iancu.jpg/150px-Urmuz_Marcel_Iancu.jpg)
... that Urmuz (pictured) was an early 20th century Romanian writer of absurdist and avant-garde prose?
... that
... that in rhetoric, anaphora (from the Greek ἀναφορά "carrying back") is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to emphasize an image or a concept?
... that
... that Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith also wrote novels, for instance A Tenured Professor (1990)?
... that "Nemo solus satis sapit" (roughly translated as "On your own, you never know enough") is a quotation from Plautus's play Miles Gloriosus, and that Miles Gloriosus appears again in Stephen Sondheim's 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum?
... that
- Week 2 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Encyclopedie_de_D%27Alembert_et_Diderot_-_Premiere_Page_-_ENC_1-NA5.jpg/180px-Encyclopedie_de_D%27Alembert_et_Diderot_-_Premiere_Page_-_ENC_1-NA5.jpg)
... that
... that Liza of Lambeth was W. Somerset Maugham's debut novel?
... that
... that
... that "Ars longa, vita brevis" is part of an aphorism by Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and that it refers to the art of medicine?
... that both
... that
- Week 3 (edit)
... that novel?
... that in pantomime, Hanswurst is a character in comic performances on the German stage, distinguished for his awkwardness, his gluttonous appetite, and his rotundity?
... that
... that both
... that there are many literary works with eponymous heroes?
... that Village of the Damned is the title of two films both of which are based on John Wyndham's 1957 science fiction novel, The Midwich Cuckoos?
... that during the original production of
- Week 4 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Johann_Christoph_Gottsched.jpg/150px-Johann_Christoph_Gottsched.jpg)
... that Johann Christoph Gottsched (pictured) was a German author and critic who advocated the principle that poetry must be the product of strict and artificial rules?
... that "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table" are the first lines of T. S. Eliot's 1915 poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?
... that
... that a
?... that "Deus ex machina" is a Latin phrase that is used to describe an unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot?
... that in 1956, Adele Wiseman, a second-generation immigrant to Canada, published her first novel, The Sacrifice?
... that Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov, Ernest Borneman, and Jerzy Kosiński are four novelists who wrote in English rather than their respective mother tongues?
- Week 5 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Royal_National_Theatre_London_SouthBankCentre02.jpg/150px-Royal_National_Theatre_London_SouthBankCentre02.jpg)
... that the Olivier, the Lyttelton, and the Cottesloe are the three stages housed by the Royal National Theatre (pictured) on London's South Bank?
... that the
?... that Een lied van schijn en wezen is a 1981 novel by Cees Nooteboom about an author who creates his story around the sentence, "The colonel falls in love with the doctor's wife"?
... that
... that Manderley is the house which plays a central part in Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca (1938), and that as a result of the novel's popularity, the name "Manderley" became extremely popular as a name for ordinary houses, at one time being the most common house name in the United Kingdom?
... that Amongst Barbarians is a 1989 play by Michael Wall set in Penang, Malaysia, where two young Englishmen have been arrested for drug trafficking?
... that Ignatius J. Reilly is the
- Week 6 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Salman-Rushdie-1.jpg/150px-Salman-Rushdie-1.jpg)
... that
... that Ugo Riccarelli was awarded the 2004 Strega Prize for his novel, Il dolore perfetto?
... that Roman historian Sallust wrote an account of the Jugurthine War (112-105 BC), Bellum Iugurthinum?
... that Lily Brett has written novels about Holocaust survivors living in New York City, for example Just Like That (1994)?
... that the term
... that Mary Shelley & Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pamela Hansford Johnson & C. P. Snow, Faye Kellerman & Jonathan Kellerman, and Siri Hustvedt & Paul Auster are just four of the many writing couples in the history of literature?
... that U.S.
... that the Heian period Japanese story Torikaebaya Monogatari is the tale of a man who lives as a woman and his sister who lives as a man, who eventually swap places in order to lead happy lives?
- Week 7 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Hamlet_quarto_3rd.jpg/150px-Hamlet_quarto_3rd.jpg)
... that
... that Alain Robbe-Grillet is both an influential theorist and an author of the nouveau roman?
... that "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes" was a popular English song with lyrics from Ben Jonson's 1616 poem, "To Celia"?
... that Ann S. Stephens is credited with writing the first "dime novel"?
... that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters of Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet (pictured)?
... that Moira Buffini, Alex Jones, Sarah Kane, Patrick Marber, and Mark Ravenhill are playwrights usually associated with the movement referred to as "in-yer-face theatre"?
... that Jorge Semprún's first novel, Le grand voyage (The Long Voyage), is a fictionalised account of his deportation to, and incarceration in, Buchenwald concentration camp?
- Week 8 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Jules_Feiffer.jpg/150px-Jules_Feiffer.jpg)
... that in Jules Feiffer's (pictured) 1967 stage play, Little Murders, an average American family ends up as snipers, randomly shooting at pedestrians from a window of their New York City apartment?
... that Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad, and Émile Zola's Nana were all first published in 1880?
... that
?... that
... that the
... that in Part Two of his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin gives a list of thirteen virtues, and that he explains one of them, humility, with the advice, "Imitate Jesus and Socrates."?
... that Hemingway's 1929 anti-war novel, A Farewell to Arms, was filmed in 1932 and remade in 1957 starring Rock Hudson?
- Week 9 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Hans_Jakob_Christoffel_von_Grimmelshausen.jpeg/150px-Hans_Jakob_Christoffel_von_Grimmelshausen.jpeg)
... that
?... that "Better authentic mammon than a bogus god" is the epigraph of Elizabeth George's latest novel, What Came Before He Shot Her (2006), and that it has been taken from Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal?
... that
... that ?
... that
... that Thomas Mann once said that if one had to reduce one's library to six novels, Fontane's Effi Briest would have to be one of them?
... that the
- Week 10 (edit)
... that A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a 2005 novel by Marina Lewycka about a Ukrainian immigrant family living in a village near Peterborough, England?
... that with the Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 theatres in Britain reopened after having been closed during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell?
... that an acrostic is a poem or other text written in an alphabetic script in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message?
... that the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel is based on Liliom, a 1909 play by Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár?
... that "Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei, / Led us to this perfect day" is the beginning of a nursery rhyme chanted by brainwashed children in Ira Levin's dystopian novel of 1970, This Perfect Day?
... that in both
... that Magnalia Christi Americana ("Christ's Great American Deeds") by Cotton Mather details the religious development of Massachusetts and other nearby New England colonies in the 17th century?
- Week 11 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Robert_Browning_%281873_cartoon_by_Frederick_Waddy%29.jpg/150px-Robert_Browning_%281873_cartoon_by_Frederick_Waddy%29.jpg)
... that "
...that the tragic ending of Shakespeare's King Lear was found to be so distasteful that it was replaced on stage for over 150 years by Nahum Tate's adaptation, with a happy ending and a love story?
... that
... that the
... that Equus is a 1973 stage play by Peter Shaffer about a 17-year-old boy who is brought to a mental health facility for treatment by a psychiatrist because he has blinded six horses with a spike?
... that Carmen Laforet, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Lucía Etxebarría, and Eduardo Lago are recipients of the Premio Nadal?
... that fl. is used by (literary) historians as an abbreviation for "floruit" (Latin for "flourished"), to indicate periods when persons were influential, and that it is normally used only when dates of birth or death are unknown?
... that Tituba, the first woman accused of being a witch during the Salem witch trials of 1692, is the protagonist of the novel, Moi, Tituba, sorcière noire de Salem (1986) by Maryse Condé, and that she also features prominently in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller?
- Week 12 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Dicksee_-_Beatrice.jpg/150px-Dicksee_-_Beatrice.jpg)
... that
... that the Boulevard Saint-Michel is mentioned in quite a number of literary works?
... that Ernest Vincent Wright's novel Gadsby (1939) is an example of a lipogram?
... that Albert Camus's La Peste, Italo Calvino's Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, and Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury were all first published in 1947?
... that Frédéric Beigbeder's 2000 novel 99 francs was retitled 14,99 euro after the introduction of the euro, and that it was published in the United Kingdom as £9.99?
... that J. B. Priestley and Marghanita Laski were involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament?
... that Louis Begley's latest novel, Matters of Honor (2007), is about the enduring friendship between three Harvard graduates?
- Week 13 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Antoine_Fran%C3%A7ois_Pr%C3%A9vost_by_Georg_Friedrich_Schmidt.jpg/150px-Antoine_Fran%C3%A7ois_Pr%C3%A9vost_by_Georg_Friedrich_Schmidt.jpg)
... that
)?...that rhymed prose has been popular in various cultures, ranging from medieval Arabic maqamat to modern rap?
... that Talk Radio is a 1987 stage play by Eric Bogosian about a shock jock, and that in 1988 it was adapted for the cinema by Oliver Stone?
... that Arnold J. Toynbee's 12-volume A Study of History (1934-61) is reputedly the longest written work ever composed in the English language?
... that
... that
... that
?- Week 14 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/AberdeenBestiaryFolio004vChristInMajesty.jpg/150px-AberdeenBestiaryFolio004vChristInMajesty.jpg)
... that
... that Marshall McLuhan, Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre, C. P. Snow and Mae West all died in 1980?
... that the title of Arthur Miller's 1994 play Broken Glass refers to the pogrom of 1938 euphemistically called "Reichskristallnacht"?
... that an illuminated manuscript (pictured) is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations?
... that
... that Christina Goering, one of the title characters of Jane Bowles's 1943 novel Two Serious Ladies, is a wealthy spinster who ends up as a high-class call girl?
... that French novelist
- Week 15 (edit)
... that English poet W. H. Auden, who died in 1973, is interred in Kirchstetten, Lower Austria?
... that
... that "Tarry, Jew: The law hath yet another hold on you" are words spoken by
... that
... that Alan Ayckbourn's plays are usually premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, North Yorkshire?
... that "À une madone" (English translation) is a poem by Charles Baudelaire from his 1857 collection, Les Fleurs du mal?
... that Sally Bowles is an English cabaret singer in 1930s Berlin in Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novel, Goodbye to Berlin, and that she was played by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 movie, Cabaret?
- Week 16 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Jan_Vermeer_van_Delft_007.jpg/150px-Jan_Vermeer_van_Delft_007.jpg)
... that
... that Warner Baxter, Alan Ladd, Robert Redford, and Toby Stephens have all played Jay Gatsby?
... that
... that Was machen wir jetzt? (2000) and Das blaue Kleid (2002) are novels by German film director Doris Dörrie?
... that ghoti is supposed to be pronounced /fɪʃ/ or /.../ (that is, no sound; silence), and that the coinage of the word is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw?
... that
... that Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road are the three novels which make up Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy?
- Week 17 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Matthew_Arnold_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16745.jpg/150px-Matthew_Arnold_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16745.jpg)
... that Matthew Arnold's (pictured) 1867 poem "Dover Beach" features prominently in Ian McEwan's 2005 novel, Saturday?
... that during the years of his
... that the
... that "One Off the Short List" is a
... that in Peter Turrini's 1972 play Sauschlachten (Slaughtering the Pig) a handicapped farm hand is brutally killed by the local community?
... that Leo Rosten is the creator of the fictional character of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N as well as the author of The Joys of Yiddish?
... that "
- Week 18 (edit)
... that the Hen and Chickens Theatre (pictured) in Highbury is a typical London fringe venue?
... that Familien Polonius (1827), Drøm og Virkelighed (1833), and To Tidsaldre (1845) are three novellas by Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, and that Søren Kierkegaard wrote a review of the latter?
... that Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a 1993 stage play by Steve Martin in which Pablo Picasso meets Albert Einstein?
... that "the lady that's known as Lou" is the woman two men fight over in
... that, having gained a great reputation for
... that actress Rosamund Pike's London stage credits include Hitchcock Blonde by Terry Johnson?
... that in 1970 Derek Raymond published A State of Denmark, a dystopian novel in which England is led by a dictator called Jobling?
- Week 19 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Philip_Massinger.jpg/100px-Philip_Massinger.jpg)
... that A New Way to Pay Old Debts and The City Madam are early 17th century plays by Philip Massinger (pictured)?
... that
... that
... that Gunga Din, Helen of Troy, and The Man from Snowy River are just three of the films based on poems?
... that
... that
... that Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale (born 1923), the eldest son of British Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, is a novelist?
- Week 20 (edit)
... that in his controversial 1968 speech, Enoch Powell said he seemed "to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood" due to continued immigration to Great Britain, and that the phrase is an allusion to Virgil (pictured) ("Et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno")?
... that
... that an urban legend is a kind of modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them?
... that David Shipman is generally considered to be the real-life inspiration for the character of Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales?
... that Patricia Hodge has played the leading role in television adaptations of two of Fay Weldon's novels, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil and The Cloning of Joanna May?
... that "
... that Frederick Schiller Faust, better known as Max Brand, created the characters of Dr. Kildare and of Western hero, Destry?
- Week 21 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c7/Canterbury-Cathedral-Church-of-England-1890-1900.jpg/150px-Canterbury-Cathedral-Church-of-England-1890-1900.jpg)
... that Murder in the Cathedral is a poetic drama by T. S. Eliot that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral (pictured) in 1170?
... that literary historian Ian Ousby called Helen Zahavi's 1991 novel Dirty Weekend "the serial-killer novel to end all serial-killer novels"?
... that
... that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car is a children's novel written by Ian Fleming for his son Caspar?
... that Pension Schöller is an
... that Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, the
... that
?- Week 22 (edit)
... that in 1966 American writer and folk singer Richard Fariña died in a motorcycle accident only two days after the publication of his novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me?
... that "Call the roller of big cigars, / The muscular one, and bid him whip / In kitchen cups concupiscient curds" are the first lines of
... that
... that "Exit" is a theatrical term instructing an actor to leave the scene?
... that
?... that
... that 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a revenge tragedy by John Ford set in Italy, is about an incestuous relationship between brother and sister?
- Week 23 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Cremer_Brecht.jpg/100px-Cremer_Brecht.jpg)
... that Sydney Horler and Michael Arlen were two bestselling novelists of the 1920s?
... that T. C. Boyle has written a novel about marijuana farmers, Budding Prospects?
... that Petrified Forest National Park, the setting of Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 stage play The Petrified Forest, is located in northeastern Arizona, and that Humphrey Bogart successfully played the role of escaped killer Duke Mantee on Broadway?
... that Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy which explores, through action, the problems of people, and that it was developed by Romanian psychiatrist Jacob L. Moreno?
... that Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXXVIII is about two lovers lying to, and with, each other?
... that Cunt (1999) is a controversial novel by Stewart Home?
... that the
- Week 24 (edit)
... that a recurring theme in Eric Ambler's books is having as the main character an amateur who finds himself unwillingly in the company of hardened criminals and/or spies?
... that the title of
... that the clerihew was invented by E. C. Bentley?
... that a
... that Moral is a 1909 comedy by Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma?
... that the dictum, "
... that Notes of a Dirty Old Man is a 1969 book by Charles Bukowski, and that his creation — some say alter ego — Henry Chinaski has been ranked among the 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900?
- Week 25 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Lord_Byron_on_his_Death-bed_c._1826.jpg/100px-Lord_Byron_on_his_Death-bed_c._1826.jpg)
... that
... that Otto von Freising, son of Leopold III, Margrave of Austria and brother of Henry II Jasomirgott, Duke of Austria, was an important mediaeval chronicler?
... that an aside is a technique used in dramatic performances in which a character says something to himself or herself which is assumed to be unheard by the other characters on stage?
... that in Chuck Palahniuk's 2001 novel Choke, the protagonist regularly deceives people by pretending to be choking on food?
... that one of the events at the
... that Clara is a wheelchair-bound girl in Johanna Spyri's children's story, Heidi (1880)?
... that the chapter entitled "What is an
- Week 26 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum_1.jpg/100px-Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum_1.jpg)
... that the
... that the title of Ethel Lina White's first crime novel, Put Out the Light (1931), is a quotation from Othello? ("Put out the Light, and then put out the Light: If I quench thee, thou flaming Minister, [...])
... that Vladimir Nabokov once described Boris Pasternak as "Emily Dickinson in trousers"?
... that gonzo journalism is a style of reporting associated with Hunter S. Thompson?
... that "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is an elegy written by Walt Whitman shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
... that Martin Luther translated the Bible into German to make it more accessible to the common people?
... that U.S. actor
- Week 27 (edit)
... that Ionesco's La cantatrice chauve has become one of the most performed plays in France?
... that Austrian dramatist and novelist Peter Handke was nominated for the Heinrich Heine Prize 2006 but that his alleged support for Slobodan Milošević has led to a heated controversy?
... that deliberate
... that between 1942 and 1944 Anne Frank kept a diary?
... that Wildwechsel, Stallerhof and Oberösterreich are stage plays by Franz Xaver Kroetz?
... that
... that Michael Frayn has written a Fleet Street novel, Towards the End of the Morning?
- Week 28 (edit)
... that the "12.30 from Croydon" is an aircraft rather than a train?
... that
... that Jacques Derrida used Charles Baudelaire's short tale "La fausse monnaie" as the starting point for his book, Donner le temps (1991)?
... that Hay-on-Wye in Brecknockshire, Wales was the first book town?
... that the Heimskringla contains tales about Norwegian kings, and that it was written around 1225 by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson?
... that the screenplay for Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956) was written by Tennessee Williams, and that Karl Malden and Eli Wallach again appeared together on the screen more than 30 years later, in Martin Ritt's Nuts?
... that Leonard Cohen has written two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers?
- Week 29 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Irving-Washington-LOC.jpg/100px-Irving-Washington-LOC.jpg)
... that Washington Irving wrote the travelogue Astoria about an expedition sponsored by John Jacob Astor which culminated in the founding of Astoria, Oregon, without having taken part in the journey himself?
... that quite a number of literary works revolve around class reunions?
... that Margaret Atwood's 1972 novel Surfacing is set in the Canadian wilderness, and that it was made into a movie in 1981 starring Kathleen Beller?
... that in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" an unsuspecting man is walled in alive somewhere in the catacombs and never discovered, even after 50 years?
... that Roger McGough is a British performance poet who was a member of The Scaffold?
... that
... that
- Week 30 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/Bilibin3_saltan.jpg/150px-Bilibin3_saltan.jpg)
... that
... that
... that "The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils" is the first line of Enoch Powell's famous "Rivers of Blood" speech?
... that
... that
... that Owen Meany believes that the purpose of his life is being an instrument of God, and that that purpose will be fulfilled in his own death?
... that
- Week 31 (edit)
... that T. C. Boyle's new novel, Talk Talk, is about identity theft?
... that
... that
... that Frankenstein is the name of the scientist rather than the monster he created?
... that Black Mask was a U.S. pulp magazine which appeared from 1920 till 1951, and that among its contributors were Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler?
... that the Stonewall Book Award is named after the Stonewall riots of 1969?
... that "A Horse, a Horse, my Kingdome for a Horse" is a line taken from the ending of
- Week 32 (edit)
... that the
?... that in the novel
... that an
... that bibliophilia is the love of books, not a reference to the Bible?
... that the early libraries located in monastic cloisters and associated with scriptoria were collections of lecterns with books chained to them?
... that the Haskell Free Library and Opera House is sometimes called "The only library in America with no books"?
- Week 33 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/The_Swan_cropped.png/150px-The_Swan_cropped.png)
... that the only known sketch of an Elizabethan playhouse (pictured) was made in 1596 by a Dutch traveller, Johannes de Witt, and that it shows The Swan?
... that George Wylie Henderson's 1935 novel, Ollie Miss, is set in rural Alabama, and that it is almost an all-black story, with only two minor characters — the doctor and the sheriff — being white?
... that Clivia is an operetta by Charles Amberg (story, lyrics) and Nico Dostal (music) set in the fictitious South American country of Boliguay, and that it premiered in Berlin in 1933?
... that
... that "Nemo me impune lacessit" is the royal Scottish motto, and that this phrase also occurs in Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado"?
... that the 19th century advocates of l'art pour l'art believed that art should be created and appreciated for its own sake, that it should be an end in itself rather than a means to an end?
... that in Aristophanes's 411 BC comedy, Lysistrata calls for a sex strike to make the Greek warriors stop fighting, and that in reaction to the Iraq disarmament crisis the play was the focus of a peace protest initiative called The Lysistrata Project?
- Week 34 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Rupert_Brooke.jpg/100px-Rupert_Brooke.jpg)
... that
... that
?... that, amongst others, actors
... that Ravelstein (2000) is Saul Bellow's final novel, and that the author was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976?
... that
... that during performances of
... that the current governor of Lower Austria, Erwin Pröll, once stated in an interview that the only book he had ever finished reading was Karl May's 1890 novel Der Schatz im Silbersee (The Treasure of Silver Lake)?
- Week 35 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Romaunt_rose_chaucer.jpg/150px-Romaunt_rose_chaucer.jpg)
... that the
... that New York-born Anna Katharine Green was one of the first U.S. writers of detective fiction, and that her works inspired Agatha Christie to become a mystery writer?
... that
... that in the English-speaking world a matinée is the showing of a play in the afternoon, whereas in German-speaking countries the same word denotes a performance which takes place before noon?
... that Steven Berkoff's play Decadence was filmed in 1994 starring Joan Collins and the author himself, who also directed the movie?
... that
... that the plot of Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis's 1993 movie Groundhog Day shows striking parallels to Ken Grimwood's 1987 time travel novel Replay?
- Week 36 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Kuzma_Petrov-Vodkin._Portrait_of_Anna_Akhmatova._1922.jpg/100px-Kuzma_Petrov-Vodkin._Portrait_of_Anna_Akhmatova._1922.jpg)
... that
... that 's final play?
... that "
... that
... that
... that the Goethe-Institut, founded in 1925 to promote German language and culture outside of the German-speaking countries, is named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?
... that, as one critic put it, "some of the descriptions of the sex scenes" in Ben Elton's Past Mortem "might prove a bit much for the faint-hearted"?
- Week 37 (edit)
... that "
... that Wozzeck is an opera by Alban Berg based on Georg Büchner's stage play Woyzeck?
... that "Most near, most dear, most loved and most far" is the first line of George Barker's sonnet "To My Mother" [2], which was first published in his 1944 volume of poetry Eros in Dogma and later anthologized in the Faber Book of Modern Verse?
... that the "
... that Richard Brautigan is best known for his 1967 novel, Trout Fishing in America?
... that the theme of adultery features in a wide range of literature through the ages?
... that Frozen is a 2004 stage play by Bryony Lavery focusing on the conversations between a serial killer, the mother of one of his victims, and a female psychiatrist?
- Week 38 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/British_Library_-_Kings_Cross_-_London_-_England_-_020504.jpg/150px-British_Library_-_Kings_Cross_-_London_-_England_-_020504.jpg)
... that Toni Morrison, Elena Castedo and A. L. Kennedy have all written novels titled Paradise?
... that "
... that the British Museum Reading Room used to be the main reading room of the British Library (pictured) until the library moved to St Pancras in 1997?
... that Shockheaded Peter is a musical entertainment based on 19th century German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann's children's book, Der Struwwelpeter (1845)?
... that, with the exception of A House and Its Head, Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels have been out of print for some time?
... that "They fuck you up, your mum and dad" is the first line of Philip Larkin's short poem "This Be The Verse"?
... that Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton has written a play about Oscar Wilde, Saint Oscar?
- Week 39 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Sholom_Aleichem_listens.jpg/150px-Sholom_Aleichem_listens.jpg)
... that
... that "Suspension of disbelief" is a term coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817), and that it refers primarily to the willingness of a reader or viewer to accept the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible?
... that Terry Southern is the author of the 1959 episodic novel, The Magic Christian?
... that Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, Huxley's Island, Barth's Giles Goat-Boy, Bradbury's The History Man, and Naipaul's A Bend in the River are five of the novels selected by Anthony Burgess for his 1984 book, Ninety-nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939: A Personal Choice?
... that Madame Bovary commits suicide by swallowing arsenic?
... that the musical
... that "
- Week 40 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/PoeCorbeau.png/150px-PoeCorbeau.png)
... that
... that "The Computer Nevermore" is a
... that
... that the members of the
... that Austrian political journalist and cabaret writer Jura Soyfer, the co-author of the "Dachaulied", died of typhus at Buchenwald concentration camp, aged only 26?
... that roman de gare is the French term for "airport novel"?
... that
- Week 41 (edit)
... that Eugene O'Neill's (pictured) first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920, and that it is about two brothers who love the same woman?
... that a vanity press is a company which, while claiming to be a traditional publisher, prints books and charges writers a fee in return for publishing their books, with the intended market being the author him/herself rather than the general public?
... that Michener's The Drifters, Sutcliffe's Are You Experienced? and Garland's The Beach are novels about backpackers?
... that
... that Yaakov Shabtai's Zichron Dvarim (זכרון דברים; English title: Past Continuous) about three friends in 1960s Tel Aviv was one of the first novels to be written in truly vernacular Hebrew?
... that Three Men in a Boat, first published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford, and that the book was originally intended to be a serious travel guide?
... that
- Week 42 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/G%C3%BCnter_Grass%2C_2004.jpg/150px-G%C3%BCnter_Grass%2C_2004.jpg)
... that in
... that
... that Radetzkymarsch (Radetzky March) is a family saga by Joseph Roth first published in 1932 about the downfall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and that the title of the novel refers to Johann Strauß's "Radetzky March"?
... that a
... that "The devil take her!" is the last line of Sir John Suckling's poem "Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?"?
... that the 1982 stage play Die Antrittsrede der amerikanischen Päpstin (El Discurso inaugural de la Papisa americana) by Esther Vilar is set in the year 2022, where Pope Joan II holds her inaugural address sponsored by big money and interrupted by commercial breaks?
... that "
- Week 43 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Guy_de_Maupassant_fotograferad_av_F%C3%A9lix_Nadar_1888.jpg/150px-Guy_de_Maupassant_fotograferad_av_F%C3%A9lix_Nadar_1888.jpg)
... that
... that
.... that "Because He Liked to Look At It" and "I Was There In The Room" are two of the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, and that in each of the monologues the vagina is seen as a tool of female empowerment?
... that Constantine P. Cavafy's 1911 poem "Απολείπειν ο θεός Αντώνιον" ("The God Abandons Antony") [3][4] is included in Lawrence Durrell's novel Justine, and that it also inspired Leonard Cohen to write "Alexandra Leaving"?
... that
?... that Nelson Algren's Somebody in Boots, James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Louis L'Amour's Hanging Woman Creek are novels about hobos?
... that Freaky Green Eyes (2003), Sexy (2005), and After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (2006) are three young adult novels by Joyce Carol Oates?
- Week 44 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/LandseerMonarch1851.jpg/150px-LandseerMonarch1851.jpg)
... that
... that Amanda Craig's novels about contemporary British society are linked to each other by recurring characters?
... that, according to Gustav Mahler, tradition is "the preservation of the flame, not the adoration of the ashes" ("Tradition ist die Weitergabe des Feuers und nicht die Anbetung der Asche")?[citation needed]
... that John Steinbeck's 1947 novel The Wayward Bus revolves around a bus accident, and that it has no clear protagonist?
... that
?... that
... that Enkidu, Humbaba and Siduri are characters from the Epic of Gilgamesh?
- Week 45 (edit)
... that Psycho, a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock (pictured) in 1960 and remade by Gus Van Sant in 1998?
... that Print on demand (POD) is a publishing method in which a copy is not created until after an order is received?
... that
... that from 1934, as a means of Gleichschaltung, all authors who wanted to publish their works in Nazi Germany had to be members of the Reichsschrifttumskammer (RSK), whose presidents were Hans-Friedrich Blunck (1934-35) and, from 1935, Hanns Johst ("Whenever I hear of culture ... I release the safety-catch of my Browning")?
... that
... that
... that "Es grünt so grün, wenn Spaniens Blüten blühen" is the German rendering of "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"?
- Week 46 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Rippl-moricz.jpg/100px-Rippl-moricz.jpg)
... that Zsigmond Móricz (pictured) was a Hungarian novelist who wrote about the Hungarian peasantry and issues of poverty?
... that Annie John is a 1985 novel by Jamaica Kincaid about a girl growing up in Antigua?
... that Ulrike Folkerts was the first woman at the Salzburg Festival to play the role of Death in Hugo von Hofmannsthal's version of Everyman, Jedermann?
... that
... that
... that "
... that Animal Farm, The Pursuit of Love, Brideshead Revisited, and Cannery Row were all first published in 1945?
- Week 47 (edit)
... that Henry Denker's play about Sigmund Freud (pictured), A Far Country, premiered on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre in 1961, and that Curd Jürgens played Freud in a 1979 German language production at the Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna?
... that Lawrence Ferlinghetti's best-known collection of poetry is entitled A Coney Island of the Mind?
... that
... that Nils Holgersson is a boy who takes great delight in hurting the animals on his father's farm?
... that U.S. literary critic Leslie Fiedler was one of the first to question the notion of a gap between "high art" and popular art", in his 1972 book, Cross the Border—Close the Gap?
... that during her lifetime two plays were written about
... that The Doors took their name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, a phrase which was in turn borrowed from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell?
- Week 48 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/GoreVidalVanVechten1.jpg/100px-GoreVidalVanVechten1.jpg)
... that Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens was originally published in 19 monthly installments between October 1846 and April 1848?
... that Other Voices, Other Rooms is a 1948 novel by Truman Capote which is usually categorized as Southern Gothic?
... that
... that in 1993, looking back upon his career, Gore Vidal (pictured) wrote that although he had "never seen Myra Breckinridge, I do know that despite the iconic presences of Raquel Welch and Mae West, the film was so bad that the book stopped selling for a decade"?
... that Miniplanner (2000), Babyji (2005) and That Summer in Paris (2006) are novels by Abha Dawesar, an Indian novelist writing in English?
... that
... that
- Week 49 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/BarbaraBelGeddes.jpg/150px-BarbaraBelGeddes.jpg)
... that in 1955 Barbara Bel Geddes (pictured) played Maggie in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
... that Syrup, Jennifer Government, and Company are novels by Max Barry?
... that
.. that at the end of Act One of
... that the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre is situated in Guildford, Surrey?
... that Françoise Sagan wrote Bonjour Tristesse when she was only 18, and that another of her novels, Aimez-vous Brahms?, was filmed as Goodbye Again in 1961 by Anatole Litvak starring Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins, and Yves Montand?
... that, according to Alexander Pope ("An Essay on Criticism", 1711), "Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread"?
- Week 50 (edit)
... that a scene from I ... comme Icare, a 1979 political thriller by French playwright and filmmaker Henri Verneuil, depicts the Milgram experiment?
... that
... that in
... that
... that in Werner Schwab's 1990 play Die Präsidentinnen, Mariedl is the woman who is used to cleaning toilets without wearing protective gloves, and that she tells her two female friends how the vicar hides presents for her—perfume, a bottle of beer, a can of goulash—deep down in the jammed toilet?
... that
... that Marcel Pagnol wrote his first play aged 15 although his mother had not allowed him to touch a book until he was six for fear of "cerebral explosion"?
- Week 51 (edit)
... that a nativity play is a play about the birth of Jesus, usually one performed by children at Christmas time?
... that Scrooge McDuck is named after Ebenezer Scrooge?
... that the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", also known as "The Night Before Christmas" from its first line, first published in 1823, is largely responsible for the contemporary American conception of Santa Claus, including his appearance, the night he visits, his method of transportation, the number and names of his reindeer, and that he brings toys to children?
... that
... that Alan Ayckbourn's 1980 play Season's Greetings is about a disastrous family reunion over the Christmas holidays characterized by hard drinking, adultery, and general hostility towards each and everyone, and that Floridian author Roger C. Simmons has written a novel, ReUnion, about a very similar subject-matter?
... that Harry's Christmas is a 90 minute monologue by Steven Berkoff about loneliness, depression, and suicide?
... that there have been countless
- Week 52 (edit)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/KantWasIstAufkl%C3%A4rung.png/150px-KantWasIstAufkl%C3%A4rung.png)
... that
... that
... that
... that Grendel is a monster defeated barehandedly by Beowulf when the latter succeeds in ripping his arm off in a brawl, causing him to bleed to death in his gloomy cave home?
... that "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 as an example of a sentence whose grammar is correct but whose meaning is nonsensical?
... that, in British English, a ticket tout is someone who engages in ticket resale?
... that
...that members of the