World Literature Test (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23765)
List the given authors, check (!!!) and see if you passed the test.
1. 5 British authors
2. 5 French authors
3. 5 German authors
4. 5 authors from other countries of Western Europe
5. 5 authors from Central and Eastern Europe
6. 5 Slavic authors (except Russian and Czech)
7. 5 Russian authors
8. 5 Czech authors
9. 5 authors from Southern Europe (except Italian)
10. 5 Italian authors
11. 5 African authors (NOT African-American!)
12. 5 Asian authors
13. 5 authors from Australia and New Zealand
14. 5 authors from South America
15. 5 authors from USA
16. 5 authors from Canada
17. 5 current authors (published works after or since 1980)
18. 5 antic authors
19. 5 classics
20. 5 authors that won Nobel prize
1 point for every correct name.
• In questions 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19 and 20 (i.e. all questions where you have to name authors from certain region), count down 1 point if all authors you stated are from the same country. (Count down another point if that country is your own.)
• In question 18, count down 1 point if all authors are from Antic Rome or Greece.
• In question 20, count down 1 point if all authors are anglophones.
• In all questions where you have to give names of authors from only one country, count down 1 point, if all authors are from the same literary period or movement (e.g., if you state 5 Russian authors, but they are all 19th century authors, you scored only 4 points)
You need 76 points to pass the test.
76 – 80 points – E
81 – 85 points – D
86 – 90 points – C
91 – 95 points – B
96 – 100 points – A
- - -
My score: I got a lousy E. 8/ This is humiliating...
6 kommenttia
millikan
25.2.2008 12:08
Hmm, how much overlap is allowed...so can I use eg. Toni Morrison three times as contemporary Nobel-winning writer from USA?
And is Spain both Western and Southern Europe? (And no Northern Europe? Whaaat?)
And what defines a writer to be, say, "African"? Camus was born in Algeria and Tolkien in South Africa, but made their careers elsewhere...
Initially I thought Czechs would be hard but then managed to come up with five authors (if we count Kafka), Slavic authors is a struggle...but the areas where I have least clue is Australia/New Zealand. Nick Cave? Looking at wikipedia page, there are couple of others I recognize by name but I probably haven't read any of those...and Canada isn't any easier, couldn't name any writer I know to be from Canada though reading at wikipedia list I recognize some.
If comics would be included, I would have aced Canada though and got at least one more Australia/New Zealand entry.
Didin't count the points, but I think I would have been somewhere from C to E. Including comics I might have got a B.
Splenetic
25.2.2008 13:17
Yes, I ended up wondering overlapping and the geographical definitions myself. This particular version of the world literature test was originally made by an American so perhaps that explains the vague borders. The Slavic was a difficult group, true, like Australia/New Zealand. I only came up with two, the other of which I only know because she has an interesting name (Lesbia Harford.. ;D) And I allowed overlapping since there was nothing to say otherwise (I would make a nice lawyer...).
Damn, I should have thought of comics, too. That would have given me that one more point in the Asian authors, subsequently granting me the grade D. Damn...
Seems to me that, as a whole, the Finnish world literature education at schools appears heavily Anglo- and Europe-centric. Very few Asians and Africans are mentioned but not dealt with any more than that. Too bad since it is world literature we're talking about. Very sad if the world equals only Europe and USA.
millikan
25.2.2008 15:48
Yeah, figured that if it were made by European the borders here wold be bit more defined, and there probably wouldn't be category for Canada :)
Of Slavs, I could remember Stanislaw Lem and Imre Keretz (or however that is written), after that couldn't think of any.
Asians I could have easily filled out with Japanese, but as wider selection was needed...well, there is Salman Rushdie...and some Middle Eastern writers (especially if we count all the Turks to be in Asia), and arguably Lao-Tse...
Africa was tricky since I knew those Camus and Tolkien, and also that Doris Lessing had lived a long time there...but oh well, there are Gordimer and Brink and El Saadawi and Tutuola as "true" African writers.
Well, I learned that PL Travers, author of Mary Poppins, was Australian, and Margaret Atwood and William Shatner are Canadians.
There is Anglo- and European bias definitely in Finland, though also elsewhere in Europe and North America :)
Splenetic
25.2.2008 17:16
Willliam Shatner? As in Captain Kirk?? A writer???
Don't forget Chinua Achebe, Ken Saro-Wiwa or Yvonne Vera from the Africans. How do you know Nawal El Saadawi?
millikan
26.2.2008 15:20
By name, haven't read any of her books :)
Ken Saro-Wiwa of course, the other two I don't know. And when I thought about it, several Camus' books take place in Algeria so I'd say he at least qualifies as African.
And Shatner has written some scifi novels, enough to rate him as author (though again, haven't read any).
And later correction: Imre Kertesz is of course Hungarian and thus not Slav (So neither is Romanian Eugene Ionesco, damn). Stanislav Jerzy Lec is another Polish writer though (and again, if we count comic artists...Enki Bilal was born in Yugoslavia, though he moved to France as a child...)
Splenetic
28.2.2008 16:46
"By name, haven't read any of her books :)" Blimey. For a fraction of a second I seriously thought there was a man worthy not of just the usual scepticism but of genuine respect. =/
The rules of this test, it would seem, require specificiation. Or more accurately, the definition of nationality and how to determine the nationality. Place of birth?... Place where one has lived most of their life?... I think I'd go with the latter.