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New York Times Literary Allusions Quiz

Fill in the blanks in the lines below taken from New York Times articles or headlines. Each refers to an often-taught work of literature. For extra points, identify that work and give more context to explain its meaning and usage here. (For answers, scroll to the very bottom of this lesson.)

1. “I left Dickens World after a couple of days. As a literary experience, it had been pretty thin gruel. But like _________, I wanted more.”

2. “More Than Kin, and Less Than _________”

3. “In his previous books the journalist Ron Rosenbaum has tackled big topics — Hitler’s evil, Shakespeare’s genius — with acuity and irreverence, believing, correctly, that some things are too important to leave to the experts. He’s proud of his gonzo amateur status, so much so that you half suspect he has a scarlet ‘_________’ tattooed across his chest, where Superman wore his ‘S.'”

4. “Without a Bang or a _________, The School Board Fades Away”

5. “… I’ve come to think something is _________ in the state of economics. The dismal science, as Thomas Carlyle called it, has been ravaged by the same virus that has corrupted the rest of our national discourse.”

6. “Qaddafi might have maneuvered himself into a gilded overseer’s role and gifted power to his bespectacled son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the nice, educated boy who lost it when he realized — The horror! The _________! — that he might have to give up all his toys”

7. “To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much _________ upon a Chicago bank.”

8. “Decentralizing the Internet So Big _________ Can’t Find You”

9. “Destruction, thy _________ is Bieber.”

10. “The Kushner Flap: Much Ado About _________”

11. “Call me, _________” (Please note: In the original, there is no comma; in the Times essay we are quoting here, there is. Read it to see why.)

12. “It was the best of times, it was the _________ of times. O.K., maybe not literally the worst, but definitely bad.”

New York Times Literary Allusion Quiz answers:

1. Oliver Twist, alluding to the character in Charles Dickens’s novel of the same name (from a 2012 article, “The World of Charles Dickens, Complete With Pizza Hut”).

2. Kind, alluding to a line in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (The headline was for a 2011 Opinon piece about the News of the World scandal.)

3. “A,” alluding to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” (from “Thinking the Unthinkable Again in a Nuclear Age,” a 2011 book review).

4. Whimper, alluding to T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (from this 2002 article).

5. rotten, alluding to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” again (from “The Politics of Economics in the Age of Shouting,” a 2011 Op-Ed).

6. horror, alluding to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (from a 2011 Op-Ed, “The Price of Delusion”).

7. depends, alluding to Williams’s poem, “The Red Wheel Barrow” (from a 2007 Business article, “Chicago Is Major Battleground for ABN Amro Bid War”).

8. Brother, alluding to George Orwell’s “1984” (from a 2011 New York Region article).

9. name, alluding to “Frailty, thy name is woman,” from, yep, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” again (from a 2009 piece, “20-Year-Old Fogy Cedes Audience to 15-Year-Old”).

10. Nothing, alluding to the Shakespearean play of the same name (from a 2011 Opinion piece by Stanley Fish).

11. Ishmael, alluding to the first line of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (the headline of a 2007 Book Review essay).

12. worst, alluding to the first line of Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities” (from “The Banks Are Not All Right,” a 2009 Op-Ed).

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