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Free Literature quiz: 111 trivia questions and answers — authors, books & literary devices. Easy to hard, with explained answers. No sign-up.
Start this quiz →🖨️ Printable version (20 questions + answers)
From Baudelaire to Jane Austen, by way of Sartre and Racine, this quiz explores the great authors, movements and works that have shaped literature. A fun way to test your literary knowledge.
This quiz currently has 111 questions, ranging from easy to hard, available in French, English and Spanish when the Spanish translation is available.
Warm up before the quiz with these 20 trivia questions and their explained answers: click a question to reveal the answer.
Answer: Molière. Alceste is a misanthrope because men are hypocritical and slanderous, and he cannot tolerate either hypocrisy or slander. This moral rigidity often puts him in unpleasant situations that are amusing for the audience, as it stands in total contradiction with the behavior of Célimène, the young woman he loves.
Answer: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Published in 1943, The Little Prince is one of the most translated and sold books in the world (300 languages, 200 million copies). Saint-Exupéry was also an aviator and disappeared on a mission in 1944.
Answer: Paris. Published in 1831, Victor Hugo's novel features Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Frollo around Notre-Dame Cathedral. The novel so popularized the building that Hugo is partly responsible for its restoration. The pen can save stones.
Answer: Fable. Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) is one of the main representatives of French classicism. In addition to his Fables and his libertine Tales, which established his fame from the 1660s, he wrote poems, plays, and opera librettos.
Answer: Religion. For Karl Marx, religion is 'the opium of the people': it constitutes an illusory remedy for the social and economic misery of oppressed classes.
Answer: Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Published in 1932, this autobiographical novel follows Ferdinand Bardamu from World War I to the Parisian underworld. Céline invented a choppy, oral style marked by his famous suspension points. A masterpiece by a sadly controversial author.
Answer: Simone de Beauvoir. 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.' This sentence by Simone de Beauvoir summarizes the essence of her founding essay of modern feminism. The Vatican put it on the Index. Which gave it an even wider circulation.
Answer: Mary Shelley. She wrote it at age 18. And what were you doing at 18? Probably not creating a legendary monster.
Answer: Colombia. The village of Macondo is not on Google Maps, unfortunately.
Answer: Tolstoy. A book so long you have time to start a war and see peace arrive before you reach the end.
Answer: Diderot and d'Alembert. Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert directed the Encyclopédie (1751–1772), the emblematic work of the Enlightenment that aimed to gather all the knowledge of its time.
Answer: Journey to the Center of the Earth. Published in 1864, this novel follows Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel into the depths of the Earth. Jules Verne had never been there himself. It didn't hold him back.
Answer: Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two parts (1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is often considered the first modern novel. The knight of the sorrowful countenance mistakes windmills for giants — an image that has become a universal metaphor for idealism.
Answer: Gabriel García Márquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) traces the history of the Buendía family in the fictional village of Macondo. A masterpiece of magical realism, it has reportedly sold over 50 million copies. García Márquez bet everything on this novel: he mortgaged his house to write it.
Answer: Verlaine. He alternated writing poetry with nervous breakdowns. As one does.
Answer: Oscar Wilde. History's first selfie, but one that ages in place of its owner.
Answer: Tragicomedy. The dilemma: kill your girlfriend's father or save your honor? Tough choice.
Answer: Le Roi s'amuse. Hugo didn't go down too well with kings, unsurprisingly.
Answer: John Steinbeck. Published in 1939 and Pulitzer Prize winner in 1940, this novel follows the Joad family, farmers driven by the Great Depression and drought from Oklahoma to California. Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in 1962. The title comes from a Bible verse.
Answer: The Temptation of Saint Anthony. 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony' is the work to which Flaubert devoted the most time (from 1849 to 1874). This visionary text, inspired by a Brueghel painting, depicts the hallucinations of the hermit saint faced with the devil's temptations. Flaubert considered it his most personal work, though less well known than Madame Bovary.
91 more questions are waiting for you in the quiz!