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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, The Writer's Nature, Pages 34-72.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Salinger.
(c) Langland.
(d) Miller.

3. What does Gardner say that good fiction starts off in the reader's head?
(a) A nightmare.
(b) A continuous dream.
(c) An addiction.
(d) A hunger for more.

4. Which philosopher maintained that nothing a writer writes means anything, "all the words are a lunatic blithering," since all language is by nature false and misleading?
(a) Nietzsche.
(b) Kant.
(c) Plato.
(d) Heidegger.

5. Gardner writes in Chapter 1 that if one studies with whom, does he learn that Shakespeare is better than Mickey Spillane?
(a) Dr. Stanley Fish.
(b) Dr. Martin Meyer.
(c) Dr. Michael Mortenson.
(d) Dr. Andrew Dryd.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which author does Gardner say has a style at parties to take to the floor at any cost, telling funny stories?

2. Which author does Gardner state had "gazelle eyes" which dominated the room in Chapter 1?

3. 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?

4. Who is the author of Death in Venice?

5. With what older colleague did Gardner publish an anthology of fiction at Chico College?

(see the answer key)

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