| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| In a novel by this author, Justine Moritz confesses to a murder despite knowing that she is innocent. While staying with her lover at a villa near Lake Geneva, this woman participated in a contest to write a ghost story, leading her to write a novel in which Elizabeth Lavenza is strangled to death by a monster. For the point, name this author of Frankenstein who was married to the British poet Percy. | Mary Shelley (prompt on "Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin") |
| Energy that comes from this entity can be dissipated through the "primary process," including envisioning fantastic images. This entity, which operates only by the pleasure principle, drives the behavior of infants; unlike two related counterparts, this entity is present from birth. Instinctual desires form, for the point, what part of the Freudian psyche that has a two-letter name from the Latin for "it"? | Id (prompt on "instinct") |
| These two people played a singer and an assistant band leader in the film Flying Down to Rio. These two people, who first met while working on the show Girl Crazy, are the subject of the documentary Partners in Rhythm. These two people provide the alternate name of a Frank Gehry-designed Dancing House in Prague. For the point, what two dancers starred together in ten films of the 1930s and 40s? | Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (accept in either order; prompt on partial answers) |
| This person, who is chilled when "A wind blew out of a cloud," is taken away and shut up in a "sepulchre" by some "highborn kinsmen." The speaker of a poem claims that envious angels cause the death of this woman, whom he loved "many and many a year ago / In a kingdom by the sea." For the point, give this woman who titles a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, whose name is rhymed with "we" and "me." | "Annabel Lee" |
| This composer adapted the folk tune "Bonaparte’s Retreat" into the "Hoe-Down" section of one ballet. This first American pupil of Nadia Boulanger worked with choreographer Agnes de Mille on the ballet Rodeo. The Shaker song "Simple Gifts" appears in a ballet by this composer about the construction of a Pennsylvania farmhouse. For the point, name this composer of the music in Appalachian Spring. | Aaron Copland |
| Ukkonen, the Finnish word for this phenomenon, derives from the name of the god Ukko. Similarly, the word for this phenomenon in many Slavic languages derives from the name of the god Perun. This phenomenon comprises the Vajra, the weapon of Indra. In Greek mythology, the Cyclopes crafted this phenomenon into bolts wielded by Zeus. For the point, name this loud phenomenon often controlled by sky and storm gods. | thunder (accept thunderbolt; prompt on "lightning") |
| In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio calls Kate one of these animals "sharp and passing empty," comparing his breaking of her will to masters of these animals. In a novel titled for a statue of one of these animals, the private detective Sam Spade investigates his partner's death. Dashell Hammett wrote about a "Maltese" one of these animals. For the point, name these birds used in a medieval hunting sport. | falcons (accept the The Maltese Falcon) |
| With John Connolly, this author wrote Filthy Rich, an account of Jeffrey Epstein's life that served as the basis for a Netflix series. With Bill Clinton, this author wrote the thrillers The President Is Missing and The President's Daughter. This author wrote a series of novels featuring the forensic psychologist Alex Cross. For the point, what mystery writer was the bestselling author in the U.S. in the 2010s? | James Patterson (or James Brendan Patterson) |
| This man dives into a pool to retrieve a plant that can restore his youth, but it is stolen by a snake. This man visits the flood survivor Utnapishtim [[oot-nah-PISH-tim]] in a futile bid to learn the secret of eternal life. This king of Uruk spurns the advances of the love goddess Ishtar and befriends the wild man Enkidu in an Akkadian poem preserved on clay tablets. For the point, name this hero of a namesake Mesopotamian "Epic." | Gilgamesh (or Bilgames; accept Epic of Gilgamesh) |
| In this country, Lady Gregory's play Spreading the News was written for the opening night of the Abbey Theatre. A playwright born in this country used French to write an absurd drama about the nonsensical behavior of Vladimir and Estragon, titled Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett was from this country. For the point, William Butler Yeats patronized the performing arts in what country's city of Dublin? | Ireland (or Éire; do not accept or prompt on "Northern Ireland") |
| This city's financial district contains the skyscraper 30 St. Mary Axe, a Norman Foster-designed building nicknamed the "Gherkin" for its shape. Christopher Wren designed fifty one churches in this city after it was devastated by a 1666 "Great Fire." A memorial column to Horatio Nelson is in Trafalgar Square in this city. For the point, Buckingham Palace is a residence of Queen Elizabeth II in what British capital? | London |
| These businesses are the main setting of Lynn Nottage's plays Sweat and Ruined. The anarchist Don Parritt jumps from the fire escape of one of these businesses in a play in which Hickey shows up, causing people to reevaluate their pipe dreams. Harry Hope runs one of these businesses in Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh. For the point, name these businesses that serve alcohol. | bars (prompt on "poolrooms" during the first sentence; prompt on "restaurants" or "saloons"; do not accept or prompt on "diners") |
| A central theme of this book is that random events of history are rationalized by later generations, citing as examples a cossack who was in reality a drunken traitor and the arbitrary location of the Battle of Borodino. The titles of "prince" and "princess" are used to refer to members of the Kuragin and Bolkonsky families in this novel. For the point, name this Leo Tolstoy novel set during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. | War and Peace (or Voyna i Mir) |
| Some art critics view the unusually white tips of this object in one painting as suggestive of the devil, along with a nearby woman's serpentine-shaped lock of hair. This object is held by a man who was modeled on the dentist Byron McKeeby. An Iowa farmhouse appears behind an old man holding this object, who stands next to his wife in a Grant Wood painting. For the point, American gothic features what three-pronged farming tool? | pitchfork |
| Among the genre of "back-portraits" created in this country is a depiction of a young man with a walking stick on a rocky outcropping, titled Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. An artist from this country created three "master prints," including the engravings Knight Death, and the Devil and Melancolia I. For the point, name this birthplace of Caspar David Friedrich and Albrecht Durer. | Germany (accept Deutschland; accept German Empire and variants; accept Deutsches Reich; prompt on "Pomerania" or "Nuremburg"; Editor's Note: Caspar David Friedrich was born in Swedish Pomerania in modern day Germany, but Sweden should still be ruled incorrect.) |
| The sermon "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop" posits a choice between this concept and the end of existence. With truth, this doctrine forms the basis of satyagraha. This doctrine informs the sixth of the Ten Commandments. The Sermon on the Mount inspired twentieth-century civil rights movements based around this doctrine. For the point, the phrase "turn the other cheek" embodies what doctrine that renounces the use force? | nonviolence (accept Ahimsa; prompt on "satyagraha" before mentioned) |
| A novel by this author inspired a Bollywood movie in which Lalita Bakshi has a chance encounter with her future husband at Heathrow Airport. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for a movie drawn from this author. Keira Knightley starred as Elizabeth Bennet in an adaptation of a novel by, for the point, what author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice? | Jane Austen |
| This is the most common instrument played by the female Israeli bandleader Anat Cohen. A bandleader who played this instrument gave a widely publicized 1938 concert in Carnegie Hall and was known as the "King of Swing." A glissando for this instrument opens George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Benny Goodman played, for the point, what woodwind instrument that plays on a lower register than a flute? | clarinet |
| Kenneth Noland co-founded a Washington art "school" named for this thing. With "field," this thing names an offshoot of abstract expressionism that included much of the work of Mark Rothko. Examples of this thing can be mixed by combining paints on a palette. There are three primary and three secondary types of this thing. For the point, red, yellow, and blue are examples of what visual property? | color (accept Washington Color School; accept color field; accept color wheel) |
| Adolf Herz founded an art magazine named for one of these objects. Artists who used these objects form the Pictorialism movement. Alfred Stieglitz published a journal named for one of these objects and the word "work." The "pinhole" variety of these objects have a tiny aperture, but no lens. For the point, George Eastman popularized the first widely accessible type of what objects that make photographs? | cameras (accept Camera Work) |
| In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli claimed that "all states, all powers" are either this form of government "or principalities." Machiavelli's Discourse on Livy provides a history of this type of government in Rome. Discussions of just and unjust men are found in a dialogue by Plato titled for this form of government. For the point, representatives are elected in what type of government? | republic (accept word forms, such as republican governments; accept The Republic) |
| To promote this faith, one man wrote the tract the "True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven." Whether ancestor worship was at odds with this faith was the subject of the Chinese Rites controversy. Giovanni da Montecorvino established a building of this religion in Beijing. Matteo Ricci [[REE-chee]] and other Jesuit missionaries spread this faith to China. For the point, name this Christian denomination led by the Pope. | Roman Catholicism (prompt on "Christianity" before "Christian") |
| A hero strangled one of these creatures with his hands after sealing himself and the creature inside of a cave, then removed its hide with its own claws. The Manticore had a scorpion's tail, a human head, and the body of one of these creatures; similarly, the Sphinx had a human face, wings, and the body of one of these animals. Heracles killed one of these animals in Nemea. For the point, name these large cats. | lions (accept Nemean Lion; prompt on "cats" before mentioned) |
| This man tells the story of how he killed nine sea monsters during a swimming contest with Breca across a stormy sea. This man lays aside his armor and weapons to battle a monster who is a descendant of Cain. After journeying to the mead hall of Heorot, this man tears a foe's arm from its socket during his battle with Grendel. For the point, name this eponymous hero of an Old English epic poem. | Beowulf |
| This composer noted "the greater the Brook, the deeper the tone," leading to a depiction of a quail by a solo oboe in a section of a symphony called "Scene by the Brook." Unusually, the fourth movement of a five-movement symphony by this composer is an allegro that represents a thunderstorm. The Pastoral Symphony is the sixth symphony by, for the point, what German composer who went deaf in his later years? | Ludwig van Beethoven |
| In this musical, Riff encourages his friends to settle down, calling one of them "Boy, boy, crazy boy," in the song "Cool." The musical marked Stephen Sondheim's debut as a lyricist. Rachel Zegler starred in a 2021 film adaptation of this musical, in a role played by Natalie Wood in 1961. The rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks is told by, for the point, what musical based on Romeo and Juliet? | West Side Story |
| Neronim are a variety of these objects that are held in glass cups. The Havdalah ceremony names a braided variety of these objects. Generally, these objects are used in a ritual eighteen minutes before sundown on Friday that marks the beginning of the Shabbat. These objects commemorate the miracle of Hanukkah. A menorah holds, for the point, what objects whose wicks are lit in many Jewish traditions? | candles |
| This country originated a genre of introspective, autobiographical fiction called the "I-novel," as well as a genre of short-to-medium length fiction intended for young adults called the Light Novel. The poetic diary is a literary genre that was developed in this country, including the diary of Lady Murasaki Shikibu. Graphic novels called Manga are from, for the point, what east Asian island country? | Japan (accept Nihon or Nippon) |
| This family of musical instruments includes the bombard, which originated in Brittany. Two different instruments in this family called the tarogato feature in Hungarian and Romanian folk music. A chanter and several drones are usually found in an instrument in this family that is played in the Scottish Highlands. For the point, the bagpipe belongs to what family of instruments that includes flutes and clarinets? | woodwinds |
| This city contains the Art Deco sculpture Atlas, which shows a Titan holding an armillary sphere on his shoulders. The statue Fearless Girl was placed in this city; similarly, Arturo Di Modica installed the statue Charging Bull on a street in this city. Several public sculptures are in Rockefeller Center in, for the point, what city whose financial district is based around Wall Street? | New York City (or NYC; prompt on "The City" or nicknames like "the Big Apple") |
| With Bruce Perry, this woman published a book of "conversations" about trauma titled What Happened to You?. As an actress, this woman gained fame for her portrayal of Sofia in the 1985 film adaptation of The Color Purple. This woman launched a wildly popular book club as a tie in to her long-running daytime talk show. For the point, name this African-American celebrity and founder of O magazine. | Oprah Winfrey (accept either underlined portion) |