Q 01/05

Which everyday product did Thoreau's family make in a factory where he worked for most of his adult life?

A) Candles

B) Pencils

C) Buttons

D) Soap

Answer · why

B) Pencils

Pencils paid the Thoreau family's bills, and Henry worked out how to make good ones from poor graphite by binding it with clay.

Q 02/05

Which Robin Williams film has schoolboys read Thoreau aloud at secret meetings in a cave?

A) Good Will Hunting

B) Good Morning, Vietnam

C) Dead Poets Society

D) Patch Adams

Answer · why

C) Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society grew out of writer Tom Schulman's own schooldays at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville.

Q 03/05

Which Indian independence leader ran a synopsis of a Thoreau essay in his paper Indian Opinion?

A) Mahatma Gandhi

B) Jawaharlal Nehru

C) Subhas Chandra Bose

D) Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Answer · why

A) Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was a year into his first campaign in South Africa at the time, and he told readers that Thoreau's example applied exactly to Indians i...

Q 04/05

Which poet mailed Emerson his first collection in 1855 and was greeted 'at the beginning of a great career'?

A) Emily Dickinson

B) John Greenleaf Whittier

C) James Russell Lowell

D) Walt Whitman

Answer · why

D) Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman had the private letter printed in the New York Tribune without asking, then put the greeting in gold leaf on his second edition, a stunt ...

Q 05/05

Which phrase about the American Revolution comes from an Emerson hymn written for an 1837 monument?

A) The times that try men's souls

B) The shot heard round the world

C) Taxation without representation

D) We must all hang together

Answer · why

B) The shot heard round the world

The shot heard round the world reached its first audience at the monument's dedication, where a local choir sang Emerson's lines to the tune Old Hundr...