AP English Literature : Interpreting the Passage

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for AP English Literature

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Example Questions

Example Question #41 :Interpreting The Passage

Passage adapted fromThe Good Soldierby Ford Madox Ford (1915)

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy--or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs. Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.

I don't mean to say that we were not acquainted with many English people. Living, as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as we perforce were, leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that we were un-American, we were thrown very much into the society of the nicer English. Paris, you see, was our home. Somewhere between Nice and Bordighera provided yearly winter quarters for us, and Nauheim always received us from July to September. You will gather from this statement that one of us had, as the saying is, a"heart," and, from the statement that my wife is dead, that she was the sufferer.

…You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

Someone has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the whole sack of Rome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking up of our little four-square coterie was such another unthinkable event.

What is the best description of the overall tone of the passage?

Possible Answers:

Logical

Restrained

Academic

反光

Anguished

Correct answer:

Anguished

Explanation:

这个问题要求你确定最佳description of the passage's overall tone. This passage makes heavy use of vivid imagery, poetic license, and metaphors, so it is inaccurate to describe it as "logical" or "academic." The over-the-top nature of the metaphors (comparing the end of a friendship to the destruction of a whole civilization, for instance) makes it incorrect to say that the passage is "restrained." The narrator is not merely "reflective;" he narrates the passage with great sadness and distress. Therefore, the best description for the passage's tone is "anguished."

Example Question #42 :Interpreting The Passage

Adapted fromLife and Remains of John Clare "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet"by John Clare (1872, ed. J. L. Cherry)

I am! Yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me, like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise.
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

The transition between the first two stanzas and the final stanza can best be described as__________.

Possible Answers:

hope to despair

depression to joy

depravity to solace

captivity to freedom

confinement to longing

Correct answer:

confinement to longing

Explanation:

We cannot say that the narrator goes from depression to joy, as the first two stanzas talk of his or her woe and the final stanza only talks of his wishes of a place where he or she could be free from his or her woe. We can say the first two stanzas are "confinement" or "captivity" in that the narrator is captive with the torment of solitude and woes. The final stanza is then a longing or wishing for something beyond the confinement the narrator is facing. “Hope to despair” is incorrect as it is in the wrong order, and “captivity to freedom” is incorrect as the freedom is never actually reached, just desired.

Example Question #43 :Interpreting The Passage

Adapted fromReflections on the Revolution in Franceby Edmund Burke (1790)

In the famous statute called the Declaration of Right, the two houses utter not a syllable of “a right to frame a government for themselves.”You will seethat their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and liberties that had been long possessed and had been lately endangered. They state “in thefirst place” to do “as theirancestors in like cases have usuallydone for vindicating theirancientrights and liberties, todeclare;”—and then they pray the king and queen, “that it may bedeclaredand enacted, thatall and singularthe rights and libertiesasserted and declaredare the true ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom.”

You will observethat from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as anentailed inheritancederivedto us from our forefathers and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means, our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.

This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection, or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection andaboveit.A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views.People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.Besides, the people of England well know, that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission; without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires.无论优点是获得的状态表示ding on these maxims are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever. By a constitutional policy working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us and from us in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.因此,保护自然的方法的有限公司nduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance, we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchers, and our altars.

Through the same plan of aconformityto nature in our artificial institutions and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual, native dignity. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of portraits; its monumental inscriptions; its records, evidences, and titles. All yoursophisterscannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories and magazines of our rights and privileges.

Which of the following BEST describes the author's rhetorical strategy in the passage?

Possible Answers:

The author begins by providing an example of rights legislation in England then attempts to situate that example as part of an abstract system of a progressive social movement.

The author begins by asserting the existence of an abstract system of traditional inheritance, then attempts to justify his claims with an example drawn from English history.

The author begins by providing a positive example of rights legislation in England, then attempts to ironize his intellectual opponents by imitating the the objections to this example that would naturally be generated by their way of thinking.

The author begins by providing an example of rights legislation in England then attempts to situate that example as part of an abstract system of traditional inheritance.

The author begins by providing an example of regressive social legislation, then attempts to situate that example as part of an abstract system of ill-considered social progressivism.

Correct answer:

The author begins by providing an example of rights legislation in England then attempts to situate that example as part of an abstract system of traditional inheritance.

Explanation:

The author's rhetorical strategy in this passage is to begin with an example of rights legislation in England (The Declaration of Right), and then to situate that example as part of an abstract system of tradition, namely entailed inheritance. Thus, the author situates any progress made in England in terms of personal liberty as part of an inherited tradition, a tradition that need be "conserved."

The example of the Magna Carta is NOT intended to be cast in a negative light as regressive; rather, it is called upon as an example of the kind of social reform "progressive" intellectual opponents of Burke have been demanding around the time of the French Revolution.

The author's abstract claims and justifications are sincere; they are not intended to ironize or imitate intellectual opponents.

Example Question #44 :Interpreting The Passage

Adapted from "A Scandal in Bohemia" inAdventures of Sherlock Holmesby Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892 ed.)

To Sherlock Holmes she is alwaysthewoman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between drugs and ambition, the drowsiness of drugs, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

——3月20,1888 - iwas returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the mystery that was solved there, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars. Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.

Which of the following accurately describes the passage?

Possible Answers:

Written in first person from the perspective of Sherlock Holmes

Written in first person

Written in second person

Written in first person from the perspective of Irene Adler

Written in third person omniscient

Correct answer:

Written in first person

Explanation:

The use of "I" throughout the passage clearly indicates that it is written in first person perspective. We can tell that the speaker is not Sherlock Holmes because the "I" is describing Holmes using the third person pronoun "he," and Irene Adler is mentioned as "she," so we can draw similar conclusions about the narrator not being her. So, "Written in first person" is the best answer choice.

Example Question #45 :Interpreting The Passage

Adapted from "A Scandal in Bohemia" inAdventures of Sherlock Holmesby Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892 ed.)

To Sherlock Holmes she is alwaysthewoman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between drugs and ambition, the drowsiness of drugs, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.

——3月20,1888 - iwas returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the mystery that was solved there, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars. Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.

The narrator's personality can best be described as__________.

Possible Answers:

mischievous

curious

rude

严重的

haughty

Correct answer:

curious

Explanation:

The narrator seems curious and interested in Sherlock's goings-on; the fact that the narrator stops in to see Sherlock after passing his residence and realizing he is home attests to both of these characterizations.

Example Question #46 :Interpreting The Passage

1 Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

2 That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

3 And thereupon imagination and heart were driven

4 So wild that every casual thought of that and this

5 Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

6 With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

7 And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,

8 Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

9 Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,

10 Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent

11 Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken

12 By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

(1916)

The speaker's tone could be described as one of______________________.

Possible Answers:

bitterness and cowardice

penitence and regret

awe and fear

disgust and amazement

admiration and joy

Correct answer:

awe and fear

Explanation:

Awe and fear are two adequate descriptors for this poem's tone. Awe is a state of amazement or wonder at something beautiful, vast, or in some way beyond one's own comprehension. Towards the end of the poem, especially when the speaker is wondering if the afterlife will be as harsh and cold as the sky looks, the poem also takes on a definitive tone of fear.

There is little in the poem that creates a tone of disgust, joy, bitterness and cowardice, or regret.

通过改编自威廉巴特勒叶芝’”的公司ld Heaven" (1916)

# 47例问题:Interpreting The Passage

1 Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting Heaven

2 That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice,

3 And thereupon imagination and heart were driven

4 So wild that every casual thought of that and this

5 Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season

6 With the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago;

7 And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason,

8 Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro,

9 Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken,

10 Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent

11 Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken

12 By the injustice of the skies for punishment?

(1916)

Who is the addressee of the poem?

Possible Answers:

An unspecified audience

The speaker's beloved

The sky

The speaker's soul

A ghost

Correct answer:

An unspecified audience

Explanation:

No specific addressee is defined within this poem. That is, the speaker gives no indication that he is addressing his words to any particular person, thing, or group of people. He makes observations, records experiences, and asks questions, but never directs these things to any specific listener. Since the poem provides no evidence to the contrary, it can be concluded that the addressee is an "unspecified audience."

通过改编自威廉巴特勒叶芝’”的公司ld Heaven" (1916)

Example Question #1 :Context, Speaker, And Addressee: Prose

Adapted fromA Modest Proposalby Jonathan Swift (1729)

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

The primary audience for this passage would best be described as__________.

Possible Answers:

several prominent poets

a class of children

隐式寻址英格兰统治精英

directly addressing a rich nation

directly addressing a small group of royals

Correct answer:

隐式寻址英格兰统治精英

Explanation:

The audience for this passage is an impoverished nation. Swift directly addresses all of "this state," rather than a specific group of professionals, children, or leaders within that country. The author directly states that his essay is being "humbly offer[ed] [for] public consideration." The use of the term "public," coupled with the subject matter, suggests that the essay's intended audience is lower-income people from his own country. That being said, the implication of the essay is that this public is fundamentally powerless to address the issues discussed. Thus, given the Juvenalian tone of the satire the passage implicitly addresses those with the power to facilitate change.

Example Question #49 :Interpreting The Passage

Adapted fromA Modest Proposalby Jonathan Swift (1729)

The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

Which of the following best describes the tone of this passage as a whole?

Possible Answers:

Harsh and satirical

Light and cheerful

Callous but hopeful

Melancholic and wistful

Satirical and good-natured

Correct answer:

Harsh and satirical

Explanation:

这首诗的基调可以被描述为,哈尔sh and satirical. The speaker pretends to suggest a logical idea, but uses the suggestion as a commentary on the state of his nation and the way the rich treat and view the poor. Though there are appeals to logic, it should not be taken as completely serious, and is hyperbolic in many ways. The satire here is known as Juvenalian satire, that is satire that is not intended to playfully instruct through irony, but rather to address societal evil with harsh mockery and ridicule.

Example Question #50 :Interpreting The Passage

1 Yes, long as children feel affright
2 In darkness, men shall fear a God;
3 And long as daisies yield delight
4 Shall see His footprints in the sod.
5 Is't ignorance? This ignorant state
6 Science doth but elucidate --
7 Deepen, enlarge. But though 'twere made
8 Demonstrable that God is not --
9 What then? It would not change this lot:
10 The ghost would haunt, nor could be laid.

11 Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate --
12 The harps of heaven and the dreary gongs of hell;
13 Science the feud can only aggravate --
14 No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell:
15 The running battle of the star and clod
16 Shall run for ever -- if there be no God.

(1876)

The central point this passage makes is that_________________.

Possible Answers:

science is not valuable

God may or may not exist

God exists

there is something about life that doesn't make sense without God

the existence of God is something that cannot be questioned by human intellect

Correct answer:

there is something about life that doesn't make sense without God

Explanation:

In the first stanza, the "ignorance" (line 5), the "lot" (line 9), and the "ghost" (line 10) all refer to something the poet claims does not make sense, that only makes sense, that would remain a riddle, without "God" as its explanation. The last two lines from this passage make this even more clear: "The running battle of the star and clod / Shall run for ever -- if there be no God" (lines 15-16). The "battle" is this question, this riddle, that the poet is describing--the sense that God explains or satisfies some mystery of life that nothing else could explain or satisfy.

The poet does not claim that science is worthless, but that science, which answers so many other questions, cannot explain the mystery he is talking about. The central argument of the passage also does not directly comment on whether God does exist or not, or on whether human intellect is sufficient to apprehend the existence of a deity.

Passage excerpted from the epic poemClarelby Herman Melville (1876).

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