It can be inferred from the passage that modern critics' interpretations of Webster's tragedies would be more valid if
BoramJanuary 8, 2019
Answer choice (e)
Why would (e) not be the answer? The last sentence of the passage states that the conflict is "ours as much as that of the characters." Doesn't the conflict refer the the modern critics' interpretation of Webster's tragedies as good and evil? Thank you!
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Great question. Let's take a look at the question and each of the answers.
The question says, "It can be inferred from the passage that modern critics' interpretations of Webster's tragedies would be more valid if..."
In order to answer this question, we need to make sure that we have a firm grasp of what the critics' argument is. Then, we need to see which hole(s) exist in the critics' argument so that we can bolster the strength of their interpretations of Webster's tragedies. This question is essentially just like a strengthen question.
In the first half of the second paragraph, the author attacks the framework the critics use (focusing on the morality play to criticize Webster). Modern critics' interpretations of Webster's tragedies would be more valid if their presupposition that the morality play had influenced Webster were true. The key lines that give us this information in the second paragraph are lines 18 through 22 and lines 30 through 33.
Lines 18 through 22 state, "The problem is that, as an Elizabethan playwright, Webster has become a prisoner of our critical presuppositions. We have, in recent years, been dazzled by the way the earlier Renaissance and medieval theater, particularly the morality play, illuminates Elizabethan drama." This tells us the author finds the critics' assumption that Webster had been influenced by the morality play to be problematic.
Lines 30 through 33 state, "Yet Webster seems not to have been as heavily influenced by the morality play's model of reality as were his Elizabethan contemporaries." The author tells us here that Webster was not heavily influenced by the morality play.
In making the critics' interpretations of Webster's tragedies more valid, their argument would be strengthened if their assumption that Webster was influenced by the morality play were true. This is exactly what answer choice C picks up on, and it's why C is correct.
Answer A is incorrect because it already is true; the ambiguity inherent in Webster's tragic vision did result from the duality of human nature (lines 45 through 49).
Answer B is incorrect because Webster's conception of the tragic personality might have already been similar to that of Aristotle. This wouldn't make the critics' interpretations more valid.
Answer D is incorrect because whether or not Elizabethan dramatists had been more sensitive to Italian sources of influence would have no bearing on the critics' interpretations of Webster's tragedies. We can get rid of this choice.
Answer E is incorrect because this is something that the author is already saying, so it does not chain the critics' misinterpretation of Webster's tragedies into a correct one. The conflict the author is referring to at the end of the passage is the conflicting systems of value within the characters, and he compares this to the inner conflicts that members of modern audiences have, too.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!
