More Solitary Passages Questions - - Question 10

in lines 11-13 serves which one of the following functions in the passage?

Irene-Vera April 10, 2019

explain

Can you explain? Thank you.

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Ella-Singh April 24, 2019

I also need an explanation for this. Thank you

Victoria April 28, 2019

Hi @Irene-Vera and @Ella-Singh,

These lines state that Aristotle implied that these contradictions of "bad" and "good" are "virtually essential to the tragic personality."

The author says that "critics keep coming back to this element of inconsistency [or contradictions] as though it were an eccentric feature of Webster's own tragic vision." But, as we can see from Aristotle's perspective, these contradictions are an essential element of the tragic personality.

This eliminates answer choice A as the author is refuting this commonly held view rather than defending it.

We can also eliminate answer choices D and E as these lines neither establish a similarity between approaches to tragedy nor support the author's assertion that Elizabethan tragedy cannot be fully understood without the help of recent scholarship.

This leaves us with answer choices B and C.

Answer choice C is incorrect as the author states that "critics have long been puzzled by [these] inner contradictions." This is not an approach to Webster's tragedies, but rather a view widely held by critics.

This leaves answer choice B which states that the lines "support the author's suggestion that Webster's conception of tragedy is not idiosyncratic (distinct/unique to an individual). This is, therefore, the correct answer as the author uses these lines to establish the similarity between Aristotle and Webster's conceptions of tragedy. This means that Webster's conception is not idiosyncratic.

Hope this helps! Let us know if you have any further questions.