Critic: The idealized world portrayed in romance literature is diametrically opposed to the debased world portrayed ...

Mehran on September 23, 2016

@damon sure, let's break down the argument first.

"The idealized world portrayed in romance literature is diametrically opposed to the debased world portrayed in satirical literature.

Nevertheless, the major characters in both types of works have moral qualities that reflect the worlds in which they are presented.

Comedy and tragedy, meanwhile, require that the moral qualities of major characters change during the course of the action.

Therefore, neither tragedy nor comedy can be classified as satirical literature or romance literature."

Notice the jump here. All we know is that comedy and tragedy require that the moral qualities of major characters change during the course of the action.

From this the critic concludes that "neither tragedy nor comedy can be classified as satirical literature or romance literature."

This is a Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question so we are looking for the answer choice that 100% guarantees the conclusion here, i.e. the super premise.

Clearly, the correct answer will address this gap by tying the idea of "moral qualities of major characters changing during the course of the action" to not being able to "be classified as satirical literature or romance literature."

(D) does exactly this: "In romance literature and satirical literature, characters' moral qualities do not change during the course of the action."

RL & SL ==> not MQC
MQC ==> not RL or not SL

Notice that the contrapositive of (D) guarantees the conclusion by making "moral qualities of major characters changing during the course of action" sufficient for not being able to "be classified as satirical literature or romance literature."

So (D) would be the correct answer choice.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.