Q11

[b91302310]

Regarding this question, could any one suggest how to make the inference from the passage?


Thanks in advance.

[cyruswhittaker]

This was a challenging passage to me, but here were my thoughts on this question after thinking through it:

In paragraph two, the author asserts that the problem (referencing the critics from paragraph one) is that Webster has "become a prisoner of our critical presuppositions." (Lines 18-19)

The author then goes on to discuss that we've been influenced heavily by the morality play, which "illuminates Elizabethan drama." (Line 22). The model that this play provided continued.

In line 30, there's the critical word "yet," which begins discussion of the author's point that Webster was not heavily influenced by this morality play model, and that he was more influenced by morally complicated Italian drama. Taken as a whole, the author describes the context for which the interpretations are based, but then illustrates that this particular context isn't relevant to Webster's.

So, one can draw from this that it is this difference in influence and contextual understanding that results in the critics' misinterprations.

Hence, if C were true (and Webster had been influenced by the morality play), then this would, in the author's view, give more credence to the critics' interpretations.

Any thoughts on this would also be helpful.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

This is a challenging passage, but you can think of the two sides of the debate as follows:

1. Webster plays problematic because characters inconsistent based on "good/evil."

2. Criticism unwarranted -- plays ought not be considered in terms of good/evil.

The modern critics align with the first side, and specifically we're told that these critics evaluate based on good/evil because of the influence of the morality play.

The fact that Webster's plays are NOT like morality plays is why critics have trouble interpreting them; if they were more like morality plays, critical interpretation would be more valid.

[alejoroarios]

can someone please tell me why D is wrong? If Elizabethan dramatists had been more sensitive to Italian sources of influence then they would understand Webster's works better and their interpretations would be more valid, right?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're getting caught up thinking like this:

If Elizabethan dramatists were more sensitive to Italian influence, then the Elizabethan's would not have written such dichotomous good/evil morality plays. They would have written "complicated shades of gray morality plays", as Webster did.
or
If modern critics were more sensitive to Italian influence, then they would not assume Webster was trying to write Elizabethan style plays and understand properly what Webster WAS trying to do.

The 2nd interpretation is out of bounds, because (D) is talking about the dramatists, not the critics.

But we're also not trying to change the past so that the critics come up with NEW interpretations that ARE correct about Webster.

We're really being asked, how could we change the past so that the critics CURRENT interpretations of Webster's work, i.e. that he was not very good at writing clear-cut good/evil characters, would be a correct, negative review of his work?

(D) would have no effect on Webster. We don't care what the other dramatists did. The critics are judging Webster by the standard of the morality play (popularized by Elizabethan dramatists), but even if we lived in (D)'s world and the Elizabethan dramatists weren't as into cut-and-dry morality, we'd still be stuck with critics saying "Webster was trying to write good/evil characters, but he failed to make them clear-cut good or evil." This answer hasn't given us anything to support that.

Notice, while we're on this thought, how (C) supports the critics current interpretation "Webster was trying to write good/evil characters - he WAS heavily influenced by the morality play - but he failed to make them clear-cut good or evil."

(A) is something the author is saying is ACTUALLY true! In the author's view, (A) is accurate and the critics misinterpreted Webster. So (A) being true certainly doesn't change there misinterpretation into a correct interpretation.

(B) This is like (A). The author believes this AND thinks that critics are misinterpreting. So (B) being true doesn't fix the misinterpretation.

(E) This is again similar to (A) and (B). This is something the author was already saying.

Since we know the author thinks the critics have misinterpreted Webster, we need a game-changer for an answer so that their interpretation would become more correct.

In that light, only (C) and (D) provide us with good counterfactuals. But only (C) fixes the misinterpretation about Webster: "was he or wasn't he trying to write purely good or purely evil characters in the style of the morality play?"

Hope this helps.