16Hit1600
Craft and StructureHardTwo views on a poet's late work

Craft and Structure practice question

Text 1 The poet's last collection is a falling-off: the lines are shorter, the images plainer, the ambition gone. Text 2 The late poems are plainer because the poet had learned what to leave out. Where the early work reached for effect, the last collection trusts a single image to do the work of a stanza. The shortness is not exhaustion; it is confidence.

How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to Text 1's description of the late poems?

  1. A. By agreeing that the poems are plainer and shorter but reading those qualities as strengths rather than weaknesses.Correct
  2. B. By denying that the late poems are shorter.
  3. C. By arguing that the early work was also plain.
  4. D. By agreeing that the poet's ambition had gone.

Answer: A. By agreeing that the poems are plainer and shorter but reading those qualities as strengths rather than weaknesses.

Same facts, opposite judgement.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. By denying that the late poems are shorter.
Text 2 accepts the shortness.
C. By arguing that the early work was also plain.
Text 2 says the early work reached for effect.
D. By agreeing that the poet's ambition had gone.
Text 2 calls it confidence.

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