Of No English Poet, Except Shakespeare, Can We Say With Approximate Truth GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

Of no English poet, except Shakespeare, can we say with approximate truth that he is the poet of all times. The subjective breath of their own epoch dims the mirror that they hold up to nature. Missing by their limitation the highest universality, they can only be understood in their setting. It adds but little to our knowledge of Shakespeare’s work to regard him as the great Elizabethan; there is nothing temporary in his dramas, except petty incidents and external trappings—so truly did he dwell amidst the elements constituting man in every age and clime. But this cannot be said of any other poet, not even of Chaucer or Spenser, far less of Milton or Pope or Wordsworth. In their cases, the artistic form and the material, the idea and its expression, the beauty and the truth, are to some extent separable. We can distinguish in Milton between the puritanic theology, which is perishable, and the art whose beauty can never pass away. The former fixes his kinship with his own age, gives him a definite place in the evolution of English life; the latter is independent of time, a thing that has supreme worth in itself.

“Of no English poet, except Shakespeare, can we say with approximate truth”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage. The candidates should attain complete facts to go through the English GMAT reading comprehension. This section of GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of two comprehension questions with sets of answers. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed to ask the candidates to learn, analyze the passage and employ ideas or knowledge. The candidates can brush up and enhance their knowledge by answering GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solutions and Explanation

1. In the passage, the assertion that “there is nothing temporary in his dramas” is best understood to mean that

1. Shakespeare’s great tragedies focus on leaders whose downfall was brought about through their own tragic flaws.
2. the themes of Shakespeare’s works are universal and require no understanding of the Elizabethan setting to be meaningful.
3. the Elizabeth Age, often called the Golden Age of Drama, lasted but a few years.
4. the great poets of the Elizabethan Age, although popular in their time, are no longer read with the same intensity as when they were alive.
5. poets who reflect the specific conception of beauty and truth in their lifetimes will stand the test of time.

2. The author mentions Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Pope, and Wordsworth as examples of poets

1. who are notable for their puritanical philosophy.
2. whose work has transcended the time period in which they lived.
3. whose artistic form is completely inseparable from their content.
4. who are linked inextricably with the epoch in which they lived.
5. whose talents are diminished by comparison to those of Shakespeare.

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