Reading Comprehension

PT102 · S1 · P2 · Q11 Studies of Homer

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While a new surge of critical interest in the ancient Greek poems conventionally ascribed to Homer has taken place in the last twenty years or so, it was nonspecialists rather than professional scholars who studied the poetic aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey between, roughly, 1935 and 1970.

Topic

The shifting scholarly focus on Homer’s epic poems—specifically, how attention shifted away from their poetic qualities to peripheral topics and is now returning to literary analysis.

Framework

Old / New

Main Point

For decades, scholars focused more on archaeological, historical, and oral tradition aspects of the Homeric poems rather than their actual poetic artistry, but recently, influenced by scholars like Adam Parry, interest has swung back to appreciating Homer’s poetry as literary art.

*The Most Valuable Sentence: (start of P3)*

P1: How Scholarly Focus Shifted Away from Poetry

Nonacademics were the ones talking about why the Iliad and Odyssey are great poetry for much of the mid-1900s, while professional scholars got sidetracked by peripheral questions—like whether the Trojan War really happened or how the poems were recorded—instead of discussing the works’ literary greatness. Even back in 1715, Alexander Pope noticed critics missed the poetic point.

P2: Why Scholars Got Distracted

Ironically, it was the influential analysis of Milman Parry (who explored how the poems came from a long oral tradition) that led later scholars to focus just on oral composition’s limitations and processes, neglecting deeper literary analysis. This “dry” focus drove creative minds even further from engaging with the actual poetry.

P3: The Return to Literary Appreciation

Adam Parry, building on his father’s insights, helped re-center attention on Homer’s artistry by arguing that while the poems are rooted in a long tradition, they also represent unique and remarkable creative achievements. He essentially paved the way for the renewed, literary-centric interest in Homer’s works that’s happening today.

11.

The author of the passage most probably quotes Alexander Pope (end of the first paragraph) in order to

indicate that the Homeric poems
Wrong Emphasis
The point of the Pope quote is to indicate that critics have generally done a bad job of confining themselves to actually critiquing the content / form / style of the works themselves. They get tangled up with peripheral concerns instead. This has nothing to do specifically with Homer.
8% picked this
prove that poets as well
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: poets, just like critics The point of the Pope quote is to indicate that critics have generally done a bad job of confining themselves to the works themselves. They get tangled up with peripheral concerns instead. It had nothing to do with poets being guilty of the same crime.
17% picked this
Correct
illustrate that the nonpoetical emphasis
Why this is right
The point of the Pope quote is to indicate that critics have generally done a bad job of confining themselves to the works themselves. They get tangled up with peripheral concerns instead. Another way to talk about this is to say that instead of focusing on the poetry itself, critics tend to focus on nonpoetical emphases. Quoting Pope is way to say, "This problem that afflicted Homer scholarship for a few decades is a typical thing we've seen from critics before, over the year. Critics, amirite?"
Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
69% picked this
emphasize the problems inherent in
Wrong Emphasis
The point of the Pope quote is to indicate that critics have generally done a bad job of confining themselves to the work itself. They focus on lots of side issues instead. This answer is saying Pope was brought up to emphasize that "it's hard to render classical Greek into modern English". That's not remotely close to what the previous sentence was talking about. This is just trying to trap students who look at the sentence we're being asked about rather than before the sentence we're being asked about. Is says "English" in this sentence, so let's write a trap answer based off that!
1% picked this
argue that poets and literary
Wrong Emphasis
The point of the Pope quote is to indicate that critics get too distracted. They talk about side issues rather than actually critiquing / studying the poetry itself. The last two sentences of this paragraph aren't saying that poets and critics have very different interpretations of poetry. We could just support that poets and critics have very different interpretations of the role a literary critic should play. Critics seems to think that critics should talk about a penumbra of issues surrounding a text, and poets seem to think that critics should be talking about things that are central to the text.
5% picked this

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