Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT121 S3 P2 Q6 Explanation

Gluck’s Poetry

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsMain PointHumanities

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Passage

The poet Louise Glück has said that she feels comfortable writing within a tradition often characterized as belonging only to male poets. About her own experience reading poetry, Glück notes that her gender did not keep her from appreciating the poems of Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, and other male poets. Rather she believed tradition as historically exclusionary and rhetorically inadequate for women, Glück embraces it with respect and admiration.

Glück’s formative encounters with poetry also provided her with the theoretical underpinnings of her respect for this tradition; she notes that in her youth she could sense many of the great themes and subjects of poetry even before experiencing them in her own life. These subjects—loss, the passage of time, desire—are timeless, mortality, for example, then issues of gender distinction fade behind the presence of this universal reality.

Some of Glück’s critics claim that this idea of the universal is suspect and that the idea that gender issues are transcended by addressing certain subjects may attribute to poetry an innocence that it does not have. They maintain that a female poet writing within a historically male-dominated tradition will on some strive to create a uniquely female poetry by using new forms to develop a new voice.

Glück, however, observes that this ambition, with its insistence on an essentially female perspective, is as limiting as her critics believe the historically male-dominated tradition to be. She holds that to the extent that there are some gender differences that have been shaped by history, they will emerge in the differing ways what it includes and in what it omits, inevitably speaks of its social and historical context.

What this question is testing

Main Point

Your task

Capture the passage's overall primary point — the claim everything else supports.

Common trap

Answers that are true but too narrow (a single paragraph) or too broad (beyond the passage's scope).

Winning move

Summarize the whole passage in one sentence first, then match it to a choice.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
6.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of

Answer choices

  1. Too Narrow12% picked this

    In response to her critics, Glück argues that the attempt to develop a uniquely female voice is as restrictive as they believe the

    This answer is true (it's basically the first sentence of the final paragraph), but it seems to not capture any of our big three themes: - she feels part of the male dominated poetry tradition - she thinks poetry's subjects are universal and transcend gender - she thinks that to whatever extent females should try to develop a female poetry voice, they should do it unconsciously and let it come through naturally through their poetry. We can also tell that this answer is too narrow because there's no support for it. Why should we believe that "the attempt to develop a female voice is as restrictive as they believe the male tradition to be"? This idea never gets fleshed out, because it's a self-justifying claim. Obviously, a female-voice tradition is as restrictive as a male-voice tradition.

  2. Too Strong: must12% picked this

    Although critics have taken Glück to task for writing poetry that is generic in subject rather than specifically aimed at addressing women’s concerns, she

    The main clause here is that Glück thinks that poetry must concern itself with universal themes. Did Glück ever say anything that strong? No, the 2nd paragraph has her saying that "many of the great themes and subject of poetry" are universal, and so issues of gender distinction fade behind this universal reality. But she never dictated that poets must address certain themes.

  3. Too Strong: equally13% picked this

    In spite of critics who attempt to limit art to expressing the unique perspectives of the artist’s gender, Glück believes that art in fact

    The main clause here is that Glück thinks "art represents a perspective that is equally male and female". Not only is that far too strong a statement, it's basically contradicted in the final paragraph where Glück acknowledges that there are gender differences, which will emerge unconsciously through the writing of males / females.

  4. Correct63% picked this

    In opposition to some critics, Glück writes on universal themes rather than striving for a uniquely female voice, believing that whatever gender differences are

    Why this is right

    This answer packages together a few of our big themes: - she likes universal stuff - she rejects the call to develop a uniquely female voice - she thinks her gender will reveal itself naturally and more authoritatively if it comes through "in the absence of conscious intention"

    Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  5. Out of Scope: unsatisfying response0% picked this

    Aside from the power and accomplishment of her writing, Glück has yet to offer a completely satisfying response to the critics’ demand that her

    This answer sounds like the author is somewhat mad at Glück or disappointed in her. We don't have any negative tone from the author. The author seems to be allowing Glück a chance to defend herself against the critics, and seems implicitly on board with Glück's assessment of gender differences in poetry.

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