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ACT Reading 1.4 Humanities Passage 391 Views
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Description:
ACT Reading: Humanities Passage Drill 1, Problem 4. Which of the following does the passage cite as a possible cause of Shakespeare's "tragic period"?
Transcript
- 00:04
Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by William Shatner..... er Shakespeare.
- 00:08
Sorry, it's late here at Shmoop.
- 00:14
Brought to you by William Shakespeare.
- 00:16
Not the one you're thinking of—he's this guy we know who has the same name and works at a Cinnabon in Toledo.
- 00:47
Which of the following does the passage cite as a possible cause of Shakespeare's "tragic period"?
Full Transcript
- 00:56
Somewhere in this passage, Professor Bradley gets all up in Shakespeare's business...
- 01:01
...and theorizes about how the Bard's personal life might've caused him to write a bunch of tragedies.
- 01:06
It's our job to figure out just what personal details the Professor is trying to expose.
- 01:12
Whether it's really any of our business or not.
- 01:16
Shakespeare did have a son, who died at 11 years old, named Hamnet. Yep... Hamnet. Probably
- 01:22
a complete coincidence.
- 01:25
The passage doesn't mention anything about poor little Hamnet, so (A) is incorrect.
- 01:33
Chances are good that Shakespeare and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe did know each other.
- 01:37
It's not like the London theatre scene was all that huge back then.
- 01:41
However, nobody knows if they were friends per se, and the passage doesn't make any such claim.
- 01:47
So there's nothing to indicate that Shakespeare gave two hoots when Marlowe died in the bar
- 01:51
fight, which some say was actually an assassination.
- 01:53
Who knows? Maybe, Billy himself called the hit...
- 02:00
Shakespeare wrote tons of comedies that are really deep, so it's doubtful he thought
- 02:03
the entire genre was "superficial," or shallow. He knew that sometimes comedy can
- 02:08
really hit us where it counts.
- 02:11
In lines 39 through 41, Professor Bradley does theorize that perhaps Shakespeare thought
- 02:15
tragedy was the greatest form of drama, but he doesn't compare it to comedy specifically.
- 02:20
So, we're totally convinced that we can cross (C) off the list.
- 02:24
Instead, the passage suggests that Shakespeare gravitated toward tragedies because his view
- 02:30
of the world had changed as he grew older and more experienced.
- 02:34
The author figures that the longer one lives, the sadder one feels about everything?
- 02:39
Well, that's encouraging.?
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