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- Fri Jul 21, 2017 5:26 pm
#37521
This question asks us why the author mentions Milton and Newton, which he does in these lines starting around line 23:
Answer A: the contrast has nothing to do with the range of difficulty within Latin writings; nothing here suggests that Milton's writings are "straightforward", just that certain scholars have studied his works to the exclusion of others because of their particular interests.
Answer B: the contrast is not about comparing writers who wrote in Latin to writers who wrote in English, but about comparing two writers who both wrote in Latin
Answer C: the contrast has nothing to do with English vs Continental writers, as Milton and Newton are both English. The issue of Continental (European) writers isn't raised until a few lines later.
Answer D: the contrast has nothing to do with literary merit, and only to do with the different level and type of attention that has been focused on the two writers. There is no suggestion that Newton's literary worth was ever in doubt.
Answer E: this is the correct answer. This is what the contrast is all about, that Milton has been the subject of attention by intellectual historians while Newton, due to his scientific subject matter and the challenges of scientific jargon, syntex, and content, has been neglected by those same historians.
The intellectual historian can find ample guidance when reading the Latin poetry of Milton, but little or none (25) when confronting the more alien and difficult terminology, syntax, and content of the scientist Newton.This sentence sets up a contrast between two writers studied by different types of historians - Milton, studied by Latin scholars of humanistic and literary works, and Newton, left alone by that group in deference to historians of science, who lack the philological (linguistic) training necessary to get through the material in the original language. This illustrates the central point of the passage - that specialization among scholars has led to gaps in our understanding of the importance of Latin works by English Renaissance writers and their role in English Renaissance culture.
Answer A: the contrast has nothing to do with the range of difficulty within Latin writings; nothing here suggests that Milton's writings are "straightforward", just that certain scholars have studied his works to the exclusion of others because of their particular interests.
Answer B: the contrast is not about comparing writers who wrote in Latin to writers who wrote in English, but about comparing two writers who both wrote in Latin
Answer C: the contrast has nothing to do with English vs Continental writers, as Milton and Newton are both English. The issue of Continental (European) writers isn't raised until a few lines later.
Answer D: the contrast has nothing to do with literary merit, and only to do with the different level and type of attention that has been focused on the two writers. There is no suggestion that Newton's literary worth was ever in doubt.
Answer E: this is the correct answer. This is what the contrast is all about, that Milton has been the subject of attention by intellectual historians while Newton, due to his scientific subject matter and the challenges of scientific jargon, syntex, and content, has been neglected by those same historians.
Adam M. Tyson
PowerScore LSAT, GRE, ACT and SAT Instructor
Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LSATadam
PowerScore LSAT, GRE, ACT and SAT Instructor
Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LSATadam