General Passage Discussion

[avengingangel]

OK - so... I answered all the questions correctly! I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that it took me 22 minutes and 10 seconds to complete..

I mean, dang, this passage was difficult for me to understand! By the time I began reading the 2nd paragraph I was all flustered.. and, it just went downhill from there. It didn't help that I didn't understand a lot of the words, either (esoteric, philological, steeped, Continental humanists, modern classicist). The frequent back-and-forth between the terms English, Latin, Renaissance, Renaissance England, and Renaissance Latin didn't help much either. ALSO--in the first paragraph, I definitely thought that "the intellectual historian" (line 23) was referring to the HISTORIANS mentioned in the preceding sentence (I know, how dare I?!)! That's the first place the paragraph introduces that term to describe the group of people that the paragraph previously described as "the most learned students of Renaissance Latin" and "language specialists." How is one not to get 'tricked' by that new wording?

Ugh, I think what would be most helpful is a full VIEWSTAMP overview, and also, what important key things should I have noticed/marked while reading this, so it's not intimidating and is fluid and digestible. I could also call the Hotline tomorrow night but it'd be great to get an explanation here, since I have so many questions.

I am determined to be able to understand passages like this before the Test next month!!

Thanks !!

[avengingangel]

PS I ended up calling the Hotline on this one and Jonathan was very helpful! I'm all set.

[mariahenain]

A full VIEWSTAMP analysis of this passage would still be greatly appreciated! An explanation of correct/incorrect answer choices of #13 would also be extremely helpful.

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Happy to share my thoughts on this passage in the form of a VIEWSTAMP analysis here, and I'll tackle question 13 specifically in a new thread.

VIEW: Primarily the viewpoints of J. W. Binns and the author here, Binns' opinion being that Latin writings from the Renaissance have been overshadowed by those written in English, at least among certain scholarly circles, due largely to academic specialization. The author appears to agree, and says this is understandable.

S: The passage introduces a scholar's assertion about a gap in scholarship, expands upon it by explaining the likely causes for that gap, an argument is made that scholars have made some mistakes, and the author asserts that the mistakes were understandable.

T: The tone here ranges from neutral and academic, merely explaining a situation and attempting to correct an understanding, to mildly critical of some scholars for overlooking some important issues, to a bit forgiving of those same scholars.

A: The passage argues that English writers of the Renaissance were more steeped in and influenced by Latin works than the current state of the scholarship suggests, and that this is due in part to an understandable difficulty of crossing over specializations and in part to mistakes made by intellectual historians.

MP: The main point here is that scholarly writings in Latin by English writers were more important and central to English high culture than intellectual historians have previously suggested.

I invite anyone who wishes to chime in to do so!