Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions correctly.
At the time Jane Austen’s novels were published- between 1811 and 1818-Englsh literature was not part of any academic curriculum. In addition, fiction was under strenuous attack. Certain religious and political groups felt novels had the power to make so-called immoral characters so interesting that young readers would identify with them; these groups also considered novels to be of little practical use. Even Coleridge, certainly no literary reactionary, spoke for many when he asserted that “novel-reading occasions the destruction of the mind’s powers.”
These attitudes toward novels help explain why Austen received little attention from early nineteenth-century literary critics. (In any case, a novelist published anonymously, as Austen was, would not be likely to receive much critical attention.) The literary response that was accorded to her, however, was often as incisive as twentieth century criticism. In his attack in 1816 on novelistic portrayals “outside of ordinary experience,” for example, Scott made an insightful remark about the merits of Austen’s fiction. Her novels, wrote
Scott, “present to the reader an accurate and exact poicture of ordinary everyday people and places, reminicent of seventeenth-century Flemish painting.” Scott did not use the word “realism.” but he undoubtedly used a standard of realistic probability in judging novels. The critic Whately did not use the word realism either, but he expressed agreement with Scott’s evaluation, and went on to suggest the possibilities for moral instruction in what we have called Austen’s realistic method. Her characters, wrote Whately, are persuasive agents for moral truth since they are ordinary persons “so clearly evoked that we feel an interest in their fate as if it were our own.” Moral instruction, explained Whately, is more likely to be effective when conveyed through recognisably human and interesting characters than when imparted by a sermonising narrator.
Whately especially praised Austen’s ability to create characters who “mingle goodness and villainy, weakness and virtue, as in life they are always mingled.” Whately concluded his remarks by comparing Austen’s art of characterisation to Dickens’, stating his preference for Austen’s.
Yet the response of nineteenth-century literary critics to Austen was not always so laudatory, and often anticipated the reservations of twentieth-century critics. An example of such a response was Lewes’ complaint in 1859 that Austen’s range of subjects and characters was too narrow. Praising her verisimilitude, Lewes added that nonetheless her focus was too often upon only the unlofty and the commonplace. (Twentieth-century Marxists, on the other hand, were to complain about what they saw as her exclusive emphasis on a lofty upper-middle class.) In any case, having been rescued by some literary critics from neglect and indeed gradually lionised by them, Austen steadily reached, by the mid-nineteenth century, the enviable pinnacle of being considered controversial.
1. The author quotes Coleridge in order to
A. refute the literary opinions of certain religious and political groups
B. make a case for the inferiority of novels to poetry.
C. give an example of a writer who was not a literary reactionary
D. indicate how widespread was the attack on novels in the nearly nineteenth century
Sol:
When Coleridge, who was not a reactionary, could thus attack novels, we can well imagine how others, who were reactionaries or who were influenced by them, might have attacked novels.
2. It can be inferred from the passage that Whately found Dicken’s characters to be.
A. especially interesting to young readers
B. ordinary persons in recognisably human situations
C. less liable than Jane Austen’s characters to have a realistic mixture of moral qualities
D. more often villainous and weak than virtuous and good
3. According to the passage, the lack of critical attention paid to Jane Austen can be explained by all of the following nineteenth-century attitudes towards the novel except the
A. assurance felt by many people that novels weakened the mind
B. certainty shared by many political commentators that the range of novels was too narrow
C. lack of interest shown by some critics in novels that were published anonymously
D. fear exhibited by some religious and political groups that novels had the power to portray immoral characters attractively
Sol:
(a) and (d) are mentioned in the first paragraph as factors resulting in “lack of critical attention”.
(c) is also stated as such as factor: see the sentence within brackets in the second paragraph. (b) is, in fact, the result of critical attention.
4. The author would most likely agree that which of the following is the best measure of a writer’s literary success?
A. of the writer’s work in an academic curriculum
B. Publication of the writer’s work in the writer’s own name
C. Existence of debate among critics about the writer’s work
D. Praise of the writer’s work by religious and political groups
Sol:
The last sentence of the passage says that “being considered controversial” (that is, existence of debate) is the “enviable pinnacle” (highest point everyone wishes to reach).
