GRE Question of the Day (August 7)

Verbal

Surveying paradigmatic works of tragic literature from antiquity to the present alongside the immense and ever-growing body of secondary literature on the subject, the literary critic Terry Eagleton arrived at the pat judgment that not only had no satisfactory definition of tragedy been offered to date, but also that none besides the admittedly vacuous “very sad” could ever be offered. Overly broad definitions, which for all intents and purposes equate the tragic with seriousness, lead invariably to Scylla; overly narrow ones, such as the Renaissance-inspired struggle theory, to Charybdis. Notwithstanding this definitional dilemma, Eagleton’s conclusion, as clear a case of defeatism as any heretofore advanced, leaves much to be desired.

In A Definition of Tragedy, Oscar Mandel, who is decidedly more sanguine than Eagleton on this score, discerns in Aristotle’s De Poetica the rudiments of a substantive definition of the tragic. Following the spirit, albeit not the letter, of Aristotle’s text, Mandel sets forth three requirements for any work
to be counted as tragic, the third weighing most heavily in his account. First, it must have a protagonist whom we highly (or at least moderately) esteem. Second, it must show how the protagonist comes to suffer greatly. And, third, it must reveal how the protagonist’s downfall was inevitably but unwittingly brought about by his or her own action. It is plain to see that, of the three requirements, the third (call this the inevitability requirement) is beyond question the most contentious as well as the most dubious. The truth is that the inevitability requirement is entirely too stringent. While it may be a sufficient condition, it is not, Mandel’s assertions notwithstanding, the sin qua non of tragic literature.

One need look no further than Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a quintessential work of modern tragedy, to see why this is so. In a provincial capital quite remote from cosmopolitan Moscow, the well-educated, tireless, but spiritually drained sisters are ground down by the inexorable forces of time and fortune. Their failure to leave for Moscow, the childhood home they yearn for, can be understood as their failure to extricate themselves from the tedious and insufferable life brought on by their workaday habits. This suggests a certain acknowledgment on their part of their powerlessness to defy the hands of fate. In the final analysis, the question of whether the protagonist’s fate is sealed in consequence of tragic action, as in Greek and Renaissance tragic dramas, or of inaction, as with modern tragedies, has very little to do with one of the absolutely essential ingredients of tragic literature. That ingredient, of course, is the profound sense of insurmountable powerlessness that yields an unnamable, implacable feeling expressing alienation from life itself.

Question Discussion & Explanation

While discussing Terry Eagleton’s work, the author alludes to Scylla and Charybdis in order to

A point out the principal faults with Eagleton’s ideas about tragedy.
B argue for the importance of understanding myths in our investigation into the nature of tragedy.
C establish that a dilemma pertaining to the essence of tragedy has its origin in myth.
D illustrate how a dilemma common to other intellectual inquiries also applies to our understanding of tragedy.
E delineate the potential problems that lie in wait for anyone who wishes to define tragedy.

Correct Answer - E - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

The primary purpose of the passage is to

A criticize Eagleton’s view that the most adequate definition of tragedy is “very sad.”
B cast doubt on Eagleton’s and Mandel’s views of tragic literature for failing to enumerate all the necessary conditions for tragedy.
C conclude, after analyzing the views of two literary theorists, that tragedy cannot be defined adequately.
D criticize Eagleton’s view that tragedy cannot be adequately defined and Mandel’s view that tragedy requires tragic action and to offer up another condition indispensable for tragedy.
E find fault with Eagleton’s view that tragedy amounts to what is “very sad” and Mandel’s view that tragedy requires great suffering in order to advance a new definition of tragedy in their place.

Correct Answer - D - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

The author’s attitude toward the protagonists in Three Sisters can best be characterized as

A laudatory.
B conciliatory.
C despondent.
D myopic.
E diffident.

Correct Answer - A - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

It can reasonably be inferred from the author’s assessments of Eagleton’s and Mandel’s views of tragedy that

A Mandel’s and Eagleton’s conceptions of tragedy can ultimately be dismissed.
B both theorists fall short of the mark of what constitutes tragedy, but for different reasons.
C the tragic has as much to do with what is very sad as it has to do with the inevitability requirement.
D the fact that tragic heroes undergo great suffering is at the center of both accounts.
E tragic literature is most fully understood when it combines the insights of many different thinkers.

Correct Answer - B - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

The author voices dissatisfaction with the present conception of tragedy in paragraph 3 by

A describing in some detail how a particular genre influences the way we think about tragic literature more generally.
B analyzing a work of literature in order to help us appreciate its supreme aesthetic value.
C raising a pointed objection to Mandel’s definition of tragedy and supporting the objection with a counterexample.
D quibbling with the main criteria in Mandel’s definition, none of which are applicable to a particular work of literature.
E cogently defending conclusions about works of tragedy that, on pain of contradiction, Mandel cannot accept.

Correct Answer - C - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)

Regarding the passage as a whole, the author’s opinion of the first and second requirements spelled out in Mandel’s definition of tragedy is most likely that

A neither the first nor the second requirement fits very easily with the condition of powerlessness that the author defends in the final paragraph.
B the first but not the second requirement is essentially at odds with the author’s claim that Chekhov’s Three Sisters is a work that exemplifies the condition of powerlessness.
C the second but not the first requirement would have to be rejected on the grounds that it is ostensibly the case that the sisters in Three Sisters do not undergo great suffering.
D in light of the condition of powerlessness that the author endorses, it can be concluded that both requirements should not figure prominently in any account of tragedy.
E neither the first nor the second requirement should be necessarily ruled out in our attempt to grasp the essence of tragedy, provided that neither is antithetical to the condition of powerlessness.

Correct Answer - E - (click and drag your mouse to see the answer)