GRE Question of the Day (September 28th)

Verbal

Contemporary literary scholars have come to discard the once-conventional image of English theater in the time of Elizabeth I as an anomalous literary wonder, a sudden flowering of creativity rooted not in the dramatic traditions of England but the theater of ancient Greece and Rome. While acknowledging the debt of the Elizabethan playwrights to the dramas of Terence, Plautus, and Seneca, and to the Poetics of Aristotle, the majority of theater scholars today regard Elizabethan drama as being organically related to traditional English drama, above all to the medieval cycles of mystery and morality plays.

Which of the following is NOT consistent with the passage above?

A) Theater historians have significantly altered their views of the origins of Elizabethan drama.
B) England had a native dramatic tradition antedating the Elizabethan era.
C) Although Elizabethan drama deals with English subject matter, it derives its form and method solely from classical Greek and Roman theater.
D) Once envisioned as a historical and literary anomaly, Elizabethan drama now is interpreted as part of a historical continuum.
E) Modern theater scholars view Elizabethan drama as a direct offshoot of Greek and Roman dramatic traditions.

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

Question Discussion & Explanation