The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Questioning the “Greatness” of William Shakespeare
Dilbert Terrell/Which term BEST describes the tone set by the passage's opening sentence?
A) cheerful
B) comical
C) foreboding
D) nurturing
If this article had a heading for a section entitled A Weakening of Poetic Powers: Shakespeare’s Late Plays, what would you expect to see in that section?
A) A celebration of the end of Shakespeare’s career and his last few plays
B) Examples and descriptions of a few of Shakespeare’s less successful later works
C) An argument for why Shakespeare’s later sonnets should be taught to ninth-graders
D) A detailed literary analysis of some of the flower imagery used in Shakespeare’s plays Based on the tone and content of this passage, what conclusion can be drawn about the author of this passage?
A) The author has never really understood the appeal of Shakespeare.
B) The author knows very little about Shakespeare's life and works and thus has no authority as a speaker.
C) The author clearly hates and detests Shakespeare and wishes that his plays weren't taught to high school students.
D) The author loves teaching Shakespeare, but wants to soften some of the "worship" of Shakespeare that goes on in English classrooms.