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ACT Reading: Humanities Passage Drill 1, Problem 4. Which of the following does the passage cite as a possible cause of Shakespeare's "tragic period"?

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Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by William Shatner..... er Shakespeare.

00:08

Sorry, it's late here at Shmoop.

00:14

Brought to you by William Shakespeare.

00:16

Not the one you're thinking of—he's this guy we know who has the same name and works at a Cinnabon in Toledo.

00:47

Which of the following does the passage cite as a possible cause of Shakespeare's "tragic period"?

00:56

Somewhere in this passage, Professor Bradley gets all up in Shakespeare's business...

01:01

...and theorizes about how the Bard's personal life might've caused him to write a bunch of tragedies.

01:06

It's our job to figure out just what personal details the Professor is trying to expose.

01:12

Whether it's really any of our business or not.

01:16

Shakespeare did have a son, who died at 11 years old, named Hamnet. Yep... Hamnet. Probably

01:22

a complete coincidence.

01:25

The passage doesn't mention anything about poor little Hamnet, so (A) is incorrect.

01:33

Chances are good that Shakespeare and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe did know each other.

01:37

It's not like the London theatre scene was all that huge back then.

01:41

However, nobody knows if they were friends per se, and the passage doesn't make any such claim.

01:47

So there's nothing to indicate that Shakespeare gave two hoots when Marlowe died in the bar

01:51

fight, which some say was actually an assassination.

01:53

Who knows? Maybe, Billy himself called the hit...

02:00

Shakespeare wrote tons of comedies that are really deep, so it's doubtful he thought

02:03

the entire genre was "superficial," or shallow. He knew that sometimes comedy can

02:08

really hit us where it counts.

02:11

In lines 39 through 41, Professor Bradley does theorize that perhaps Shakespeare thought

02:15

tragedy was the greatest form of drama, but he doesn't compare it to comedy specifically.

02:20

So, we're totally convinced that we can cross (C) off the list.

02:24

Instead, the passage suggests that Shakespeare gravitated toward tragedies because his view

02:30

of the world had changed as he grew older and more experienced.

02:34

The author figures that the longer one lives, the sadder one feels about everything?

02:39

Well, that's encouraging.?

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