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As we live and Shmoop, another question… Which words could fill in the blanks so that
the sentence below makes sense?
Born in the 1770s, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge espoused a new style
of poetry in which the blank of the common man trumped stylized and formal language.
The sentence is saying that Wordsworth and Coleridge got way more excited about the everyday
language of the common man than fancy words and complicated sentences.
So the key to this one is that the word in the blank has to have something to do with
language. (A) doesn’t fit at all, because a “plight”
is a dangerous situation. (B) is a good bet, because diction means the
choice and use of words in speech and writing.
We’ll keep going to make sure there’s nothing better, though.
“Reinstatement” means to restore a previous condition, which has nothing to do with language.
So (C) is just wasting our time. “Tone” is kind of plausible, since a person
can have a tone in the way they speak.
It has more to do with attitude than the actual words, though, so (B), “diction,” is still
a better choice. (E) makes no sense whatsoever. Fervor is when
somebody gets really intense about something.
It doesn’t have a lot to do with language necessarily.
Looks like the answer is definitely (B).
As in, “Beware Romantic poets on a rampage.”