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The passage says a poem is a work of art that exploits musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme, and a novel, though it may be a work of art in language, does not usually exploit the musical characteristics of language. Nowhere is it written that for a poem to be a poem, it needs to exploit musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme (in fact, the passage mentions that a Novel usually does not exploit musical characteristics; we can infer that a few novels do exploit musical characteristics of language). We cannot infer that any "art" exploiting musical characteristics of language will be deemed a poem. Is exploiting the musical characteristics of language a sufficient condition for an art to be a poem? WE DON'T KNOW... please help - How is Option C correct?
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The passage says a poem is a work of art that exploits musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme, and a novel, though it may be a work of art in language, does not usually exploit the musical characteristics of language. Nowhere is it written that for a poem to be a poem, it needs to exploit musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme (in fact, the passage mentions that a Novel usually does not exploit musical characteristics; we can infer that a few novels do exploit musical characteristics of language). We cannot infer that any "art" exploiting musical characteristics of language will be deemed a poem. Is exploiting the musical characteristics of language a sufficient condition for an art to be a poem? WE DON'T KNOW... please help - How is Option C correct?

I think the key is the word “any.” The sentence says:

Quote:
“A poem is any work of art that exploits some of the musical characteristics of language...”

That wording makes the two conditions sufficient: if something is (1) a work of art and (2) exploits some musical characteristics of language, then under the passage’s definition it is a poem.

So (C) works. The hypothetical novel is a work of art and exploits meter and rhyme, which are explicitly listed as musical characteristics of language. Therefore, it meets the definition of a poem, while still remaining a novel.

The statement that novels “do not usually” exploit these characteristics actually leaves room for exactly this situation: an unusual novel can also qualify as a poem.
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Hi Reaper795,

You've zeroed in on exactly the right question: is exploiting musical characteristics of language enough, by itself, to make a work of art a poem? The answer is yes, and the proof is one word in the first sentence.

Look at how the definition is phrased:

"A poem is any work of art that exploits some of the musical characteristics of language..."

That word "any" is doing all the work. This isn't just telling us a property that poems happen to have - it's a full definition. It says: take any object at all; if that object is (a) a work of art and (b) exploits some musical characteristics of language, then it qualifies as a poem. Nothing else is required. That's precisely what makes musical exploitation a sufficient condition here.

So the definition reads as: work of art + exploits musical characteristics of language → poem.

Now apply that to (C). The choice hands you an object that is:
- a novel,
- a work of art, and
- exploits meter and rhyme (which are musical characteristics of language).

Points two and three exactly satisfy the poem definition - so the object is a poem. And it's still a novel by description. Hence "both a novel and a poem." Fully supported.

You're also right that the passage says only that novels usually don't exploit these features - which leaves room for the unusual novel that does. (C) simply picks up that leftover case and runs it through the definition.

A quick parallel to lock in the "any" move:

"A bestseller is any book that sells over a million copies."

Now: if a cookbook sells over a million copies, what is it? It's both a cookbook and a bestseller - because meeting the condition is all it takes. Same structure, same logic as this poem question. Whenever a definition says "an X is any Y that does Z," then doing Z is enough to be X.

Answer: C

Reaper795
The passage says a poem is a work of art that exploits musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme, and a novel, though it may be a work of art in language, does not usually exploit the musical characteristics of language. Nowhere is it written that for a poem to be a poem, it needs to exploit musical characteristics of language such as meter, rhythm, euphony, and rhyme (in fact, the passage mentions that a Novel usually does not exploit musical characteristics; we can infer that a few novels do exploit musical characteristics of language). We cannot infer that any "art" exploiting musical characteristics of language will be deemed a poem. Is exploiting the musical characteristics of language a sufficient condition for an art to be a poem? WE DON'T KNOW... please help - How is Option C correct?
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