Inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798, the a

This one is fairly easy. Check which fits Its well. A, B and D are ruled out immediately. E can be clearly ruled out due to parallelism issue. C is the best option.

meaning:
STC and WW wrote LB.
WW would later be named BPL.
The publication of the book inaugurated romantic movement
the book was published in 1798.

A) Inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798, the authors of the Lyrical Ballads were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate
we should have the book after the long introductory modifier. why so? because we have ITS publication. so no.

B) Inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate, wrote the Lyrical Ballads
same error; we need after ing modifier -> the book.

C) Inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798, the Lyrical Ballads was written by William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
looks good, no ambiguities, no pronoun/idiom/parallelism errors..potential answer.

D) The Lyrical Ballads, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate, and inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798
where is the verb? :D

E) The authors being Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate, the Lyrical Ballads inaugurated the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798
changes the focus from being written by STC and WW to inaugurating the movement. C looks better, so E is out.

He inaugurated a new policy of trade and exploration.

The museum was inaugurated on September 12.

Above sentences are correct


How a book (Lyrical Ballads) can inaugurate something? This makes me reject choice C. Please help

It is alright to say that a book started a movement.

the answer should be C."its" used in first clause, so should be followed by the Lyrical Ballads.

Official Explanation

A SC problem with the whole sentence underlined! These are challenging ones. Let's look at (A) first.

(A) Inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798, the authors of the Lyrical Ballads were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate

The modifier "inaugurating the Romantic movement with its publication in 1798" must applied to the Lyrical Ballads, not to the two authors, as (A) & (B) suggest. Those two are wrong.

Choice (C) correctly has this modifier modifying "the Lyrical Ballads", and everything else is clear and grammatically correct. This is a promising choice. (NOTE: even though "Lyrical Ballads" sounds plural, it's a unique and single book, so it is singular, and the singular verb "was" is perfectly correct.)

Choice (D) makes the missing verb mistake --- there is no main verb in that version. (D) is wrong.

In (E), the second half is clear and direct, but the first half compresses the information into an awkward absolute phrase using the participle "being" --- that's almost always wrong on the GMAT Sentence Correction. Here, the effect is clumsy and indirect. Choice (E) is far from ideal.

By far, the strongest answer is (C).

Hi experts

....the authors of the Lyrical Ballads were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate.

I found an explanation to the question saying "who" ambiguously refers to both "Samuel T C" and "William Wordsworth". In the construction shown above does "who" clearly not refer to
"William Wordsworth" (being separated by a comma from the rest of the sentence).

Please suggest.

Thanks

I am still not so clear why "inaugurating" is not modifying the two authors but the the book "Lyrical Ballads". Who is inaugurating? Ans- "the authors".

Had there been no "its", which is indicating that "Lyrical Ballads" is being modified, would "inaugurating" then refer to the authors?
Is my understanding correct that "its" is the only thing here that is giving clue what is being modified, and there is no other thing that I am missing?

Consider this:
Inaugurating the Romantic movement with THE publication in 1798, the authors of the Lyrical Ballads were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, who would later be named Britain's Poet Laureate.

Is this correct now?

AndrewN - Request your expert suggestions on this one as well. Thank you in advance.

Yes, Pankaj0901, its is problematic within the opening modifier in the original sentence, since immediately after the comma, we see the authors, a plural entity. Either a publication or people themselves could inaugurate or usher in a movement, so we cannot eliminate anything automatically on such grounds. Within your altered sentence, the would not quite fix the meaning issue, unless we had information ahead of time (say, in a reading passage) about a certain publication. (In a self-contained sentence, I would expect to see, "with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798.") Another problem with retaining the authors is that the subsequent who clause seeks to add information about one of those authors only, William Wordsworth. Since who can be either singular or plural, the original sentence leaves us wondering whether Wordsworth exclusively was named Britain's Poet Laureate or whether both he and Coleridge achieved that honor separately at some point in their lives. Choice (C) corrects the issue by naming Wordsworth and placing the who clause immediately after, then naming Coleridge. Yes, (C) employs the passive voice, but that is a far smaller offense than a dangling participle.

I hope that helps clarify your concerns.

- Andrew

Hi Manu

Yes, it is possible for "who" to refer to both Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth together, though it cannot refer to the far away noun Samuel Taylor Coleridge in general.

However, in such a situation, we could look for clues from the rest of the sentence. Here, we are told that "who" would go on to be named " Britain's Poet Laureate". This is a singular title and hence "who" can only refer to one person, in this case, William Wordsworth.

Hope this helps.

Inaugurating the movement with its publication in 1798, the LB was written by DEF, who would later be named Ireland's King, and ABC.

Since the publication was from both DEF and ABC should the pronoun be THEIR and not its?

Please let me know. Thanks

Hello, mcepeci. Since all five answer choices preserve "its publication," we have to accept that the sentence is placing an emphasis on the work, the Lyrical Ballads, and not on the authors of that work. Remember, you are bound by what is actually on the screen, not by what could be there. A different sentence could just as easily use their within the same modifier and refer to the authors instead. (Out of curiosity, where did the part about "Ireland's King" enter the picture? I see "Britain's Poet Laureate.")

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hi sayantanc2k

As GMAT is known to consider and maintain logical sense in its questions, isn't it too odd to say that a book inaugurated something?

Everything is fine except this.

cc: AR15J

Hello udaypratapsingh99,

We hope this finds you well. What this sentence does here is called anthropomorphization, giving human qualities to something that is not human. This is a small writing convention that is perfectly acceptable, even in formal English. For example, we can say that "The scandal is ruining the minister's reputation." or "This news will definitely surprise John."

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

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