Shakespeare wrote several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas

Aleksandr1996@gmail.com please provide detailed analysis so that the fellow members can view your reasoning and clear their doubts..such small posts anyway get deleted within 24 hours.

and welcome to GMATCLUB

Official Explaination By egmat
Meaning Analysis

Shakespeare
wrote several ‘problem plays’,
psychological dramas treading the line between tragedy and comedy,
and embodied the sociopolitical norms of his time.

The sentence says that Shakespeare wrote many plays known as “problem plays”. These “problem plays” are psychological dramas that are something between tragedy and comedy.

Then the sentence says that he embodied the sociopolitical norms of his time. This meaning is clearly illogical. It is his plays that embody the norms, not Shakespeare himself.
Error Analysis

This sentence has the meaning error pointed out in the meaning analysis.
Answer Choices

Incorrect: This choice has the error pointed out in the meaning/error analysis.


Correct:
This is indeed the correct choice as the verb-ing modifier ”embodying” correctly modifies “problem plays”.

Note that in this choice, the verb-ing modifier is not associated with the comma that precedes it. This comma is the second of two commas that bracket the ‘FYI’ modifier “psychological… comedy.” The function of these two commas is to separate this modifier from the rest of the sentence. If we remove this modifier, we get:

Shakespeare wrote several ‘problem plays’ embodying the sociopolitical norms of his time.
So, the verb-ing modifier “embodying” correctly refers to the preceding noun, “‘problem plays’”.


Incorrect:
The two independent clauses “Shakespeare wrote…” and “they embody” are incorrectly connected using just a comma.


Incorrect:
This choice repeats the illogical meaning of the original sentence by saying that Shakespeare embodied the sociopolitical norms of his time.


Incorrect:
There is no verb for the subject “Shakespeare”.

GMATNinja egmat

Hello experts, kindly help with this question!

Where I am wrong If I consider :

Shakespeare wrote several ‘problem plays’,

psychological dramas

treading the line between tragedy and comedy, and

embodied the socio-political norms of his time.
"trading" and "embodied" are the modifiers of psychological dramas. We know verb+ed and verb+ing modifier can be parallel.

generis , Abhi077 , daagh and BillyZ

Please advise.

Yes as a matter of fact, present and past participle phrases or verb-ing/Ed modifiers can be parallel.

But ask yourself, is embodied functioning as a verb-Ed modifier? No it’s not. It’s functioning as a verb. Who is the doer of the action? It’s clearly Shakespeare.

As per this choice, He did two actions, ‘wrote’ and ‘embodied’.

Does it makes sense to say that Shakespeare embodied the socio-political norms? It clearly doesn’t. Its his plays that did.

Hope this is clear.

the verb -ing modifier is modifying the preceeding noun i.e. problem plays or the whole clause aka "S wrote several problem plays"? I don't think the -ing modifier here refers only to the noun (PP) but to the whole clause. If the -ing modifier is placed in the beginning of the sentence, only then, the -ing modifier may modify following "noun" OR the whole clause but if it is placed after a clause, it will modify the preceding clause.

Is my understanding correct?

Abhi077 : Appreciate your explanation. I understand that embodied cannot be done by Shakespeare.
My question is whether both embodied and treading both be modifiers of psychological dramas? Is there any meaning issue?

Regards,
Arup

The elimination seems to be easy here.
A&C out because of parallelism, D&E out as the the subject Shakespeare has no meaningful verb.

Don't we need and between two modifiers 1)psychological drama and 2)embodying?

Hello, gayatri259. No, we cannot place and between the two modifiers you listed, because they are different types of modifiers that should not be held in parallel. For reference, how about we look at the sentence with (B) inserted?


First, psychological dramas forms an appositive phrase for the term problem plays from the main clause. The relative clause that begins with that modifies psychological dramas and, by extension, further defines or describes problem plays—these are plays that tread the line between tragedy and comedy. After the comma, embodying forms a participial phrase that comments on the main clause. How do we know? Because there is a reference to his time, the time in which Shakespeare lived and wrote plays.

A different sentence could hold the verbs within the relative clause parallel—tread and embody—but the meaning would be much different from what we see above. (We do not need to get into the specifics of this nonexistent sentence.) However, in the sentence at hand, we would want to see two appositives or two participles to logically connect them with and.

Perhaps that clarifies the matter. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hello gayatri259,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, we do not need an "and" here because the two modifiers act upon different things.

"psychological dramas that tread..." is an appositive that modifies " ‘problem plays’, describing what problem plays are.

By contrast, "embodying" is a present participle that modifies the action "tread the line between tragedy and comedy", providing more information about this action.

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

Shakespeare wrote several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas treading the line between tragedy and comedy, and embodied the socio-political norms of his time.

A. wrote several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas treading the line between tragedy and comedy, and embodied

embodied logically suppose to modify the problem plays but by using and it triggers a parallel marker which distorts the meaning.

B. wrote several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas that tread the line between tragedy and comedy, embodying

embodying correctly modifies ‘problem plays

C. wrote several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas treading the line between tragedy and comedy, they embody
They has no antecedent .

D. in his several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas that tread the line between tragedy and comedy, embodied
This construction has no main verb

E. in his several ‘problem plays’, psychological dramas that tread the line between tragedy and comedy, embodying
This construction has no main verb

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.