Question

Direction: Read the following passage and Answer the THREE questions that follow. Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of “meanings.” It is to turn the world into this world. ("This world"! As if there were any other.) The world, our world is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have. In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real Art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable. This philistinism of interpretation is more rife in literature than in any other art. For decades now, literary critics have understood it to be their task to translate the elements of the poem or play or novel or story into something else. Sometimes a writer will be so uneasy before the naked power of his art that he will install within the work itself - albeit with a little shyness, a touch of the good taste of irony - the clear and explicit interpretation of it. Thomas Mann is an example of such an over cooperative author. In the case of more stubborn authors, the critic is only too happy to perform the job.
Which of the following BEST explains as to why art is interpreted?

• A. Because human intellectual faculties have grown considerably due to formal education.
• B. Because only a few people have the capability of understanding art.
• C. Because art makes us apprehensive and therefore needs to be subdued.
• D. Because art is by and large non-conformist in nature.
• E. Because art has to be understood in order for it to be appreciated.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Passage Summary-In the passage the author is very much against interpretation, especially in art and literature. The author feels that art is interpreted because it makes us nervous and therefore interpretation can make art more conformist.

Refer to the relevant extract, ‘Real Art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.’ This extract makes option C the correct answer.

Option A cannot be determined from the passage.

Option B is not the reason for art being interpreted.

Option D may be true but that is not the reason as to why art is interpreted.

Option E contradicts the extract. Art is non-conformist and makes us nervous.

Hence, the correct Answer is option C.