|Question 9Verbal

Source Texts

Text
The following text is from William Carlos Williams's 1925 creative nonfiction book In the American Grain. Williams is discussing how works by nineteenth-century US poet and fiction writer Edgar Allan Poe were received by American readers.

Poe must suffer by his originality. Invent that which is new, even if it be made of pine from your own yard, and there's none to know what you have done. It is because there's no name. This is the cause of Poe's lack of recognition. He was American. He was the astounding, inconceivable growth of his locality. Gape at him they did, and he at them in amazement. Afterward with mutual hatred; he in disgust, they in mistrust. It is only that which is under your nose
What does the text most strongly suggest about Poe's work and American readers?
American readers failed to appreciate Poe's work because of its novelty and the fact that it reflected aspects of the American character too ingrained in those readers for them to comprehend.
A
Poe's work was so innovative that there was not even terminology to describe it, which led American readers to regard both the work and Poe himself as strange but quintessentially American.
B
Poe's work had few admirers among American readers because it tended to present a negative image of American life and institutions.
C
American readers largely ignored Poe's work because its tone and subject matter were out of keeping with mainstream literature.
D