ShmoopTube

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To shmoop or not to shmoop, that... is not this question...

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Yeah, you've already read this passage... but it gets better the fifth time, we promise.

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What is the grammatical referent of the word "it" in the phrase "that it should have

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any character at all"? And here are the potential answers...

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Okay, so what is this question asking?

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First of all... what's a referent? Aren't those the guys throwing yellow flags on Monday

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Night Football?

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Close. A referent is something that... refers to something else.

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So this question wants to know what "it" is. Really, the best way to find the solution

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is to replace the "it" with each of our choices, and see which one makes the most sense.

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Society and divine nature are mentioned, but they're both part of prepositional phrases,

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so they won't work in this context. We can nix B and D.

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C won't work because Bacon is comparing "it" to being a savage beast... so it wouldn't

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make any sense for our answer to be "a savage beast.

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And yeah, Bacon is talking about solitude quite a bit here, but in this case it's not

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the referent. Instead, he's really talking about the "aversation to society."

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If we replace the "it," we get:

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"For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in

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any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that aversation towards

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society should have any character at all."

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It's a little repetitious this way, but says the same thing.

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Our answer is E.

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Good. Now we can focus on our aversation towards words like "aversation..."

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