Passage 45
The editors of the essay collection Romantic biography tell us repeatedly that biography is an invention of the Romantic period in British literature (late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries), yet we are never shown that process of invention motion. Hazlitt, the most prominent example of the Romantic biographer, is almost invisible. The Romantic period was not just the period in which biography was invented---or, rather, the period in which some of its informing principles were invented, since biography could just as easily be said to have originated in the scandalous memoirsthat formed part of the pre-Romantic culture of the novel. It was also the period in which biography, through its sheer ubiquity, became an object of major ideological significance within British culture.
1. The passage mentions the "scandalous memoirs ” that were written prior to the Romantic period primarily in order to
A. indicate an alternative account of the origins of biography
B. compare these memoirs to Romantic biography
C. explain how biography became ubiquitous in British culture
D question the ideological significance accorded to biography
E. suggest that biographies were not as popular as memoirs
2. According to the passage, biography attained great significance within British culture during the Romantic period because biographies
A. were associated with scandal
B. were easy to read and comprehend
C. were so widespread in Britain at the time
D. challenged conventional British ideologies
E. contributed to the development of the novel
答案：A C