Sentence:  It may <WSD>be</WSD> that in this comment he has broken from the conventional pattern more violently than in any other regard , for the treatment in his books is far removed from even the genial irony of Ellen Glasgow , who was the only important novelist before him to challenge the conventional picture of planter society . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)