Question: In sharp contrast to the modern, confessional poetry of the 20th century, the oeuvre of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow seems quaint and primly Victorian. During his lifetime, however, he was the most celebrated poet in the country. A closer look at the history of American poetry reveals that, despite his eminence, Longfellow wrote in a mold of both form and content that was already being challenged during his lifetime. But why, a century later, do the artistic works of many of his contemporaries continue to be enjoyed and studied while Longfellow languishes in the tomb of cultural artifacts?
One answer lies in the radical shift that began to take place in poetry in the mid19th century. Longfellow's themes and steadfast rhymes (and those of John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell) gave way gradually to confessional verse, whose subjects were more personal and rhymes were looser and less conventional. But to understand this shift, one must first understand the nature of Longfellow's work and his standing in the American literary scene of his time.
Longfellow took as his subject his country's historical imagination, writing on an epic scale about Paul Revere, the Indian Hiawatha, and the pilgrim Miles Standish. He bestowed a mythic dimension on these figures, giving American readers iconic images that helped form a collective consciousness in the new country (indeed, Longfellow was a part of the first generation to be born in the United States). But Longfellow's content went beyond nationalistic pride-it was highly accessible and incredibly popular. Its accessibility is explained by his obvious themes that could be easily understood and embraced by the public. Longfellow did not challenge his readers, but appealed to their desire for stories that expounded an optimistic, sentimental, and moralistic worldview. Those themes were explored in rhyme that allowed readers to commit the poems to memory, much like songs. In 1857, The Song of Hiawatha, arguably his bestknown poem, sold 50,000 copies, an astounding number at the time. The next year, The Courtship of Miles Standish sold 25,000 copies in two months and in London sold 10,000 copies in one day. His success allowed him to give up a professorship at Harvard and focus full time on his writing.
Walt Whitman, Longfellow's contemporary, wrote poetry similar to that of Longfellow-romantic and sentimental, with conventional rhyme and meter. But in the 1850s, indeed two years before The Song of Hiawatha, he wrote and published Leaves of Grass; a more radical departure from his previous work could not have been imagined. The 12 unnamed poems comprising Leaves of Grass are written in free verse-that is, without conventional rhyme and meter. Yet, like Longfellow, he was determined to explore the subject of America and his love for his country.
Whitman looked to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson for inspiration. Emerson wrote "America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres." Indeed, Whitman paraphrased Emerson in his preface. Whitman's groundbreaking free verse changed the trajectory of American poetry. The next generation of poets, including Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and William Carlos Williams, celebrated their debt to Whitman. Decades later, the influence of Whitman's work on Allen Ginsberg and Langston Hughes, among many others, continues his legacy.
The main argument of the passage is that:

Options:
A. Whitman's free verse is superior to Longfellow's rhymes.
B. Longfellow's standing as an American poet was diminished by a rejection of quaint subjects and conventional rhyme and meter that came in the wake of poets such as Whitman.
C. Longfellow would be read and studied more today if he had retained his nationalistic subject matter but eschewed the sentimental tone and standard forms of his poems.
D. Ralph Waldo Emerson aided in the transformation of American poetry from Victorian Romanticism to Modernism.
Answer: You are asked to find the main idea in this question. This type of question is passage based, meaning you should focus on what is actually said as opposed to what may be implied or suggested. To answer it, ask "What is the author trying to say?" Typically, at least one answer choice is not found within the passage. In this case, choices $\mathrm{C}$ and $\mathrm{D}$ can be easily eliminated for that reason-neither is stated. Another type of distracter is an answer choice that is too narrow to be the main idea of the passage. Choice A is a good example; the passage encompasses much more than a simple comparison of free verse as opposed to rhymes. You are left with choice B, which is the correct answer. The correct answer is B.