gmat_perfect wrote:For the poet Philips Whitely, who was brought to colonial New England as a slave in 1761, the formal literary code of eighteenth-century English was thrice removed: by the initial barrier of the unfamiliar English language, by the discrepancy between spoken and literary forms of English, and by the African tradition of oral rather than written verbal art. Wheatley transcended these barriers-she learned the English language and English literary forms so quickly and well that she was composing good poetry in English within a few years of her arrival in New England.

I could understand the following:

=> Whitley was brought to New England as a slave. She learned English quickly and wrote English poems.

My question is:

What is the meaning of the following sentence?

For the poet Philips Whitely, the formal literary code of eighteenth-century English was thrice removed: by the initial barrier of the unfamiliar English language, by the discrepancy between spoken and literary forms of English, and by the African tradition of oral rather than written verbal art.

Please paraphrase this portion. I could not understand the meaning of this part.

Thanks.

grockit_andrea wrote:

gmat_perfect wrote:For the poet Philips Whitely, who was brought to colonial New England as a slave in 1761, the formal literary code of eighteenth-century English was thrice removed: by the initial barrier of the unfamiliar English language, by the discrepancy between spoken and literary forms of English, and by the African tradition of oral rather than written verbal art. Wheatley transcended these barriers-she learned the English language and English literary forms so quickly and well that she was composing good poetry in English within a few years of her arrival in New England.

I could understand the following:

=> Whitley was brought to New England as a slave. She learned English quickly and wrote English poems.

My question is:

What is the meaning of the following sentence?

For the poet Philips Whitely, the formal literary code of eighteenth-century English was thrice removed: by the initial barrier of the unfamiliar English language, by the discrepancy between spoken and literary forms of English, and by the African tradition of oral rather than written verbal art.

Please paraphrase this portion. I could not understand the meaning of this part.

Thanks.

What they're saying is that there were three barriers for the Wheatley as she tried to master the literary techniques and customs of English to become a poet: the unfamiliar English language, the differences between spoken and written English, and the African tradition of telling stories rather than writing them. "[T]hrice removed" just means that there were three things standing between her and her attempts to become a poet.