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Please explain this sentence ! If only man could be freed,they felt,freed from the corruption of society and its artificial conventions ,freed from the burden of property ,of the state , of the clergy , and of the rules of matrimony ,then man , it seemed clear ,could rise to heights undreamed of before -could ,indeed ,become a kind of superman ,practically a god.

I am Japanese . I feel this sentence is too complex to understand ! Is this sentence difficult for native speakers ?

Answers · 12

1
If you are a native english speaker, it is not difficult to understand this. It might seem daunting because there are a lot of unnecessary words. This passage might be from a book or poem written a long time ago. So don't worry, this is not a common style of writing in today's world. A paraphrased version might be: If only man could be freed, from the corruption of society and its artificial conventions, from the burden of property, of the state, of the clergy, and of the rules of matrimony, then man , it clearly seemed, could rise to heights undreamed of before - (man) could, indeed, become a kind of superman, practically a god.
1
The grammar is not difficult for a high school student or university student. The concepts are philosophical. So it would be "unfamiliar" to many people.
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It's a long sentence to explain in full. Can you perhaps explain which parts you don't understand? It is a little complicated, but is not really very hard to understand for a native. Is it quite old? The style sounds somewhat victorian to me. They liked to write in a complicated style, to try to appear clever in those days! Also - please note that you have not copied the punctuation correctly. Unlike asian languages, western languages have a fixed format for spacing around punctuation.
1
It is complex! The basic idea behind it, is that a person can be free only by leaving wordly connections behind. Get rid of government, of religion, of belongings... everything! And then, you will know freedom.
0
This sentence shouldn't be difficult for native speakers. But it depends on their level of understanding of some of the words in that sentence. It's basically saying that if man were free from the multiple problems that corruption gives us, free from cultural expectations, free from having to act a certain way, free from government, free from having to own things or rent things, free from religion, free from marriage, free from all of the rules that humans create, we could be superhuman. We could go farther than ever before, because we wouldn't have so many restrictions holding us down. We could just live, explore and be. Rather than having to worry about acting a certain way to appease our fellow humans.

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