Question

In 1713, Alexander Pope began his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced the greatest translation in any language.

• A. his translation of the Iliad, a work that, taking him seven years until completion, and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced
• B. his translation of the Iliad, a work that took him seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced
• C. his translation of the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as
• D. translating the Iliad, a work that took seven years until completion and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it as
• E. translating the Iliad, a work that had taken seven years to complete and literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced it

Answer 1

The correct option is B his translation of the Iliad, a work that took him seven years to complete and that literary critic Samuel Johnson, Pope's contemporary, pronounced

Options D and E are incorrect due to their use of ' translating the Iliad, a work' in which case 'a work' seems to refer to Iliad and not the translation (according to the given context, we need 'a work' to refer to the translation of Iliad and not to the Iliad itself. Option A is eliminated on the basis that the use of 'that' requires a complete noun-verb agreement which is missing and we simply have a participle following 'that'. The past perfect form 'had taken' of option C (and E) is also wrong. This is so because use of past perfect happens before another event whereas the sentence talks about when Pope began his translation so anything else that should happen, must happen after this beginning. Thus option B is the correct answer with no grammatical errors as such.