Many of the works we now call medieval romances — stories of King Arthur, Roland, the search for the Holy Grail — circulated in multiple, often divergent, written and oral versions. There was no single "original" against which the others should be measured. Modern editorial practice, scholars argue, sometimes distorts these works by treating one version as definitive, erasing the variability that was integral to how the texts actually existed.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A
Modern editors are careless.
- B
Oral tradition is unreliable.
- Ccheck_circle
Treating one version of a medieval romance as definitive misrepresents the variability that defined how these texts existed.
- D
Medieval romances were intended to be definitive single texts.
Explanation
The passage's central claim is that single-version editing distorts inherently variable texts — B. A contradicts; C and D overstate.