Which of the following best describes the function of the highlighted sentence? A. It explains why the fiction mentioned in the first sentence was not popular in the twentieth century. B. It assists in drawing a contrast between nineteenth-century and twentieth-century critics. C. It provides an example of how twentieth-century readers were taught to ignore certain literature. D. It questions the usefulness of a particular distinction between Poe and Longfellow made by critics. E. It explains why Poe's stories were more popular than Longfellow's verse during the nineteenth century.