Critical Reading The question below refers to the selection “from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV.” A central theme of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is the ocean’s ____.

The poem presents the ocean as enduring and unchanged while human empires and achievements fade. Byron contrasts the sea’s lasting power with the ruins left by people, so the central theme is the ocean’s permanence. The correct choice is “permanence.”

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