Meaning of "relevance" in the sentence?

Question

While some may lable background studies on a book "boring" and "irrelevant," we argue just the opposite-that knowing the background of a passage can clarify its meaning and beighten our understanding of its relevance.

What do you mean by "relevance", the last word in the context?
Without any change in the meaning of the sentence, what word can be replaced "relevance" with ?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Bonghak YooWithout any change in the meaning of the sentence, what word can be replaced "relevance" with ?

What happened? Did you lose your dictionary?

applicability, appositeness, appropriateness, aptness, fitness, materiality, rightness

CJ

Bonghak Yoo · Answer

Thank you for your answer.
Well, I did look up the word "relevance" in the dictionary before posting the question.
Though I understood the meaning of the word itself, I couldn't understand the sentence completely before posting the question.

Please understand my situation and academic ability.

Well, now I've substituted the words you taught for "relevance", I still don't understand the meaning of the sentence. So would you please paraphrase the whole sentence?

CalifJim · Answer

Bonghak YooWell, I did look up the word "relevance" in the dictionary before posting the question.Though I understood the meaning of the word itself, I couldn't understand the sentence completely before posting the question.

Oh. OK. Looking it up first was a good idea. Here's the sentence again and a paraphrase. I added a lot of explanations and inferences that are not in the original version, however, because I thought they might help.

While some may label background studies on a book "boring" and "irrelevant," we argue just the opposite-that knowing the background of a passage can clarify its meaning and beighten (??? enlighten?) our understanding of its relevance.
~

Some people may think that studying the background of a book — that is, studying the history of the book, when and where the book was written, the life of the author, and so on — is a waste of time. They say that such facts are boring, and those things have nothing to do with enjoying the book. We argue the opposite. For example, we argue that knowing the background of a certain passage of a book will make its meaning clear and help us to understand how it makes sense for that passage to be in the book — how it is appropriate and fitting for that passage to be in the book.

CJ

Bonghak Yoo · Answer

Thank you so much

That is clear explanation.

Meaning of "relevance" in the sentence?

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