The myth of who wrote the Homeric Epics isn’t relevant to how the poems themselves are regarded aesthetically. We don’t know who wrote the original Ballad poems featuring Robin Hood either. But everyone agrees those are of low quality so they aren’t taught.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with English Dept. academics and, as I’ve said, they go out of their way looking for long forgotten writers to dredge up and be known a the scholar who discovered them. Chaucer is indeed taught to any English major at a decent university. It’s hard to teach him to high school students because Middle English takes a while to master unless you have an exceptional ear for English words...unless you read a translation. All the Arts have ‘Pillars’, Bach and Mozart in music, Michelangelo in visual art, etc.
No I think it is. Homer has been deified far in excess of the poems. Probably more people know who Homer is than can actually say what the Iliad and Odyssey are, the contents of those stories has become separate from the poems and Homer, and yet Homer remains an iconic figure. And we see the same thing happening with Shakespeare, the texts have changed, the icon has risen, and along the way we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that they’re originally entertainment, they’re supposed to be FUN. Not worshiped.
Chaucer could be taught in high schools, nothing wrong with teaching it translated. They’re some pretty fun stories. Or teach the kids the changes in the language, we teach them that for Shakespeare, so clearly it CAN be done, when we decide to teach kids not be dumb rather than teach on the assumption they are dumb.
The problem with pillars in teaching is it encourages ignorance. The skip ahead mentality jumps past important centuries trying to get to “the good stuff”.