Posted on 03/07/2014 8:10:06 AM PST by Borges
Reading Shakespeare comes more naturally when you get older and aren't so impatient.
I suspect teachers will use one of the many video versions of Shakespeare's plays to familiarize students with the plot (or the kids will go to Cliff's Notes).
With Chaucer getting past the language barrier was even more of a chore, and the payoff was even less immediately apparent.
Sure, after I get through all this, I have the lusty Wife of Bath's tale, but it's the same hard slog through unfamiliar language.
Silas Marner gets in the curriculum because there's nothing in it to offend anyone. (Some) high school girls might prefer The Mill on the Floss by the same author.
The one I hated was The Vicar of Wakefield. Again, there's nothing in it that would offend anybody, but that's because there's just not that much in it.
Define ‘Classical’ - pre 20th century? Is Oscar Wilde classical? Henry James?
In this context, I used classical to be about pre-16th century.
Except that they don't.
I will always remember the time my friend's son was moaning about the fact that he had to read some stupid thing called "Beowulf". I asked him what he thought of the monster attacking and eating the warriors. Were the sneak attacks a sign of the monster's evil or of it's cunning?
Monster? People get eaten? Cool!
You have to know how to get kids interested in stuff.
Maybe you could substitute "Life of Pi" for "Robinson Crusoe", maybe. But for Macbeth? Not even in the same category.
Do Dante and Chaucer then?
Not necessarily.
LOL That’s a pretty limited ‘literacy’.
Not necessarily, again.
Classical books is an interesting and difficult term to define.
From Wiki on Classical books, “A classic book is a book accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy, either through an imprimatur such as being listed in any of the Western canons or through a reader’s own personal opinion.”
Notice even, “a reader’s own personal opinion”.
There is a link that defines a more classical definition of classical that is referred to as the “Western canon.” And then there is another definition which is referred to as “Great Books.”
If we wanted to refer to the modern classical books, then that would refer to what time period exactly? Even that could be difficult to state. Although there is generally acceptable classical definition of modern classical books.
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