Poetry, GOOD POETRY, should be taught and kids made to memorize it, as it once was.
You're being proud of being an uneducated lout?
Not all fiction is worth reading/knowing; however, much of it is! Not only are good. well written stories fun, you will expand your vocabulary, if you read older works, especially those considered to be "classics".
Heck, even the Sherlock Holmes books are written with such an extensive, beautiful vocabulary, that you'll probably need to sit with a dictionary.
I'm now basically only a non-fiction reader; however, I read /was read to, so much great fiction in my youth ( and remember it!), that I can well afford to not read fiction now and for the past many decades.
By NOT knowing this part of Western Culture, you help to destroy it. And many things will elude you, because so much of it is referenced in every day conversation and yes, in non[-fiction work.
With due respect FRiend, do be careful calling someone you do not know uneducated or a lout.
Let us agree to disagree, and leave it there.
I was dragged to a lot of performances of Shakespeare when I was a teen. All I remember is some dude peeing on the stage and how funny my Old Maid aunt English teacher (liberal!) thought that was. The places we visited were more memorable because they were beautiful and full of history. We read Shakespeare in junior high and high school. I did not have any appreciation for the language at the time. I took a Shakespeare course in college and loved it!
Four out of five of our oldest children are extremely well read. They all attended public schools and had at least one year of home schooling. They love reading. The outlier had trouble reading for years due to some undiagnosed reading issue. By the time he was in high school, he was reading much better. He can take apart and put together the most complicated of military equipment, so I guess it is ok that he doesn’t quote Shakespeare. :-)