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Originally Posted by Katsunami
I said *read* Shakespeare or Homer, not watch a movie or a play based on those works. I'm fairly convinced that Shakespeare, Homer, and many classics are not fit for most 14-15 year olds. In my class *everybody* hated "Literature class", be it in Dutch, English, German or French, except for a select few who were good with languages and were trained readers already (of whom I was one, except for French, a language I hate even today and dropped as soon as could be).
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Oh well ... okay ... I'll admit it's not
actually reading.
But it is also about appreciating the original text. Good teaching can get you there. I remember that our English teacher explained about all the great rhetorics in Marc Antony's speech, and I found that really cool. That wasn't only me, not everybody hated literature at my school.
Even in French (which I was never good at) I quite enjoyed reading bits of "Candid" and some Moliere stuff. Usually you wouldn't have to plough through the whole book, just take out some interesting parts.
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And is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, often quoted as *THE* book of the 20th century, required reading, nowadays? I don't mean that you're allowed to read it for your literature list: I mean required to read, fail-your-exam-if-you-don't, like "A Midsummer night's dream", "Macbeth" and "Canterbury Tales" were for me. (Among others.) If it isn't, why not?
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Because many people/teachers still consider it trivial, I guess. "It can't be good if it's really popular"
