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Originally Posted by HarryT
One of the purposes - perhaps the main purpose - of studying English literature is to gain knowledge of the shared cultural heritage which literature provides. Eg, Dickens and Shakespeare have both contributed enormously to the English language, and it's useful to know where those quotes and characters actually come from.
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If an awareness of Shakespeare is important, why not just watch and discuss a DVD of one of the many, many, many, many well-executed performances of the plays that have been staged over the years? He wrote his stuff to be performed and seen, not to be read. It's like studying The Simpsons by reading the scripts.
For Dickens etc. - unless you are explicitly interested in his WRITING I'm not sure there's much to be gained by reading Great Expectations or A Christmas Carol versus working through the films. The famous quotes and characters will all the there - because they are nowadays mostly famous from the films not the books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Many people (again, I'm making no direct accusations here) have a weird obsession with wanting the academic world to acknowledge the literary value of their favorite books. They seem to need the world to recognize their personal favorites as "Classics."
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Hehehehe. At the weekend I popped into a an airport bookstore, and they had a big old display up of 50 Shades of Grey, whatever the sequel is called, and various other books which have been quickly repacked to appeal to that market - 'The Story of O' most prominent among them. Should make for an interesting semester of book studies, no?