There is a problem about educational reading and that is: what do we recognise as the canon? What must be included and what sort of things perhaps excluded? I don't know whether anyone here has read
this book. I did and found it far too prescriptive.
I think that education should take us out of our comfort zone and introduce us to ideas that are new to us, but people shouldn't be made to feel bad about what they like.
Personally, I am an autodidact and from my mid-teens I read furiously because I felt that in order to understand a work of literature one needed some acquaintance with its precursors. By the time I was 20 I had read a whole lot of stuff that I didn't enjoy one bit, such as Lyly's
Euphues books -- extract here:
Quote:
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There dwelt in Athens a young gentleman of great patrimonie, & of so comely a personage, that it was doubted whether he were more bound to Nature for the liniaments of his person, or to fortune for the encrease of his possessions. But Nature impatient of comparisons, and as it were disdaining a companion, or copartner in hir working, added to this comlinesse of his body suche a sharpe capacitie of minde, that not onely shée proued Fortune counterfaite, but was halfe of that opinion that she hir selfe was onely currant. This younge gallant, of more wit then wealth, and yet of more wealth then wisdome, séeing himselfe inferiour to none in pleasant conceits, thought himselfe superiour to al in honest conditions, insomuch yt he déemed himselfe so apt to all things, that he gaue himselfe almost to nothing, but practising of those things commonly which are incident to these sharp wits, fine phrases, smoth quipping, merry taunting, vsing iesting without meane, & abusing mirth without measure. As therefore the swéetest Rose hath his prickel the finest veluet his brack, the fairest flowre his bran so the sharpest witte hath his wanton will, and the holiest heade his wicked waye. And true it is that some men write and most men beléeue, that in all perfecte shapes, a blemmish bringeth rather a liking euery way to the eyes, then a loathing any waye to the minde. Venus had hir Mole in hir chéeke which made hir more amiable, Helen hir scarre on hir chinne which Paris called Cos amoris, the Whetstone of loue. Aristippus his wart, Lycurgus his wenne: So likewise in the disposition of ye minde, eitheir vertue is ouershaddowed with some vice or vice ouercast with some vertue. Alexander valiaunt in warre, yet gyuen to wine. Tulli eloquent in his gloses, yet vayneglorious: Salomon wyse, yet to too wanton: Dauid holye, but yet an homicide: none more wittie then Euphues, yet at the first none more wicked. The freshest colours soonest fade, the kéenest Rasor soonest tourneth his edge, the finest cloathe is soonest eaten wyth Moathes, and the Cambricke sooner stained then the course Canuas: whiche appeared well in this Euphues, whose witte béeinge lyke waxe apte to receiue any impression, and hauinge the bridle in hys owne handes either to vse the raine or the spurre, disdayning counsayle, leauinge his countrey, loathinge his olde acquaintance, thought either by wytte to obteyne some conquest, or by shame to abyde some conflicte, and leauing the rule of reason, rashly ranne vnto destruction.
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and
Chrysal: Or the Adventures of a Guinea, Wherein are exhibited several striking scenes with curious and interesting anecdotes of the most noted persons in every rank of life, whose hands it passed through, in America, England, Holland, Germany and Portugal.
I read this sort of thing while doing a maths degree.
There is no way that I would
expect any student to read that stuff!