[Mike L]

What a lot of confusion here.

Let's get this clear. The story refers to a decision by the English Dept. of Education and the English exam board. Not British. Not United Kingdom (in that respect, the title of this thread is wrong). It's concerns books taught in English literature courses in England.

A Scottish literature course would presumably teach the likes of Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and perhaps Muriel Spark. When I took an American literature course, we read Hemingway, Faulkner and J. D. Sallinger*. On that basis, it seems entirely reasonable that an English literature course should focus on Keats, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy and the like.

It's not as if the English Dept. of Education is saying that students can't read American books, or can't take a course in American literature - any more than they are saying they can't read Walter Scott - or for that matter Voltaire or Zola. They are simply defining what goes into their curriculum.

And by the way, it's Britain that supposedly ruled the waves, not England.

And for anyone who thinks these distinctions are unimportant, there are around five million people where I live who will give them an argument any day of the week.

Mike
* But we did do T. S. Eliot in American literature, which surprised me at the time.