Quote:
Originally Posted by BelleZora
Most useful later was that grasping Shakespeare allusions in other books added immensely to the pleasure of reading. I realized how important that was when I read The Satanic Verses last year and understood few of the Rushdie's allusions. I suspected the book would rock if I only understood its foundations.
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This, so much! Shakespeare is everywhere not just in English literature but in everyday English speech. To me, in my culture, knowing nothing at all about Shakespeare would be a bit like knowing nothing at all about the Bible. I'm as atheist as all get-out, but I'm still educating my child about Christian stories just as about various other religious stories, current and ancient (Greek gods, etc). That sort of knowledge is part of an all-rounded, literate education.
I don't need detailed knowledge of trigonometry these days. Nor do I particularly need to know how feudal societies functioned, or how to talk about my aunt's pencil in French, or how to balance chemical equations, or how to make blancmange, or the rules of softball. But I don't regret learning any of those things, and high school shouldn't be all trade school all the time. (Come to think of it, Shakespeare probably comes up more often than any of those other things.)