Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
But the "classics" that are forced upon the students are rubbish. The teachers need to pick more modern books that are more relevant to the lives of the students. Reading books that are in olde English or are written in a way that books are not today turns them off to reading for pleasure. I blame school for the decline in reading.
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No school is forcing students to read in old English. Few are even forcing Middle English, and that’s generally not until the college level (perhaps AP classes).
You might have read works in early modern English, or works from old or middle English which were translated to modern English. But without a doubt you did not read a book in old English. You, and a great deal of people on the planet would not recognize old English as English. Though Middle English would be recognizable you’d struggle with it, you can find an easy example of what Middle English looks like with a proper edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (with Middle English on one page and a modern English translation on the next). Shakespeare wrote in the Elizabethan era, which makes his works Early Modern English.
I mention all this only because you have continuously misrepresented these languages in an attempt to establish what is and isn’t a classic while simultaneously claiming a classic must needs be in a language such as one can easily grasp and ascertain the plot with only an understanding of the most modern form of the language.
This is an opinion I find rather illogical as it would require reimagining the classics with relative haste. And would also very quickly start ignoring those who established the basis of whole genres, and writing styles, Tolkien being an example of the former and Shakespeare of the latter.
The ease at which these works are understood with only minimal knowledge of the language is irrelevant they can always be modernized, as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Beowulf have. The point is that these works changed the literary world.