Poor Charles Dickens: apparently you can't even give his books away these days. According to the Millennium Library Trust, "Around 50 schools have refused to stock literary works by the likes of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens after admitting that youngsters also find them boring." Mr David Campbell, who raised £9million to pay for the books, noted "It never occurred to me that anyone would turn this offer down." Undoubtedly this story will be controversial and there will be much tut tutting about the Classics. But, at the end of the day, I think hurrah for Mr. Campbell for saying "I believe strongly that if just one pupil in each school each year for the next 50 years has his or her life changed by new worlds being opened from reading outside the syllabus, this project will have been worthwhile."
1 comment:
This reminds me of the controversy of a Washington library system ruthlessly tossing out unread classics. (except they really weren't that ruthless)
On that note, I loved this comment from Mefi on the matter:
...I'm curious as to the last time the author himself read Dr. Faustus.
It's a easy impulse to thumb one's nose at the masses, but really, how often is one driven to pursue the more challenging works of literature all alone? Good literature is not always easy. I've been rebuffed from 'Life of Johnson' at least 3 times, and sometimes what you need is something a little more fluffy.
It would be neat though to reinvent the library as a source of a real literary education. Speakers, reading groups, etc...
Ulysses (for example) isn't something one would necessarily want to summit alone, but it greatly benefits from a guided reading. Imagine a library reading group, 'Conceptions of Satan thoughout literature.' You could have sections from the Bible, Dante, Milton, Marlowe, Goethe. There's the kind of hook that would bring people back.
What you don't need is some pedant scolding them for not eating their spinach.
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