Do We Have To Read Classics?
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2019
- Should we have to read classics in school? Do classics have value? Should kids only read books they want to read? I have so many thoughts!
But they're nuanced. I share my thoughts on classics, or foundational books, classics snobbery, people who lie about reading classics (MOST PEOPLE), the anti-intellectualism of blasting classics, and more!
What do you do when a classic is problematic? Does it cont as reading a classic if you watch the BBC mini-series?
And I'm revealing the one classic I never finished in school but still aced the quiz!
And I posit: Is Twilight a future classic?!
Correction: I flubbed and said Elizabeth Glaskell when its Gaskell!
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A slip of the tongue: I say Glaskell instead of Gaskell (I knew it was Gaskell, but whoops). Not my only tongue slip in this video, but definitely an error :) Also this already has 1 dislike only 11 minutes in, which I think is a record. Cheers! :D
The only North and South I know was the TV mini series. Patrick Swayze FTW! yES. I am old enough to have watched it on TV in the 80's.
@@musicalneptunian LOL so this North & South is a British novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, which was adapted into a BBC mini-series in the early 2000s. It's about industrial cotton factories and unions in 1860s Manchester :D
@@AlexaDonne That might actually be useful "background reading" for one of my projects.
I'm just reading it! I'm having a hard time with it as English is not my first language, it could really do with shorter sentences but it's such a great story. I also live in Manchester.
@@AlexaDonne uhhh and a fantastic romance! 🤣
I like classics that have a darker tone, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula. I find classics are a good way to challenge yourself and expand your vocabulary.
Samantha Glover
You should read 'a long fatal love chase" by Louisa May Alcott if you haven't already.
I tried reading Dracula and got bogged down in the style. The story moved too slow, but that may have been because I'm so familiar with the story that I wanted to get on with it.
Now for classics that I DO like that nobody else does, my favorite examples are Moby Dick and anything by Jules Verne.
Unless you are writing in the classic style expanding your vocabulary in that manner might be a bit pointless!
@@davewilco822 not really. while you don't have to imitate the style of classics (and indeed it's better if you don't) having a larger pool of words to pick from is a valuable tool for any writer to have. And classics are the easiest way to do that because the bar for prose was higher back then
I read either dense classics or cringy fanfic; there is no in between 😂
ME. it;s either six months of classic literature or contemporary literary or AO3 HP or Merlin
The want to throw the classics out of the window altogether because they're inconvenient and sometimes "problematic" is kind of symptomatic of what I can't stand about ANY recent discourse. There's
A) "I don't like this thing, so it's BAD. Everyone should start hating this thing"
B) "This deals with topics/opinions I don't agree with/that are unacceptable in 2019, therefore it is an evil book"
and both ways of thinking stand in the way of critical thinking. Nobody deserves the convenience of their thoughts never being challenged.
endlessteatime It’s an unfortunate time we live in right now. It feels like we’ve returned an era where burning books and hiding/denying content is acceptable.
@@claireholliday6721 that's what it feels like to me too, yes...
The two points you made resonate on a level that easily reaches perfection with the leftist ideology, by the way.
Cheers!
Not to mention there is such a thing as your level of reading improving. When you age up, your maturity as a reader and as a person progresses (hopefully), and texts which seemed super forbidding might become accessible.
Reading Zola in junior high was torture (I'm French, we have different classics). But one summer around three years later, when I was bored at my grandma's house, I just picked one of his books to pass time and found myself super engaged. I don't know how much of it was being more mature, how much was from the read not being mandatory, and how much was from not being tempted to do anything else more immediately entertaining - probably a combination of the three - but I didn't regret, and I still try and have more challenging reads from time to time.
Inflammatory note : I thing Harry Potter is seriously overrated, please don't make it the new standard for teaching literature.
I'm not that old, I remember when high school musical was a huge thing, there were books written as side stories, I tried reading one a few months back and could get past the first few pages because it was void of anything of interest.
Marion Leblanc I agree about Harry Potter. Don’t get me wrong, I love Harry Potter and I love Jo, but if they became the standard for teaching the world would perish under a rockslide of adverbs.
Well said
Harry potter is overatted yes
I think we should view classic novels like artists view art history. These are the foundations of our medium, the history of the art form we're practicing. We should know our history.
Exactly!
I want to read classics for the same reason.
Two quotes regarding Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 (and, perhaps, the power and relevance of foundational literature):
“Of course he wrote it for me; that is a condition of the black woman. Of course he was a black woman. I understand that. Nobody else understands it, but I know that William Shakespeare was a black woman.”
"Shakespeare - I was very influenced - still am - by Shakespeare. I couldn't believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart."
-- Maya Angelou
I’m currently reading Jules Verne. Do I feel stupid? Uh yea 😂. Am I loving the books? Uh yea 😂. Am I currently going on a classics binge? I couldn’t be happier about it 😂.
Good for you!! Well, not the feeling stupid part, lol.
All books have value, even if it's just for historical value.
In a century or less, our books will be "problematic" too. So yeah, read whatever the crap you want. Labels don't matter.
Exactly! 👏👏👏👏
I kinda appreciate the character development in catcher in the rye now but back in high school i thought it was terribly boring
You bring up a good point. I think there are books we "have" to read in school that we don't enjoy, but can appreciate later. Like, honestly, if I were a mature adult, maybe I could approach A Tale of Two Cities now (I know it's a Good Book, re: French history and human dignity, but I was just SO BORED). A good example for me is actually Persuasion by Jane Austen. I tried to read it as a teen and couldn't get through it. But when I reapproached on the other side of 20, I blew through it--I loved it. It held so much meaning to me. It was Austen's "mature" novel, and I think I was not in the right head space to appreciate it as a teen.
This is a great topic - my main gripe with "classics" just as a concept is that a number of the intellectual snobs who hold them up (and probably fake it now that you mention it) put down ALL other forms of media. I never liked or understood this "classics worship" thing some people do, where it is the "only" "VALID" form of writing and literature. As a writer and consumer of more Eastern-leaning media (graphic novels and the like), I think visual storytelling is equally important and has its place in higher education, at least in terms of how it influences culture.
There is foundation literature I adore - I think what sours my experience is, yes the density and uninteresting nature of some of the books, but moreso the attitude people have about it. It just makes me resentful. "Classics" have their place in education, but there should (eventually) be room for the other walks of literature too.
Yowahana. Graphic novels were taught in my high school, so We’re getting there maybe. Totally agree though
You must understand that the classic was the top dog, there was nothing else as cave drawings don't count. The best from our enlightened area where literature sparkled for the first time is obviously hard to move away from for societies. It was the goto for expansion and ideas, ways to provoke thought and intellect. Dishonoring it only shows immaturity and an absence of intellect. Today we have an abundance of newer and much more relevant works that fit in nicely with the directions in which we choose. The great grandparents are just that now, acknowledge them but leave them in peace.
@The Martial Lord of Loyalty First of all I stuck up for the classics. What you must remember is that before there was anything else it was just them so they were elevated much more than would be normal if they were written today. They are good but to say there is nothing better is just sadly, really so lame. What is really so good is they were the precursors of all modern writings. Furthermore, who are you actually to predict who will be remembered in 3000 years? Just a childish statement really! Unless you are the Massiah of course
I'm so relieved to hear you are not a classics snob!!!
It makes me more comfortable to declare that I'm not well read either!!!
I love Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, does that count? ❤
Not really. Why would they count? At best I'd put Lewis' _Screwtape letters_ in a canon, but that would be it.
I would say they absolutely count! Lord of the Rings are classics for sure and so is Narnia. I'm an English teacher currently teaching the Magician's Nephew and it's full of awesome themes and ideas.
Classics, I agree, are integral to historical context, because they are a door to contemporary thought processes and opinions and such. The one classic I turn to time and again is "Dracula," because the writing is actually pretty accessible and the story is so much fun. I agree, some classics are hard to get through, but when you find one that you genuinely like, then it's okay to say so. I recently read "Lady Chatterley's Lover" because a blogger I follow suggested it, and while it was heavy-handed in its commentary on twentieth century English classism, the romance was still interesting and well-written.
I agree 100% about Lady Chatterley. It holds up surprisingly well. I recommend all of Lawrence's major novels. The writing is beautiful and you def come away feeling like you've gained something from the experience of reading them. Same of Thomas Hardy
"Lady Chatterley" is excellent, and it's still one of the most provocative books ever written. While actual the sex scenes seem pretty tame today, few books have ever looked more honestly at human needs and passions. It also contains one of my favorite quotes of all time: “Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to about the same thing.”
To be honest, I find the lack of profanity and excessive sexuality in classic literature so refreshing. Modern fiction is so saturated with ugly language and soft-core porn.
This is a good topic. I agree we should teach classics. Can you maybe touch on college? Like if you HAVE to go college to be an author etc.
"Carmilla" is my favorite classic Gothic Romance. c:
Thank you for this! I’m a big promoter of a healthy balance between literary and commercial fiction. I enjoy my classic literature book club and I enjoy my paranormal romances simultaneously.
Hey Alexa, I really enjoy and respect your balanced and thoughtful perspective! It’s so common to see blind rejection or blind acceptance of “classics” (or even just things in general) with very little balance or critical analysis.
A professor of mine once said, “Read the best shit you can stand.” I’ve lived by this maxim ever since haha.
I think i never liked classics when I was in school. Later when I was in college I started reading some of them, and there were a few I did enjoy and learned to appreciate, because now I have a different perspective of the world. Still, not every classic is that enjoyable.
Also, my favorite is Frankenstein. I've read it three times ✨
I love the fact that you admit that you aren't "well read." I feel the same when I tell ppl there were a lot of the classics that I haven't read. I didn't even read To Kill a Mockingbird until college. I did end up liking it. There are a bunch I still want to read (I have a list in my bullet journal) and there were other I did read in school, bit didn't like at all. I agree that classics are important, but shouldn't be the main focus, doing both in school would be great.
The sun shines brighter when I am working at the computer and I get an Alexa Donna notification. HAPPY HAPPY, clap clap, goofy grin time. I am such a hopeless fanboy. :)
More seriously...
Reading the classics is very necessary if you love the craft.
In doing so, you will learn to speak in another way in contrast to they way we speak today. It is good to see how people used to interact with one another contrasted to how that happens today. It is good to understand that the worry for creating a new idea is not a need, it has all been written about before. What all of this comes down too is perspective. Reading the classics will gift you with a perspective inside the craft. With one exception, Shakespeare. No one should just sit down and read Shakespeare; to get the meaning of Shakespeare you need to read aloud and if you can act it out. It is what sets Shakespeare apart from everyone else. In other words, Shakespeare is like reading lyrics versus singing them. Shakespeare comes to life when spoken aloud.
My Classic List is not filled with "classics" but I do think of them as foundational:
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell & Pat Conroy
Beulah Land - Lonnie Coleman
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Paradise Lost - John Milton
The Odyssey - Homer
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Wurthering Heights - Emily Bronte"
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin - Mark Twain
Hawaii - James A Mitchner
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevens
Complete Collection of Jules Verne
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World - Ignatius Donnelly
That is all I can think off of the top of my head, although there have been many others. My own works are in the realm of Jim Butcher.
I enjoyed a fair amount of the classics that I was forced to read in school. I struggled through Hemingway... But hey, I think that we can learn something from everything that we read- even if we don't enjoy it.
When I was 14 years old, I had to study "Au Bonheur des Dames" ("The Ladies' Paradise") by Émile Zola for the highest diploma in French language for foreigners. I found it so boring, I honestly couldn't understand most of the story and skipped many pages, maybe because I was too young. 😀
Only when I grew up and read it again for my own pleasure, did I realize it was an amazingly romantic story and a wonderful social commentary on the expansion of shopping malls in the end of the 19th century, at the expense of smaller family shops.
The answer here is: freedom. When we are forced to read something (usually for school), we will perhaps resent even the most interesting book. If we are set free (and in my case be a bit more mature to understand some themes), we will perhaps enjoy even the most mundane story. :)
I read the Lord of the Flies by William Golding at GCSE and wow, I was blown away by the psychology in it, our English teacher was amazing
We should meet in the middle! Read an annotated version (not the board books - the one's done up for younger readers). I had Jane Eyre and Black Beauty, and they inspired me to read the fuller versions. As far as cultured classics go, Maya Angelou is a must read for cultural perspective.
😂 you reminded me of the scene in Clueless where Cher corrects Josh's snobby girlfriend about who said what in Hamlet.
THIS! I've never understood the reasoning behind pretending to read a book I haven't. It's too easy to be embarrassed in public by someone who's actually read the book and paid attention while doing so. Better to say, "Oh, that's been on my TBR forever!" and then prod the other person to convince me it's worth my reading time. It makes for a more informative conversation. After all, we can't all have read every book ever written, and our reading journeys are all different.
Dang, that shade of crimson is so your color! Absolutely striking!! Ok, on to the content ^_^
I think it's important for people to read classics to understand certain references that they will find in modern media. And let's face it, it's sad as all get out if the only reason someone knows the Ghost of Christmas Past is because they watched the Muppet Christmas Carol that one time.
That's really fundamental, since it's all about where our culture comes from and why we even have it. Do you like The Hunger Games? Well, without Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, there would be no Hunger Games. Do you like the Twilight Series? Well, without John Polidori and Bram Stoker, we probably wouldn't have any recognizable vampire books. Do you love the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? Well, Tolkien never would have hit on his unique fantasy world if there weren't such a thing as Beowulf and the Nordic sagas. And so it goes (which is a quote from Vonnegut!).
Never read it confession: The Count Of Monte Cristo.
Me: Greatest revenge story of all time!
My Inner voice: Boy all you did was watch an anime adaption with a freakin vampire. If you don't get out of here with your crap.
You took the thoughts right out of my head, sister. I’m a fan of Sci-Fi & fantasy, but I listen to a lot of “foundational literature” on audio because they are easier to absorb. I get them from the library because they’re free. Usually I just want to know why they are so great in the first place. Sometimes, I am pleasantly surprised. On the other hand, I never understood why books were abridged until I listened to Moby Dick. I agree that there is value in some of those old pages, and I’m glad modern writers are now being included.
What we call "classic" was often commercial books at their time. Alexandre Dumas for example. I've read Le comte de Monte Cristo 4 times and I love the "ancient" langage.
Jane Austen, too! She was looked down on initially, and now she's a classic. I like stories like that :)
Shakespeare made a lot of sex jokes for the groundlings.
In my understanding, Dumas was the James Patterson of his era, and like Patterson, he also employed ghostwriters to keep up with demand. But will Patterson be the Dumas of the next century? Somehow I've got my doubts.
Dumas had only one ghostwriter. Dumas wrote the outlining, the dialogs and action phase and Maquet set the scene.
1.) At my university (as I’m sure with any university, I just know mine well) there’s an honors institute which essentially teaches general education requirements through the use of literature, writing, and discussion. I have such a difficult time with some of the people in the program, because they know that I’m a reader. They know I’m a writer, too. I am often judged for loving YA novels. I’m stubborn (like a friggin MULE), and the more they tell me I ought to read classics, the more I tell them they can’t tell me what to do. 😂 I don’t have an issue with classics, but I do have an issue when I’m treated as unintelligent because I read YA (Or just anything non-classicy). Or that since I don’t roll around in classics that it’ll be fairly impossible to write well.
2.) I really appreciate this video, because it shows an actual opinion that MAKES SENSE. Challenging our viewpoints, our reading level, our opinions, is ALWAYS good. Seeking to understand why a novel is considered foundational literature is SO healthy for readers. Reading a classic you hate is a really good life lesson too: Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.
3.) I read The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter and Huck Finn in my junior year of high school (along with a few others), and I struggled so much with hating them all. I never finished Huck Finn, which I feel terrible about but OH WELL. I gave Great Gatsby five stars on GoodReads, and when I saw that the other day I laughed! I *hated* the book, but I thought people would judge me for rating it low for GOOD reasons. 😂 Classics are just a crazy issue. Haha
Oh gosh Huck Finn. And Tom Sawyer. Like, look, sure I "read" them (and watched the Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie!), but I suspect the reason I hate "adventure" books is b/c of books like those. I see why they're classics but I have zero interest in boys going on adventures. But, that's the thing: I can find really interesting things in why I *didn't* connect to those books (and compare it to the classics I did find genuinely engaging--they're all either by women, or by men who wrote engagingly about women!).
OMG The Great Gatsby. That book. I just find it super underwhelming, but I do connect to some of the symbolism and literary techniques? Like, there are some clever things in that book that I appreciate... but I hated everyone in it! Also I do college essay consulting and many colleges ask people to write about their favorite book, and LET ME TELL YOU, The Great Gatsby is one of the #1 books people write about, and so I advise students against every writing about it. It's the book all high school students pretend to like to sound smart/classy.
I might 'read' the classics through audiobooks. I think I stand a better chance of retaining them that way.
Alexa, thanks for this reasoned commentary. I agree with you, and I'm a firm believer in foundational literature in schools. This term is helpful! I would be interested in your own "canon" of foundational books... a future video possibility?
i like to listen to audio books of the classics. For me, it is easier to understand older English when I hear it, rather than read it.
im from germany and we had to read so much war literature that i was genuinely thankful for every assigned book that didnt deal with this topic... sometimes we would analyze movies instead of books and i think our teachers really thought they did us a solid with that (pleasure reading VS foundational reading, only that it was movies for pleasure bc you know... millenials probably like that, right? right??), but i actually liked it less than analyzing books and short stories...
Thank you! Yes, we need a mix of classics and other books. I'm just thinking about that, and here's my long response, based on my experience. I teach freshman English, and while I teach newer classics like Wrinkle in Time and The Princess Bride, I also teach Macbeth, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Huck Finn, and a fairy tale unit. I teach a ton of critical thinking and historical context to go with those things, which leads to great discussion (especially Huck Finn). LOTF and AF are two of my favorite things to teach (we also read in class as a group). But I do book groups for my classes, where students have more of a choice in what they're reading.
I legitimately love Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Frankenstein, and tons of other classics, but I've been trying to read David Copperfield for years, and I finally DNF'd Emma.
You're fortunate to teach in a district where they allow you to teach Huck Finn. When I did Teach for America, it was not allowed where I taught. Which is a shame, bc in many ways it's one of the best pieces of American literature ever written
I would have LOVED to read wrinkle in time and Princess Bride in school! Those were books I found on my own.
Might be a silly question... but my Freshman English Lit'. teacher intro'd us to Clifford's Notes in the first week... she presented the whole "legitimizing disclaimer" with an audible "Ahem" and a "wink-wink" finish... SOOOooo
Have you suggested anything about Cliff Notes, or is there some academic ban on the idea???
Just a thought... more students might take to the "Venerable Works" they can enjoy, if every trudgery didn't have to quite suck so much life out of them. ;o)
@@scarlet8078I am feel fortunate to be able to teach it. Even though it's approved, I still talked to my administrator before adding it to my list, so he could be in the loop. I agree, it's an amazing piece of literature. And it leads to some amazing conversations.
@@joannamiller9446 I was so excited to add them in; LOTF and Animal Farm are pretty dark, so I wanted to add something different :)
Thing is the classic that people have recommended to me were the ones that did not interested me at all. But then I started searching for the classics myself and that has made me appreciate those books. You should probably start with modern literature, find the right one for you there, then find the appropriate alternative amongst the classics.
Classic book recommendation: Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
It’s about an immortal, shapeshifting, gender-swapping nobleman, and is a love letter to Virginia’s real world lover, Vita Sackville West.
you’re officially my favorite person now
I'm a fast typist and I always like your topics, so if this feels like an info dump....I got no excuse...except...I'm thinking about what you said and it brings to mind a lotta stuff. So...I got insomnia so I'll type.
I like that you use the phrase "foundational " in place of "classic", b/c, yeah..."classic" kinda implies 'very old' but...really...it's just about looking at writing that is really well-constructed in it's themes, language and (sometimes) just simply a book/story seminal for it's time. So, I def stand by the 'classics'. I think the only thing that needs to change (and it *is* changing) is the pool from which these 'classics' are drawn. Nothing wrong with old white dudes who know how to write, of course. But we do recognize now the value of a variety of view points and experiences.
I am regularly surprised by the number of book tubers who completely dismiss the 'classics'. I just think if a person is interested in writing (or music or art or food...) then that person would be CURIOUS enough to want to explore all those titles that everyone knows b/c, for various reasons, have remained in the public mind for decades or centuries. I think you're right that some of it is people are intimidated sometimes and perhaps don't like to "feel dumb". But...I also think it's some thing else, which I can't describe. I think the 'anti-intellectualism' that you describe extends farrrrr beyond just classical literature. But... I shouldn't go off on that tangent...sigh... But "snob" is too easily thrown around.
And I think we're too quick to assume a classic isn't going to be 'fun' or 'enjoyed'. Of course we're not going to enjoy every book we read in school. But #1) that's not the sole purpose of reading in school. Like you said, it's about exploring the world and ideas of those books as well as the writing. And #2, even if students were only reading books published in the past five years, there's no more guarantee they'll like every book they read.
The key moving forward is to compile a larger, more diverse pool of classics from which to draw and teach in the classroom. A good teacher will do a better job (if they're lucky enough to have control over their curricula) of drafting reading lists with some more targeted titles. I was lucky to go to one school where the teachers gave us a lot of writers of color: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Octavia Butler, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neal Hurston, etc.
I like what used to be call 'popular fiction' and I like 'classics'. And there's plenty of books in both groups that I don't like. But a really well written book, where the language and style of the writing itself really fits the themes and ideas of the author...man...I love it.
For me.... I hated Moby Dick...but I lovvvved "The Awakening". I disliked "A Tale of Two Cities" but I lovvvvvvvved "Bleak House" (I don't think I've seen the movie). I can't stand "Romeo and Juliet" but I lovvvvvvvved "An American Tragedy". It was painful to read "Slaughterhouse Five" but I couldn't get enough of "Cat's Cradle". I wasn't that into The Great Gatsby...but I lovvvvvvvvvved Brideshead Revisited...I watched the old mini-series w/Jeremy irons b/c I loved that book so much and it was great!
But do you really think "most of us" (writers? lovers of books?) are that unlikely to pick up a classic and read 'em on their own? I dunno. I think there's lots of us out there who will because, at the very least, it's about variety in writing and classic lit can (almost) always provide that. I know it's impossible to read everything that's out there, especially since NEW classics are being written every year (e.g. everything written by Julian Barnes...man, that guy can WRITE! [sorry, Twilight fans]) Sitll...SOMEDAY...between now and the day they start changing my diapers in the nursing home, i'm gonna get around to reading: Saul Bellow, Portrait of A Lady, War and Peace (or ANY Tolstoy), Tom Sawyer, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Oliver Twist, The Brothers Karamazov....and annnythign else that academics and critics have kept alive through the years, if only b/c the stuff is *really well written*.
My mom was a huge reader and easily read over 4000 books in her life, and one of the last books she gave me was "How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read" (by p. bayard?). Awesome. And...nopes...I never 'fake it'. : ) And I don't have classics recommendations; I figure people will reach for what has stuck in their mind. Maybe?
That part about it making people feel stupid...my god, I felt that, LOL. The denser the writing style, the more I struggle, and if you add a lot of subtext and symbolism I'm gone. I can do it, it's just taxing as hell (I'm autistic and interpreting subtext is one of my trouble spots).
I would say that fun books build an appreciation for the act of reading, classics and heavier texts build an appreciation for the craft itself, and I fully believe there's room for both in our educational systems and in our libraries (even if I myself am absolutely abysmal at reading classics!).
Classics are great for vocabulary building. Charles Dickens' books, for example, are great in that regard.
There are a lot of modern/contemporary books that are complex and influential but very enjoyable at the same time. Take, for instance, Saramago's Blindness, a beautifully written book by a Nobel prize winner that touches on many social and philosophical issues, but is at the same time a post-apocalyptic adventure novel with lots of blood and touches of romance.
Older books are usually harder, but they can also be enjoyable with the right guidance. If the teacher is able to show you what makes this book exciting and how it can connect to your own life and vision of the world, chances are you'll be interested. There is a course by The Great Courses Plus taught by Grant L. Voth called History of World Literature, and I swear, that guy makes medieval Chinese poetry sound like the coolest thing there is. The important thing in education is not the subject itself, but how it's taught. The most frustrating part of forced reading in school is that sometimes you get the impression that not even the teacher himself is enjoying the damn thing.
It's actually a worthy discussion... and a great video, Alexa!
My Freshman High School English Teacher (god bless that woman) introduced us as a class to "Clifford's Notes" as study aids.... "Ahem, you could probably just read Cliff Notes and pass the exam, but I can't recommend it. I hope you'll give yourselves the chance, at least, to score a hundred by reading the actual work. Use Cliff Notes to help with some of the weirder and older phrases and those colloquial terms."
It's worth pointing out that in her class curriculums, the major differences between "regular" English, and higher "honors" (there were advanced placement and college prep, too) was that the "higher" you took the class, the more you were expected to write and the less you actually had to read... cutting it down to segments, excerpts, and often even just the Cliff Notes (when she was as sick of the book/author as we were... theoretically).
I don't just read books I dislike (or find less than entertaining) because it's somehow fun. That would be lying... It's worth trudging through the thing exactly to figure out what I dislike, why I dislike it, and to expose myself to something that doesn't automagically give me "warm fuzzies"...
There are actually very few books that even should classify as "Classic" rather than "Vintage" or "Antique" or just "Historically Contexted"... and those should be termed more properly for the categories. Frankly, just blanketing everything more than a hundred or so years old as "Classic" is asinine. Those that CAN step up and stand on their merits for the test of time ARE Classic, and should definitely be read... taught... discussed.
Others represent some particular era and context of history/geography... and should be explained and exposed to students as such. There's no pride to be taken out of a disgusting display of all that can make people horrible... BUT there's no good served in trying to bury it either.
AND for those who get so excited or animated about these discussions... They (in my experience) tend to be the anti-intellectuals. Most of the time, they're not worth listening to, frankly. They're only angry because some excerpt of a book, or some peculiarly antiquated phrasing and colloquialisms made them feel ignorant, and want to lash out because they have some idiosophical asshat online to tell them it's justifiable or okay... even encouraging it.
Defamation is no way to deal with cowardice or ignorance. Study is the only way... and it must be diligent. ;o)
My favorite classic is the Divine Comedy, it's the only one I go back to read and study as an inspiration for my art. I love the story and the sheer accomplishment Dante achieved with epic poetry. I love getting to experience the different levels of the three dimensions explored in the poem, and learning about the figures in each layer. There is just so much to learn about and research and I love that. Also anything set in Hell is just my favorite thing.
Alexa, I adore this topic! 😍 I enjoy multiple genres (YA, Nonfiction, and “Classics” (I like your term better btw 😊). I couldn’t agree with you more but I would add one thing! Don’t discourage people from reading what they like PERIOD. Our lives are so full of ups and downs, we just need to let everyone love what they love! I love classics like Macbeth and A Tenant of Wildfell Hall AND modern books like Dear Martin and Again, But Better! We’re allowed to like both! 😂😊❤️ (Btw, yes, I am one of those strange people who still reads classics as an adult but just not as often as I use to 😂)
I'm horrified they don't teach the classics anymore in school. When I was in high school I read War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Beowulf, Tales of Canterbury, 1984, The Aeneid, et cetera. I didn't skip any of the reading. I read all of them. Crazy how standards have slipped.
10:26 goes for a lot of popular media when you think about it, as much as it might sound absurd that Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey would one day be in the same league as Jane Austen or Shakespeare. Once said the same thing about how today's biggest songs would still be seen as classical music in a few hundred years and I started singing Baby Shark in the style of what I think was a melody from the Opera Carmen to illustrate my point (the repetitive lyrics just seemed to in acapella form mash with how you would hum, whistle, beatbox or whatever the melody that immediately came to mind).
It definitely was Habanera from Carmen.
And please remember that the authors of all those books on the shelves behind you also read classic literature. Catching their references and allusions comes from being familiar with some of the works that inspire them.
I like to do random literary criticism for fun :P But I am also not a typical reader and there were definitely classics that I disliked in school (namely Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby). I need to make an entire video response to this because I mostly agree with you that classics should be taught in schools but that modern books should too. I must admit that the classics introduced me to the world of literary imagery, which changed my reading life. Great video!
Twilight was being analyzed in English class when I was in high school and I was the graduating class of 2014. I wasn't personally in that class but I had friends in that class.
I find it interesting when people say that children only should be made to read what they like, so they learn to love books because 1) as a child/teenager you still don't know what you like and it is healthy to be exposed to many different genres/styles/time periodes. I loved reading old gothics like "the monk", I hated that book but it opened my eyes to a certain genre. 2) we also want children to love learning, but we dont let them pick and choose which classes they take before they have a certain foundational level, english (or whatever languages you learn in school) shouln't be any different.
I personaly love classics. When taught right they can teach you so much about storytelling, history and culture and they can give a new appreciation of newer books. The problem is that they arent always taught right, sometimes you hear that you should read a certain book just because. And I can only talk about my own experiences but the literature taught in my school could have been far more diverse with an bigger effort in choosing books from different countries, written by different genders, etc, as an effort to show children the full spectrum of the "classics".
Anything made compulsory loses all value. That said, western classics aren't particularly wordy or incomprehensible. The critical debate of classics though? That'd be a good fight to watch, can we put it up in an arena?
Having gotten an english degree I have such a love for “classics” and I appreciate them so much. I think as writers, specially in the era of plot structures and formulas, it’s fascinating to see how these people seem to have naturally crafted these stories that follow more or less these engineered devices that we now use to craft our stories. Also I think they show so much about the world we have lived in and how people of certain times viewed the world (even if its mainly white men ykno). I also find it funny because my favorite characters in literature (mersault from The Stranger and Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye) are so much the opposite of the heros we’re taught to write that having access to these books shows me that theres more than one way to craft interesting and compelling stories. I think classics are such a great tool to see how rules are followed and broken in a story and that we dont teach kids why we’re teaching them these stories and we’re just trying to shove them into ppls hands.
It’s so weird that you should upload this video because I’ve been thinking about this topic often recently. I’ve always regret not picking up classics and felt I owed it to the craft to do so. If anyone is reading this, I’ve now started with 1984 by George Orwell (amazing storytelling and hands down the best opening chapter I’ve ever read) and from now on intend to add one classic to my four books a month reading list.
I like the term “foundation literature” too because it represents that these books came first without implicitly shading modern literature.
I see your point about the themes of classics not ageing well in some cases, but if they are being taught in school I think it’s a good opportunity to show that things like this exist and we can study them academically without being triggered.
I really like this topic and I really agree on the points you made. While classics are important to get an understanding for the time and place and to get children to think about what exactly goes on in stories. But having other books to read is good too.
While I was in school we were assigned to present books of our choosing sometimes, which in my opinion was actually great. Most of my classmates, even those who did not like reading very much chose a book they once read and loved, some of them even got back into reading.
Later we were allowed to choose from a list of classics. In the last years of my education we were assigned some of the "great" German classics like Faust, effi briest or the metamorphosis. Most of these books were not that bad, well aside from effi briest, a book I loathe, never fully read and want to burn, but most of us lost interest in reading those books, because they were dense or made us feel dumb without those little companion books. For my English classes the choices we had were not that bad but of all the Shakespeare works we had to read Romeo & Juliet which I found really sad because my upperclassmen got to read a midsummer-nights dream. The rotation system of the books we had to read makes sense but it still sucks very much when you are actually interested in a book that you don't get to read but I digress.
Well it actually got me to read some other works of Shakespeare but most people did not finish any of the books we were assigned until the final exams.
All in all I think having a big list of classics and "never" books to read would be a great idea that does not make students dislike reading.
Execpt for effi briest, nobody should suffer through this book in school. God I hate this book with burning passion.
"How do you even know what everyone likes"
Exactly. Some people literally don't like Harry Potter. There's nothing that everyone likes.
This video was so interesting, even though I probably have never read a classic yet (English is my second language) though I'm definitely working on some. I love your passion about education btw, I deeply connect to that
For the first year of my English Literature A Level, we were assigned both The Catcher in the Rye and Huck Finn. I only started to enjoy Catcher when I had no homework one free period and started reading it in free time. Huck Finn, I couldn't stand and I think that's because I knew the story of Tom Sawyer and just preferred that xD For our second year we had to read The Crucible and that was thoroughly enjoyable too ^^ I still remember that one final piece of coursework for both English Literature and English Language where we got to choose a book from a list of certain authors and basically got to write a bit of fanfiction (I chose The Catcher in the Rye and Hamlet) lol
This is such a great argument. I'll be the first to admit I'm not smart enough for most classics. However, the one that I wanted to read was an unabridged copy of Les Miserables ( I'm a theater geek). So, armed with extra reference books and the internet I set out to do just that. Took me a year, and I loved it! Would I do it again? Not sure. I want to read more classics, and I certainly don't want them obliterated. To do so would deprive us of some great literature, both ancient classics and modern.
Depends on the classic. "The Old Man in the Sea" by Hemingway that I was forced to read in high school was boring to me to the extent that I couldn't get through it without my mom waking me up every time I fell asleep. While I'm not sure what the first completed draft of my first novel will be like, I'm sure it doesn't involve going fishing in complete solitude for 100+ pages. From what I've heard, my brother enjoyed the book.
In one of of my college courses, I remember milking Gilgamesh as much as possible with my assignments just because I could understand it well enough to work with the material. I can't actually remember which course it was, specifically, but I didn't like it much. I remember developing an appreciation for the text by the end of the course.
The education system seems to purposely make learning as boring and repetitive as possible. I didn't start appreciating the learning process until after I abandoned the education system, because it crippled my ability to truly learn and express myself. I'm not in disagreement that the classics have their place, but the education system is too linear and structured. In any class, there must be structure and lesson plans. However, this doesn't mean forcing teachers to bore their students to death. The excess structure means there's no wiggle room for teachers to choose what they teach and how they teach it. The result? Too many of the boring classics make it into the lesson plans and there's not enough variety for each student to enjoy at least one or two texts.
Overall, if a book is well written, I don't have to like it to know it's a good book. This wasn't the case in high school though. I didn't have the maturity back then to value something I wasn't a fan of myself.
I hated the Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye. I loved Shakespeare, but I have trouble understanding him, thought Brave New World was interesting, and thought Oddyseuss was fun. But, I have a shelf full of classics that I plan to read and experiment with, even if I don't really enjoy all of them.
Oh, and I forgot, I thought Wuthering Heights was a really good read.
@@katstar4551 Wuthering Heights is definitely a good read! Though... I didn't love it! I prefer Jane Eyre. But over the years I've been able to analyze what about it bugs me, which is just as illuminating! (Heathcliff is a terrible person!!! But so was Cathy!!!)
@@AlexaDonne I definitely disliked all the characters. I was just very intrigued by the story and how much I disliked a lot of the characters.
Understanding why you dislike a book can be illuminating. For instance, my three least favorite "classics" that I read are Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and My Antonia. All three are about young men trying to find themselves. Two of them are very rich. Two of them secretly pine after a girl. All of them spend a lot of time wanting but not a lot of time doing. The fact that this fact bothers me so much I think says a lot about how I view the world
@@katstar4551 ... you've summed up why I also don't love those books lol. Also why I can't stand modern literary fiction by dudes like Jonathan Franzen :)
At school, we were given 'Of Mice and Men' to read, and I'm not really sure why? I feel like, because I'm from the UK, the books we were assigned should have been by UK authors.
There's boring classics, great classics, awful books published last year, and amazing new releases too! Just reach out for whatever grabs your interest!
Because in HS the only classics I ever read were Shakespeare (if that even counts), I started reading Lord of the Flies in my break to prepare myself for a literature class over the next twelve weeks. Turns out we are not reading any classics. We are reading 2 children's books, 2 young Adult books (Simon vs The Homosapien Agenda & the Hate U Give), 2 Graphic novels and two Comedy script case studies...
And I must say I'm dissapointed because I am loving Lord of the Flies.
I love the term foundational literature! Going to use it from now on as well :)
Same!
While of course people can be snobby about anything, I think it's a shame to think that when people like classics, they are either faking it or snobs. There are so many reasons to enjoy classics, and while the reading experience may be a bit harder to go through, it usually, in my experience, leaves you more satisfied (at least when you pick up the right classic, of course). While I agree that people shouldn't act pretentious, there really are a lot of fun classics and it's no crime getting into them and giving them a chance, or focusing on the parts of it you like and appreciate when the reading experience itself may have been a bit duller, just because that may make you come across as pretentious. Also, if you're into a certain specific genre, there's usually always a classic that'll be right up your alley within that genre! In a similar vein, if you usually don't enjoy a certain type of book, you won't suddenly enjoy it when it's considered a classic (lel me reading Jane Austen, which was an absolute tragedy).
If you're into plot-books which may put you off from classics, maybe try the Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde... those kinds of books!
I bought Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide and Dorian Grey some time ago, becuase I wanted to look into litterature dealing with human instinct vrs intellect and the quest for immoratality. I read Jekyll and Hyde in High school and I loved the creepyness of it and I look forward to rereading it, but I must admit I also have to push myself a little to get into them, becuase I have easier and fun stuff waiting for me on the bookself, on top of trying to write my own thing.
I love that you did a retelling of a 'classic' and I think there is a lot of inspiration to be found for authors in these oldies.
9:15
The weirdest book that I ever had to read at high school as a classic was the full tales of King Arthur in their original language. [smote etc]
I tend to stick with the classics too much but I love the artfully constructed performance of words. I love the writing style even if I don’t always enjoy the *cough* Emma… story. The performative style is something I strive in my writing so it’s something I always reach for. Classic and poetry.
Animal Farm, 1984 & of Mice and Men are more up my alley when reading classics for enjoyment, but classic horror tops all. Hands down, my favorite is Frankenstein. The story, the writing-hell, the title alone, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, does it for me; or perhaps I’m just that much of a fangirl. Also, shout out to Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Frankenstein is my favourite, too. And Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. They both made me cry and get me excited when I think about them. I haven't read many classics, but most of the ones I try to read, I don't click with for some reason. Like you, I like darker reads, but I couldn't get through Dracula. I'll give it some time before trying again because I really want to see what others see in it, and maybe I just need a mental shift or some emotional growth before being able to appreciate it.
P.S. It was a compulsion to reply to you because I *love* Frankenstein.
The Secret Garden is my favourite classic. Tried to read a lot of classic science fiction and those I struggled with. I love modern science fiction.
I would love to hear you talk about all the Jane Eyre movies and what you think about them! It seems like an un-filmable book, but I like both the 4 hour BBC series with Ruth Wilson (2006 or so), and the 2011 movie with Mia W. Both portray different aspects of the characters that succeed and make me consider the book in different ways.
In middle school we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" the teacher gave it to me on tape. Everyone else had to read it. I listened to it as an adult now I enjoyed and understand it more. Like when scout had her nose to the grass and she's shouting at her Uncle.
I'm reading H. G. Wells collection cause someone told me I should and it will help my writing somehow, I like it. But it's hard to read and takes time to understand.
The older I get the more I can appreciate classic novels while acknowledging that I don't find some of them particularly entertaining or fun to read. A good example of this for me is Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I just finished it for school a few weeks ago and reading it was painful. But I read a really good critical commentary of it in preparation for my exam and it really made me appreciate the literary merit of the book. I still think it's suffering to read and I have my own literary critism of it too but I'm glad I read critical commentary on it cause I really would have missed some of the more interesting things Hardy did in the novel.
I also agree that classic doesn't mean old. We read tons of post colonial literature from the 1970s in my English class and I even read a book published in 2004 for English (Small Island by Andrea Levy if anyone was wondering). My English teachers were very conscious of making our classes diverse in the perspectives we read from. My sister did Americanah for English last year so it just goes to show how much we are redefining what classic means in the modern era
So that is one of my all-time favorite classic novels! I had to read it in 12th grade and I'm so glad I did. I really loved Hardy's writing style, and I thought it was a fascinating commentary on class, gender, religion/purity, etc. In my new book, I have my characters debating Angel vs. Alec in their lit class lol. (I have VERY STRONG anti-Angel feelings!) Hardy was also a fantastic poet, if you've not read his poetry yet. (he's on the AP exam a lot, which is why my teacher made sure we read him!)
@@AlexaDonne I too have Very Strong Feelings about Angel Clare. I described him to my English teacher as an 19th century Nice Guy™.
@@booksvsmovies Y E S. He is a FAKE. He is THE WORST. I hate him. SO MUCH. Listen, Alec is an evil SOB. But like... never pretends to be anything other than a manipulative asshole! They're both bad! But Angel is worse!
My biggest issue with classics in school is the limited western scope. (Which you did bring up) There are classics I love and think that they should be read. I think there should be more of a worldly introduction of classics both on their own and in comparison to western classics.
I like your definition of foundational literature as it is more encompassing of diverse and worldly literature. I took a teaching world literature class (I’m an English Education major) and it opened my eyes to the importance of international diversity in the classroom. We were required to read non-western literature from a country of our choice. I chose Iran and it presented a whole new perspective on literature for me.
I always recommend reading classics with an audiobook. It makes it sooo much easier.
Hasn't anyone heard of Cliff Notes?
When you get to things like Shakespeare and Chaucer, Clifford's Notes are practically indispensable for deciphering what you've either never seen before (as more than the onomotopoeia of a wounded rhino) or haven't seen in that phrasing or context.
There are graphical depictions of quite a few ancient or venerable works, too... made Dante IMMINENTLY more accessible, even with the translation. (My "contemporary" Italian is only slightly off-putting... and it gets worse from there) ;o)
I only wish audio books were more common when I was in high school lol at least the selection I read in college had more works I actually enjoyed and read all the way through instead of languishing between subjects
I appreciated being forced to read different "classics" because there were a few I was pleasantly surprised by and actually liked and let me see things in the world in different ways. But dear lord a few of them were so incredibly boring/served no purpose they honestly made me never want to pick up another book again. Sometimes I feel like I need a translator after reading some of them and when finding out what it's "supposed" to mean I'm just like "huh. what a waste of time." and continue on with my life without ever thinking back on it. However, what I will say is that school can really kill a person's love for reading if they force too many "essential" books on a student. When I was in middle school I would read 3-4 books a month for fun and maybe 1-2 until my Sophomore year of high school. But at some point I gave up reading for fun because in my mind the thought "I should just wait to read things until I need to write another report" started to take over. I understand wanting kids to learn, but if the books are so out of date/not relevant that it's just "read these because I read them as a kid" maybe we could consider dropping them from the curriculum. There needs to be a balance between teaching kids the basics, but also keeping them engaged. I'm not alone when I say school killed my love for reading. I've only recently got back into reading and even now, 2 years out of school, I can still hear the thought in the back of my mind "Why are you reading this? Will there be a test on it?" It sounds ridiculous I know, but my school experience drained so much of my artistic passions out of me and I'd hate to push that on future generations for the sake of "experience". There should be a balance, and I think some teachers do excellent jobs with finding it, but the majority follow a set curriculum that hasn't changed in a very long time (aka I was asked to read the same book three years in a row).
I’m on the fence about classics but I did read Of Mice and Men in school and watched the movie and I’ll definitely say I enjoyed it
I sobbed my eyes out at "Of Mice and Men." That one was good too!
WishfulThinkingArt Ikr!!! Soooo good!
I don't know if everyone could connect with all the classics in school. I did well thanks to my trashy life, but I noticed kids who made A+ in every other class but struggled in literature because they could not relate or understand why this was happening to so and so. I honestly believe that HS should work more on grammar and how to write an essay.
Oh, I agree that high schools fail to teach writing skills! But they should do it in combination with literary criticism, or working around it. We need both. A good student should be able to write a point paper about a book, or a lens paper... but most don't know how to do so effectively. And grammar... needs to be taught earlier than high school. Middle school at the latest. There is a lot that is broken about our education system in the US :)
But also, to your first point... were the teachers any good? A teacher's job is to help a student to understand and empathize even if they don't share the background and can't technically relate? Most of us read books where things happen we cannot fathom, but we still feel for the characters. Though, I suppose there are readers and there are... not readers. Some people just refuse to try, and we see that in school all the time.
I never got over a C on my essays. They touched on grammar for like a week and moved on and I was just like...... I can’t.
@@AlexaDonne My teachers were okay. I wouldn't call them bad. They were focused on the the state tests., standardized tests. They kind of destroyed my childhood because I was in three experimental classes, like teaching us to read by sight and did experimental math and multiage. I'll shut up but know I flipped them off just now.
@@kingkolbae1580 that's how I am at math. I enjoy studying mathematics, but I seem unable to get beyond like 50% of the material. I don't care. I'm happy if I succeed at all. Do you like to write?
@@LivingDead53 Ooof, see, I was "lucky" in some ways--I pre-date "teaching to the test." There were a few standardized tests, but it was before the way it is now with the yearly achievement exams. The only such exam I really had to take (that determined whether I could graduate) was the Georgia Graduation Exam, but that was when I was a senior.
I have read the required classics pushed on us by state Legislature and several of them I bluffed my way through. One reason that we need to keep some of the classics is that they mostly use proper writing technique and proper English. There is nothing more irritating to me than to see a well known author start a paragraph or sentence with And. The skin on my neck crawls when I see sentences ending in prepositional phrases too! Many of today's authors throw proper writing out the window and it dumbs down our next generations. Harry Potter series is what got my oldest son to read and he is now my best reader of all my kids. :) Keep them coming Alexa!
What about listening to the classics on audible? Would it still count?
I took a chronological romp through English Literature along side of Linguists, so when I was learning the History of the English Language I was working my way through Beowulf and Chaucer. By the time I got to my senior year at SFSU I was reading 20th Century literature along side of Intracultural Communication. Some school snob said, "That's how they teach literature at Oxford. Who told you?" I replied, "That's how it happened." (duh) Now I read the Classics in Gothic Horror and Mystery for pleasure. It's good to stand on the shoulders of Giants and not on the shoulders of trolls in a pit.
>>It's good to stand on the shoulders of Giants and not on the shoulders of trolls in a pit.
The most challenging classic I read was Ulysses. I had to get out of my head to appreciate it! :)
Due to some sort of fluke involving my switch between different public and private schools, I somehow managed to avoid being "forced" to read many classics. But in 11th grade I was fortunate to wind up in an elective class on modern American literature with an excellent teacher, who took us through Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Salinger, Heller, and Vonnegut. This opened my eyes to these classic authors, and they've been favorites ever since. The only book I didn't finish was Faulkner's "Light in August" (I didn't "hate" it, I simply couldn't quite hack it at that moment), but I read it a few years after graduating and loved it. Of course, that was all voluntary, but I've never understood the objection to being "forced" to read books, since school as a whole is all about being forced to do things we otherwise wouldn't ever do. It's called education. BTW, "Tale of Two Cities" is awesome!!
I read a lot of classics as a teenager (both required reading at school and whatever seemed even slightly interesting), but not many after that. I'm old enough that it was sort of a given at high school that you had read Waltari's "The Egyptian," but I only got it as an audio book when I was 40. It turned out to be interesting. As a teenager, I tried reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace," but it was deadly boring. One of my all time favorites is Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita," which I have read as a book a few times and listened as an audio book at least a couple of dozen times. And about those white guys, I loved "Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo," and I only found out a couple of weeks ago that Dumas wasn't white. Not that it makes any difference on those books, but it was a surprise.
I totally agree that the "classics" are important, especially in school. There were a lot of books I read (and enjoyed!) in school that would have been too challenging for me to understand on my own. I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn about the context of these books while reading them.
My absolute favorite thing in high school was independent reading. Often we were asked to choose from a list of about 25 books. But even that amount of freedom made the books so much more enjoyable. I think just having the idea that I chose it myself and that I wasn't forced to read it made it more fun.
(I also read every book I was assigned through all of high school and college...except Hamlet. I just COULD NOT get through it)
I love your description of classics as “foundation literature”. I actually enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities but HATED (and never finished) Great Expectations. As a teacher I do try to include many different experiences (Roll of Thunder, My Cry and To Kill a Mockingbird for example) but sometimes the school board has a final say on some of this. I have read a lot of these classics but only enjoyed and loved a handful ( anything Jane Austen, anything Shakespeare, anything Sherlock Holmes, and the ones I’ve mentioned above). My favorite books to read are modern YA even as an adult. As a teacher, I also have my students read classics but also have them read a book of their choice on the side. (Best of both worlds! )
Gosh, what I also marvel at is how subjective it is. I loved Great Expectations. I didn't have nearly as many problems getting through it as A Tale of Two Cities. That's the other thing that does make assigning books in school difficult--you will never find a book that will be universally loved! I love it when students get to choose a book to read :)
I loved classics as a kid, almost exclusively read them - and yeah, it wasn't the norm - friends never really understood the appeal. But not only did I love them, I do think they helped my vocabulary and my speech patterns. So many people think I'm smarter than I am because of the way I speak, lol
I credit reading classics.
The problem is that teachers always pick the most boring, uninteresting books to read. And all the books end up being the same garbage.
No one wants to read Hatchet, or Trash or Great Gatsby.
No one I know developed a love of reading because of those books.
People want to read something actually enjoyable, fun, engaging.
Hard Times was the first Charles Dickens book I read but it's actually his shortest novel (A Christmas Carol being a novella/short story). It was really interesting and I enjoyed it. About a girl who loves fairy tales who is taken in by a strict school teacher who only teaches facts and thinks whimsical stuff is bad.
I didn't read many classics in school. I read Animal Farm and a few scripts of Shakespeare... But never got to read a broad range of books...
I think a cool thing to do might be to teach contemporary books and then the classics that inspired them or that just have similar themes. That way we don’t kill young people’s love of reading or let classics moulder away.
People always say that classics are unrelatable, but I think we should all read anything we find INTERESTING, not just relatable. We have that same problem across other mediums like cartoons and comics. Just give us interesting stuff, sure make the characters relatable, but that shouldn't be the main goal.
In my first of highschool I studied a "classic" and a newer novel. Romeo and Juliet in first year (hated it, studied it over and over) and Macbeth in second year (still love it). In my second year I picked up Wuthering Heights, and loved it; it was the first classic I truly fell in love with it.
I tried to read Pride and Prejudice, and struggled with the language of the time so never made it far.
I've not read Jane Eyre, yet but want to.
The books I consider "classic" are Agatha Christie; and His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. I will always love that series.
While I don’t disagree with your points, I’m curious what you think should be done to keep kids from learning to hate reading because of classic books. If kids are only assigned books they find boring, no matter how much they are told to read “fun” books in their free time, they’ll have a hard time seeing how any book could be fun because they hadn’t experienced any fun books and will think every book is long and hard and boring. Especially now that they can just log onto Netflix and watch an easily digestible tv show to quench their thirst for stories.
Oof I was wondering how this video was gonna go because YES it's a whole thing that people get up in arms about and I was never sure why.
So, two things.
Don't kill me...but I've never actually read Jane Eyre 🤪
On another note , I have a terribly hard time suffering through books I have zero connection with and some of the classics thrown our way made me want to die (Romeo and Juliet, Tale of Two Cities) BUT the point of these books is to learn to engage critically, like you mentioned. So being able to dissect the text, it's themes and true meanings and understanding how to build a story to a satisfying climax (even if it took 1000 years to get there sometimes, sheesh) was really paramount in my literary development and I know I have friends that can look back and will say the same. Of course we hate it then, but now I can't imagine not having gone through that learning process.
I'm down for teaching HP in school and I could probably come up with good reasons for it but really I don't wanna be the last generation who defines themselves by their Hogwarts houses 😂
See, I am not a classics snob so it's totally fine that you haven't read Jane Eyre! My confession: I have NOT read every Jane Austen book *shifty eyes* lol.
And, yeah, there were definitely duds I had to read in school, but I'm glad to have read them? Like, in pop culture, it's good to have a passing knowledge of The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, To Kill A Mockingbird, etc. even if I was just "meh" on those books in school. Even A Tale of Two Cities--I actually find the French Revolution fascinating, and LOVE class politics... just found the book super boring/not engaging (as an adult, I can see that the serialized nature of Dicken's work is to blame for a lot of the issues I have w/ his novels--they weren't originally novels! I think that's why the pacing dragged so hard for me on ATOTC). Instead of ATOTC, I sought out other things I found more engaging to learn about the same things.
I think we SHOULD teach Harry Potter! I'm a critical HP fan so I think there is a lot there. They should teach all students about HOW MCGONAGALL SENDING THE SLYTHERINS AWAY IN THE FINAL BATTLE BETRAYED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE SERIES lololol. I kid but not really. HP contains some fascinating themes and ideas! Just teach it ALONGSIDE other books. (I've legit heard the argument to throw out all classics and only teach modern books, like HP and other YA. I cringe.)
@@AlexaDonne See at the very least I can say it wasn't due to lack of interest, simply that it wasn't something assigned to me and I was re-reading HP for the 80th time in high school instead sooo. ;)
You know there was something in the actual prose of TOTC that I remember thinking was just fascinating. It was heavy in a lot of places of course and honestly, I'm not big into war, I just know that the reason I was able to finish it had a lot to do with that spark of...something that kept me going. The wrap up was nice, at least. Pacing was ABSOLUTELY a problem though, I agree.
OKAY. OKAY YES. I WISH I could pick your brain because I have a LOT OF THOUGHTS about that whole situation with the Slytherins (and that's not my Slytherin bias, that's legitimately something I am just sore about) There are really so many themes in HP that would be beneficial for young minds to explore. Prejudice, betrayal, redemption, love - I mean really, we hit the whole spectrum here. I know JK gets a lot of flack for some...questionable choices but she really gave us something extraordinary that shaped the way a lot of us view the world. But no, I couldn't see us just teaching YA in schools. It...makes my heart hurt a little.
(I'm seriously sorry for rambling at you every other video, I just think these concepts are interesting.)
I completely agree. I think education in general should be about pushing the boundaries and trying new things. It's not necessarily about being good at it, but a kid might need to be forced to try history before discovering that they like it.
For me, I didn't love every foundational piece of literature that I read in school. But, I also discovered my favourite genre precisely because of forced reading material in school I never would have tried otherwise. "The Giver", "The Crysalids" and "1984" made me realize I LOVED science fiction, and that science fiction wasn't just space ships and Star Trek (which I didn't care for). I fell in love with Jane Austen's works, but I never read straight romances otherwise.
Forcing a child to read one or two classic books in a year as part of their education I don't think is actually asking a lot. I think that's literally what education is meant to do: challenge and show you new things. You don't have to be good at it, you don't have to always like it, but while you're growing, it is so beneficial to just try. And that's part of it: eliminate the pressure to be good at it, or to like it. We're reading this book and talking about it to try something. You don't have to become Shakespeare now.
As you mentioned, many "classics" are full of problems of their time, and they can be great vessels of discussion. And we could do better to broaden our list. Urusla K LeGuin, Octavia Butler... let's get more voices in there. Mix up the genres to help kids find what they like. Some of my best years of education in English was very balanced. It had me reading a classic book that I might not personally care for, but I had class time to do some of the reading, and it was balanced with students being able to pick books afterwards of whatever they wanted. Goosebumps, Sisterhood of the travelling pants, Harry Potter, it didn't matter. Students picked what they wanted and we did projects on those before moving to another classic book.
We can be afraid of forcing reading on kids and making them hate it. And without balance, it can happen. But not pushing kids to read at all, or out of their comfort zone from time to time, they may never have another opportunity to discover what they do like. That goes for any extra curricular: music, sports, acting, etc.
I am reading A Tale Of Two Cities right now in school and I also read the Odyssey and am going to read Romeo and Juliet eventually (I’ve read All’s Well That Ends Well). I feel like I’m glad I am forced to read these foundational pieces of literature because it gave me more structural methods and literary devices to use in my writing that I didn’t know about, at the same time it is tedious to get through.
As a writer I think reading foundational literature in your genre is very helpful. Example: Want to write science fiction? Read Asimov, Bradbury, Clark and Heinlein. It can broaden your experience of what a book in your genre can be. Don't limit yourself to what is popular at the time. You will be better for it in the end.
Listening to this made me think about some of my high school years in English, particularly my last one.
However I'll go back in time for a bit: in my second-last year, I read the Secret River by Kate Grenville since it was assigned for class. It was lengthy, in-depth and seriously tackled racism and classism from recently-colononised Australia. I remember how it made me think for both points of view for the British colonisers and the native Aboriginals, especially since the main character has to eventually choose which side he is on in the end. I was near the end of the book where things were getting gorey and I was getting uncomfortable but still reading... until a disturbing passage caught my eye. I won't repeat or state it here, but after reading it a few times over I recall throwing the book to the floor, yelling no and then running off into the bathroom to cry over it. I was THAT shaken. I may not read it again, but I'm still grateful for it because of how it hit me and what it taught me. (and yeah, I got a good mark out of the assigned essay based off the book too.)
Jumping forward to my final year in Term 2; I ended up reading A Man For All Seasons by Robert Moore (I think??) instead of The Crucible, since I had such a negative and highly sensitive first reaction to old Crucie. Somehow instead of my usual English teacher (who taught the rest of the class Crucie, she is still a favourite teacher despite that, bless her sassy secretly grunge soul), I found myself having the freaking principal of my school teach me since, by his history, was an English teacher. I had a BLAST with Man For All Seasons and I will never forget some of the discussions we had. We talked history behind the play in its multiple concepts, the philosophies discussed and even themes and flaws through the characters. It was done in a way that I would've never had otherwise. And it was _wonderful_. Not just the book, but also the studies.
Another English time I remember fondly was my last term in my last year. We had to pick a book (all either 20th-century or laaate 19th-century classics) and write a thesis essay on it. I chose Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (translated into English by Alan Wakeman, and it's the best version, don't @ me), and upon first reading, I _cried_. It was that full of whimsy, wonder, charm and innocence but also a great amount of maturity and philosophy on life. It was so full I thought for a solid moment that I couldn't write the essay on it, but I did. It ended up being my favourite assignment and subject to study and work on for that time and now I have French and English copies of Le Petit Prince (I HAVEN'T GOTTEN THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION I WANTED YET AND I'M STILL MILDLY ANNOYED ABOUT IT).
So yeah. Kids should get both the classics and the new stuff. Hell, sometimes let them pick what they want, it could be great!