this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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It's a valid complaint. Why is Shakespeare more legitimate than, say, Stephen King for high school classes? Reading is reading, and asking students to read boring books because "they are classics" is the best way to discourage them.
In high school, I had to read Phèdre, a story told in verses about some incestuous rednecks from Greek mythology or whatever, written in the 1600's. It was painful.
For that matter, why do we read Shakespeare? They're plays. Watch them as plays or movies. If kids first exposure to Star Wars was by reading the script, they'd hate that, too, and they should.
I had to read Shakespeare, then read another book about how witty and clever it was to the people of the time, then write a report about how witty and clever it was, once I understood the historical context. My conclusion that having to explain jokes is the death of humor got me a C-.
I think there's something to be said about shared cultural experiences, and so reading some older books is probably a good thing.
To clarify what I mean though: that means that we should be reading stuff that was written/popular when our grandparents were our age. Going back 200+ years should be saved for a history class cause that's the real value in reading that material. In my opinion, Great Gatsby should be about the oldest book kids need to be reading for a literature class these days, and even that's pushing it.
There are a lot more authors who took inspiration from shakespeare than Steven King. Shakespeare is just objectively more influential, tropes he invented are used all the time in many places and there is value to understanding where the source comes from.