Absolute Classic
Donnacha:
August 19th, 2006
In the last week people have been poking through poorly frequented bookshelves and dusting off their old Penguins as Literary Classics have been thrust back in the spotlight.
It began when schools Minister Alan Johnson announced that there would be no “dumbing down” of school English curricula. The outcome of an edcation department review has guaranteed the likes of Austen and Shakespeare a place in the nation’s classrooms.
The announcement was not met with unanimous enthusiasm. Notably Steven Moss, writing in Tuesday’s Guardian, wondered at the wisdom of “instructing” teenagers to read the likes of Henry James’ “The Ambassadors.” He argued that Dickens or Trollope should be left to one’s mid-50s and that children would be better analysing chick lit or Harry Potter.
Isn’t this rather missing the point of a “classic” work of literature? Of course teenagers won’t experience the full, multi-layered impact of Hamlet, or John Donne or Toni Morrison on first reading. Then again neither will a 25 year old, or a 35 year old or a 65 year old. Classics are classics because they bear re-reading over a lifetime. We get something from them in youth and, when we are older, we get something new from them- not least because of the experiences we bring to them.
Surely we shouldn’t deny students the opportunity to begin a relationship with great literature which will stand with them for their whole lives?