A few questions related to literature

[Teia]

Hi Teachers
1. Please tell me who are the most important American and British modern poets and writers that are taught in high schools this year?
2. Is William Shakespeare taught in the grades [ elementary school]?
3. Are Romantics like G.G.Byron and P.B.Shelley taught in high school or later . in university or college ?
My questions refer to English [British] and American schools as well.

Thank you very much in advance.

Best wishes

Teia

[Coffa]

Originally Posted by teia_petrescu

Hi Teachers
1. Please tell me who are the most important American and British modern poets and writers that are taught in high schools this year?
2. Is William Shakespeare taught in the grades [ elementary school]?
3. Are Romantics like G.G.Byron and P.B.Shelley taught in high school or later . in university or college ?
My questions refer to English [British] and American schools as well.
Thank you very much in advance.
Best wishes
Teia

Hi Teia,

I cannot answer other than within my locality.

I live within 20 miles of Stratford, and I visit the RSC frequently. Most kids around here have never heven HEARD of Shakespeare, let alone want to visit the premiere stage of acting talent. The RSC is staging the WHOLE canon this year, and few people even know what an amazing showcase of talent is open to view. My nephew (11) is doing The Tempest at school - he lives a few miles away from the RSC's Tempest with Prospero's Patrick Stewart (who he knows from X-Men) DAILY. How wrong is that?

I go to the RSC, and I see middle-aged men with no interest in what they're watching. I watched Henry VI Part I and II last month (and it's bloody good), and had to listen to a**holes discussing the play beforehand, and snoring through most of the performance. I wanted to shoot them - this is our inheritance, and they piss on it just because they can.

[river]

In high school we read Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth and a number of sonnets. In college - Intro. to British Litt. - we read King Lear and the sonnets. From The Romantic Period we read some Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. No Byron, but this was only an introduction and I was not an English major.

Among the American poets, we read a good bit of Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost.

[Tdol]

There are many differences in the different courses taught in the UK, so people don't all study the same thing. There is a tendency towards trying to choose books deemed relevant to learners, so there is a move away from the traditional canon of great writers and to encompassing more writers from other English-speaking countries, but many criticise this as politcall correct. there are also places where the traditional writers are taught.

[Teia]

Hi Teachers

At first I would like to thank all of those who have answered my questions : Coffa, Riverkid and Tdol.
In my country, students are taught Shakespeare [starting with some of the sonnets, tragedies, historical plays and comedies]. I studied all English literature periods :Enlightnment, Romanticism , Classic, Pre-Modernism, Modernism in college and university. I had to study -among others-Virginia Wolf and James Joyce [ whom I found quite difficult to study], as well.

Thank you very much for your replies.

Best wishes
Teia