I was blessed with brilliant (UK) English teachers who inspired in me a love of reading, and it was the same English teachers who taught me Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, and from that I can only conclude they hated American dramatists and set out to poison me against them.
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Tenebrous Press
US and UK friends, I'm curious: What books were part of your required reading for highschool literature class? Which of them do you remember loving, and which did you loathe?
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For my GCSE (or 'O' level as it was called) we (my year) found The Crucible to be an enjoyable read.
FWIW we also read Animal Farm & Macbeth for that exam.
Juno and the Paycock - imagine a class in rural Hampshire reading that.. excruciating
Romeo & Juliet - Class went to a production. Teacher had to stop the coach on the way home to retrieve all of the opera glasses we had nicked from the theatre seats
Teaching of it in our school probably not helped by only being shown a school production of it from several years ago.
I understand that may not be you, but it's the way to appreciate it.
*Another teenager. To be clear, I am nursing a grudge that is now comfortably older than this teenager was at the time.
https://youtu.be/ArIxAJAVDYQ?si=vyV2_2hP2i8maujY
I also think it would work much better if Abigail was cast as the 15 year old she is, and not in her late 20s.
I don’t think I ever really got Shakespeare until I saw Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing.
The taboo nature of the relationship between her and Proctor is a hell of a lot clearer to the audience if the character is played by an actual 15 year old, not an adult woman.
I get why it’s often cast that way, but I feel it lets Proctor off the hook.
I had a drama teacher who was keen on it, and I am 900% sure he would have cast me as Elizabeth, which is a pretty thankless part.
For some reason, I was always an Adult and never a girl when he cast (though I was 16, and short).
It was a strange viewing experience.
it had me spellbound.
I was 15.
Given my cynicism about his abilities and school plays in general, this was gobsmacking.
and I agree that the age matters.
We did Julius Caesar, EM Forster (Where Angels) and Chaucer for O level. Luke warm on all of them.
Loved A Pasage to India though.
I was in a “cool, modern” adaptation of Alice in Wonderland when I was 15, where there was a rave scene, “DJ White Rabbit” had a clock around his neck like Flavor Flav, and the Red Queen sang “Welcome to the Jungle”. I still hate Alice.
(on a separate note, View is great to teach to 15 yr olds because they are surprised a classic play can be a bit taboo)
*I know I'm insufferable.
Have I seen it since? er no.... But I will never forget it 25 yrs later.
We also still all desperately wanted to be Americans then (I'm 36). Would be interesting to compare to modern UK teens' views of the US.
So she gave me a bunch of books to read (extra-curricular style) and I remember those WAY more than anything else.
OLD. Yeah. But not good.
I always found Jane Austen ponderous navel-gazing combined with pathetic fallacy on altogether too many hundred pages.
But. Each to his own.
I think it would take a truly inspired teacher to make it sparkle for a secondary-school captive audience.
~ Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter
~ A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, Julian Barnes
~ Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson
I have mixed feelings about Frankenstein
Problem in Scotland now is the literature curriculum is too Scot centric - there are wonderful writers from all over the world.
I don’t think there was anything more contemporary on our syllabus than Fowles..
Hated the Rainbow, lack of plot development, just orgy after orgy..and no illustrations.