Day 9: Old versus new

Being in the middle of applying to university means that I've been looking at a variety of English Literature courses across the country, and quite honestly I avoid any university that forces "old" novels onto students. I love Shakespeare (well, most of the time -- there'll be another post about him) but otherwise I'm not a huge fan of anything pre-1800. Admittedly I haven't really read much from before then, but I'm working on it. I have a reading list that is hopefully going to prepare me for university. I just need to finish 'The Princess Bride' first.

I very much dislike that an English Literature course only really allows for the study of fiction before the twentieth century, with perhaps one module dedicated to feminism or war during the past one hundred years. There is absolutely no reason for the belief that modern fiction is in any way less creditworthy than older fiction. 'Fahrenheit 451', 'The Great Gatsby', '1984', 'The Catcher In The Rye' 'A Clockwork Orange', and 'Rebecca', just to same a few, are all exceptionally clever and well-written books from the twentieth century. For some reason, though, they're considered to be easy books to study. I disagree with the concept of only reading novels in archaic English just to make things harder for ourselves, when there are so many fantastic novels with just as much, if not more, depth, wit and character -- and much more relevance to today's society.

Essentially, the prejudice against newer fiction is just a way of clinging to the past and tradition, which is unfortunate when universities are supposed to be preparing us for the future. I have no qualms with studying fiction from any era, and in fact I embrace any type of fiction, but I would prefer to be able to study a wider range; and, fair enough, many universities do offer some very interest modules, such as feminism, science-fiction, children's fiction, Irish poetry, film adaptations, and modern US fiction. There's some acceptance of newer fiction, but many universities are stubbornly set in their ways. When universities let go of their safety net of tradition, they will be better equipped to teach the next generation of readers.