What The Dickens?
By WorDazza
@WorDazza (15830)
Manchester, England
October 1, 2015 7:50am CST
My daughter is just starting to study for a degree in English Literature. As part of the bonding exercises the students are taking part in they have had a literature based quiz today. I just received a text from her telling me that she was the only one who knew that "The Old Curiosity Shop" and "Sketches By Boz" were written by Charles Dickens!!
I find it absolutely incredible that a group of people studying for a degree in English Literature clearly don't know the works of the greatest English author who has ever lived!
Exactly what are schools teaching these kids? The ultimate irony of the story is that my daughter is one of only a handful of students on her course who didn't do an English Literature A Level, instead choosing to prance about and emit strange noises for two years. Musical theatre I think they called it!!
Whatever next? They'll be telling me that they've never heard of me!! Then I will know that the UK education system is in a serious mess!
5 people like this
6 responses
@WorDazza (15830)
• Manchester, England
1 Oct 15
Surely not!! How on earth are you supposed to communicate without sounding like an English version of Inspector Clouseau, if you can't conjugate verbs?? On a more serious note I firmly believe that the biggest barrier for English people, when it comes to learning languages, is that we're not taught our own language properly. Verb tenses are quite often a mystery to many a native English speaker.
2 people like this
@irishidid (8687)
• United States
25 Jan 18
I grew up reading the classics. Some of it required reading in school, but mostly on my own because I enjoyed them. Dickens was always a favorite.
Funny thing, I knew the two you mentioned were Dickens and those were ones I didn't read.
1 person likes this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 15
Although I am with you in wanting young people to know about the works of Dickens, It does not surprise me that "Shop" and "Sketches" do not feature in their knowledge bank.
These works are not "top of the tree" as far as the Dickens canon is concerned. They are early works (the Sketches were written before Dickens was using his own name, hence "Boz") and are by no means regarded as his best.
They are highly unlikely to have been studied at school level - and your daughter's fellow students will only have their GCSE and A-level studies behind them before starting their undergraduate courses.
I am probably as well read in CD as most people - I have a hardback book to my name that is an index to 31 years' worth of a Dickens journal - but I have to confess to not ever having read Shop and only one or two of the Sketches.
General knowledge of literature comes with time, and 18-year-old students have not had as much of that as you and me!
@rachelyoung13 (64)
• United Kingdom
1 Oct 15
My school never taught any Charles Dickens, it was all Shakespeare, Carolyn Duffy, An Inspector Calls etc... I guess they spend a long time on a single book rather than learning about lots of different works
1 person likes this
@WorDazza (15830)
• Manchester, England
1 Oct 15
It's not so much they haven't read the books it's just that I feel they really should be aware of their existence at the very least. I wouldn't necessarily expect even that from GCSE English Lit students but someone who is now studying to degree level I think it's very poor.
