Education: Your views: Eng Lit: a history lesson
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Your support makes all the difference.Robert Eaglestone (Education, 'English canon fodder', 22 April) rightly points to the need for English Literature to adopt a more modern agenda.
However, his criticism of courses that concentrate upon 19th century literature does need to be justified. English Literature may well be a subject which has now adopted a "heritage" approach. However, it is also a subject with a history which cannot be ignored. Students might well be more familiar with contemporary literature but such literature draws upon a body of earlier work.
Unless this is recognised, students of English Literature are likely to come away from their courses with a very narrow and misguided conception of what the subject is.
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