“It's an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pleasure or not at all. You shouldn't be taught to monkey with it.”

—  Rebecca West

Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 31

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It's an absurd error to put modern English literature in the curriculum. You should read contemporary literature for pl…" by Rebecca West?
Rebecca West photo
Rebecca West 38
British feminist and author 1892–1983

Related quotes

Edward Bulwer-Lytton photo

“In science, read, by preference the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician

Caxtoniana: Hints on Mental Culture (1862)

Oscar Wilde photo
B.F. Skinner photo

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Gene Wolfe photo
Orhan Pamuk photo

“Painting taught literature to describe.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient
Oscar Wilde photo

“The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul of Man

Northrop Frye photo

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time
Context: In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.

Ford Madox Ford photo

“For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste.”

Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) English writer and publisher

The March of Literature (1939)
Context: For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.

Samanta Schweblin photo

“I learned to write reading North American literature, I love your literature, but I have this feeling that if a country only reads its own literature, it will run out of oxygen.”

Samanta Schweblin (1978) Argentine writer

On her encouraging that Americans read literature beyond their country in “Samanta Schweblin on Revealing Darkness Through Fiction” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-on-revealing-darkness-through-fiction/ in LitHub (2017 Jan 12)

Related topics