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Comment by Minor49er | Hacker News Reader

The Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare's works are some of the most important ones in Western culture. I wouldn't say they're unapproachable at all. They may be more difficult to read than a modern teen fiction novel, but they contain archetypes and language patterns that were foundational for works that came afterward.

Thinking about it now, Beowulf should be added to this list. That's another great way to teach students about the evolution of the English language.

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Are you sure the inclusion of "The Bible" of which there are actually several has nothing to do with your own personal faith? How do you even go about that without dealing with issues of church and state? Whichever holy book you choose at least 50% of constituents will believe you chose the wrong one. If you teach it as history you will be doing a poor job of history without substantially more sources and discussing the inherent unreliability of historical sources.

If you imply that every word isn't the literal truth you will again have at people howling for your blood.

You can always analyze Bible as any other book. In Poland (which is mainly catholic) I've read Bible in school only: 1) to compare the description of biblical creation with the greek mythology (just comparative analysis, without implying the creationism, rather otherwise) 2) next to some famous poem based on the biblical story to understand what is the poem about.

I'm always surprised that any school would teach creationism. Even catholic priests don't preach creationism as an alternative to current scientific theories. USA has to be a strange place :D

I would also add 3) analysing the Bible as the source of many literaly genres.

"Are you sure the inclusion of The Bible ... has nothing to do with your own personal faith?" Yes. Much of Western culture has been deeply rooted in The Bible, from its stories to its values.

I hated Shakespeare when I was forced to read it in my language, translation tried to keep the spirit of the language, but really made it just sound archaic and complete incomprehensible to us (high-school kids not really interested in the whole deal). Only many years later, almost by accident, I've discovered how Shakespeare's work was really meant to sound, making the story itself so much more approachable.

Is that from the work by David Crystal reconstructing the sound of Shakespeare? It's very interesting to listen to passages read out in that Original Pronunciation. There are several videos of it on YouTube. NativLang also did a video on Shakespeare pronunciation.

It's also interesting how the pronunciation is reconstructed. Looking at rhyming pairs that don't currently rhyme (e.g. loved/proved), looking at different accents of English (Irish, Scottish, American, etc.) to identify historic pronunciations, etc.

No, it's a case of much less profound details, for instance I literally had no idea that Shakespeare's works were even meant to rhyme in the original, because the translation that we've read in school didn't rhyme at all. Also the rhythm was completely different and the language was over-complicated by using archaic expressions to try to match Shakespeare's use of English, and so on. Of course, translations are an art form on their own, so perhaps it's a matter of taste also.

I believe you are overestimating the average and below average person. Shakespeare is unapproachable to many people simple due to the language used.

And if one doesn't go in that direction (eg theater & film or literature) forcing them is not going to be very productive after all... This should exist for sure but only optionally for the ones highly interested.

> but they contain archetypes and language patterns that were foundational for works that came afterward.

So what? Other works lack these archetypes? No, they don't. Literature at school isn't supposed to be courses on comparative linguistics and theory of literature. A short intro is enough. Then move on to modern works.

Bible is better suited to history lessons on history of religion alongside other religions.

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