Bloom Misreads the Reading Situation

Re “How Can We Teach Them Shakespeare When They’ve Never Read Chaucer?” Commentary, July 9: Harold Bloom, the author of “The Western Canon,” once again stands, finger in dike, holding back the decline of civilization as we know it. He indicts the usual suspects -- TVs, VCRs, CD players and, of course, computers -- which he decries in schools and libraries. I would take issue, however, with his statement, “I’m not sure that even education can affect it,” that is, the overall decline in reading, especially of serious literature, a canon from which he removes writers such as Stephen King and Danielle Steele.

Most upper elementary and secondary education is orally structured; that is, teaching is talking and learning is listening. There is precious little independent mastery of text. What text students do encounter is generally read orally in class and then explained by the teacher.

Education can reverse the decline in reading skills if teachers make independent mastery of authentic text the centerpiece of their classrooms from as early as the fourth grade.

Jack Farrell

Consultant teacher, Conejo

Valley Unified School Dist.

Thousand Oaks

Garrison Keillor tries so hard to make English majors seem human, and along comes professor Bloom! To properly appreciate Shakespeare, a student must first read Chaucer? What a crock. Most of Shakespeare’s intended audience hadn’t read Chaucer; most of Shakespeare’s audience couldn’t read.

The real literacy progression goes like this: First you read “Goodnight Moon” and you work your way from there to “The Little Engine That Could” and the “Baby-Sitters Club” books to Harry Potter books. From there, the road leads to infinitely wonderful directions, from Shakespeare and Danielle Steele and Ray Bradbury to Tom Clancy and James Joyce. And if you take the road less traveled, perhaps to Chaucer and Beowulf ... and even Homer in the original Greek. But remember, Homer too couldn’t read.

Scott Folsom

Los Angeles

In bemoaning the fact that American youth aren’t reading as much, Bloom presents a very uninformed view of the “newer” mediums (i.e. video games, television) that, sadly, is common among people of older generations. He criticizes such forms of entertainment as being “full of pointless stuff,” though I doubt that he’s played such games as Playstation’s Final Fantasy or watched the anime on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim.” These new forms of storytelling do have depth and complex plots, a fact often dismissed by those in academic circles.

Just as it would be unfair of people to criticize modern writing because some of what’s being written now isn’t what one would call literature, it’s doing the new forms of storytelling a disservice by lumping them into one category.

Shain Neumeier

Los Angeles