Leland--I think there are two points here that others have brought up as well. One is that it is possible that some of these authors just aren't your personal cup of tea and, as others have said, there is no reason you have to love any particular writer. At the same time, as others have pointed out, literary tastes and appreciations change a lot as people grow and learn and experience things in life, and it's possible that, for any number of imaginable reasons, you simply aren't at a place in your life now that allows you to appreciate these works. I say this partly because you are clearly still in high school and I've found that many people at your age don't yet appreciate some of the writers you mention but do develop an appreciation later in life. I don't mean by this to suggest that you aren't well read or a committed and intelligent young person, but time and experience simply do make a difference, so you probably haven't reached the same point as you will have as a well read person ten years from now. I am similarly aware that well read people ten or twenty years older than myself have acquired certain insights and ways of appreciating literature that I just don't have access to at this point in my life. So, it's less a matter of whether you're grown up enough or not and more a matter of the fact that we are all always learning, and I would also say something similar to someone of almost any age who was having trouble getting into these authors. The writers that speak to us most may change throughout our lives and there are some works that won't mean anything to a person now that they will have a deep appreciation for ten years from now, whether because of their own life experience, or their development as a reader, or the introduction of new ideas or ways of appreciating the world during that time. So, you may not like some of these things now, but may find yourself liking them in the future (or not...who knows). I know this has been true for me.
I would add to this that, regardless of what your personal opinion of these works is (and that is your own), there is a reason that they are on your class syllabus. They are works that really have succeeded in moving, entertaining, changing huge numbers of people for hundreds of years now, and even if they are not to your taste, it may be worth giving them a closer look to see if you can't understand why they have had this great appeal to generations of people. The way I think about it is in terms of a distinction between liking something and respecting something. There are plenty of books and authors that I don't really like or identify with but I respect them for their artistic merit, for the insights into human behavior they deal with etc. For example, I can't say that I really like Faulkner. I don't identify with his themes, I don't know that I really like his plots or his characters in the way I enjoy other works. When I first read him I think I actually threw The Sound and the Fury across the room in frustration. However, I realized that there were other people who were getting something profound out of Faulkner and that interested me. I made myself read his works with real attention in an effort to see if I could understand anything of what the appeal was. As a result I developed a very real appreciation of Faulkner's use of language, and the things he does with narrative are amazing. I also discovered that part of what I do find interesting in his work is the fact that I don't identify with his themes or his characters. Part of what we can get out of a well written work of literature is the reward of both facing the challenge of struggling with and really understanding a work that is not one that you are naturally inclined toward and, along with this, of gaining insight into the concerns and workings of a mind that is very unlike your own. I still don't know that I would say I necessarily like Faulkner, but I have found things that I respect about his work, a respect that comes from a genuine appreciation of certain aspects of his writing and thinking. So, I would begin by framing your question much less in terms of only what you like and think in terms also of what you can have respect for and learn from without necessarily finding that it suits your own personal taste.
All of this, however, is a very large level response. There's really no way to address your question adequately without knowing what it is about these authors that is turning you off, and the only way to know that is to talk about the literature itself. I'm a college literature instructor who specializes in Medieval and Renaissance literature, so of your list of writers you're not too keen on, I'm most familiar with Dante and Shakespeare. If you like, post a passage from something you've read by one of those two and tell us all what it is you don't like or don't get about that passage. This will be a better way for myself and others on the thread to address what particular problems you are having with these writers and their poetry.
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Originally Posted by stlukesguild
