{"id":45431,"date":"2018-09-26T13:37:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T20:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=45431"},"modified":"2018-09-26T13:37:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T20:37:43","slug":"why-do-teenagers-not-like-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-do-teenagers-not-like-to-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do teenagers not like to read?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI read\u00a0<\/span>San Manuel Bueno, martyr<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(Miguel de Unamuno, 1931) for the first time when I was fourteen years old.\u00a0In my list of compulsory books of 2nd of ESO, Unamuno’s reading was after\u00a0<\/span>Marianela<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(Benito P\u00e9rez Gald\u00f3s, 1878) and before\u00a0<\/span>La familia de Pascual Duarte<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(Camilo Jos\u00e9 Cela, 1942).\u00a0On the day of the exam, the teacher asked us about the plot of the works to\u00a0<\/span>make sure<\/span><\/em>\u00a0we had read them.\u00a0So, more than reading the novels, we had to\u00a0<\/span>study them<\/span><\/em>\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because we have to\u00a0<\/span>make sure<\/span><\/em>\u00a0that our teenagers read carefully the masterpieces of Spanish literature (this is what all the regional legislations say, given that the educational competences are transferred).\u00a0As you can suppose, after a few months neither I nor any of my colleagues remembered absolutely any detail of the books.\u00a0We had decided, logically, that we did not like to read.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten years later, already in the university, another professor returned to submit me to the torture of\u00a0<\/span>San Manuel Bueno, martyr<\/span><\/em>\u00a0.\u00a0And so the old ghosts of the past woke up (now the martyr was me!).\u00a0I made a quick transversal reading of the text, a mere procedure to be able to “get rid of it”.\u00a0The day we discussed the book in class, that teacher used the novel as a basis to explain Christian existentialism and\u00a0<\/span>Unamuno’s relationship with Kierkegaard<\/span><\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0At that age, we all knew a little more to understand, finally, where the greatness of that work lay.\u00a0I returned home and read\u00a0<\/span>San Manuel Bueno, martyr<\/span><\/em>\u00a0for the third time.\u00a0I\u00a0<\/span>devoured it<\/span><\/em>\u00a0.\u00a0And today is one of my favorite novels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Experience tells me that the school is a factory of tormented readers.\u00a0If someone wants to hate literature, all they have to do is stick to that canon since childhood, a canon written and approved by\u00a0<\/span>politicians<\/span><\/em>\u00a0.\u00a0But where does this approach to literature come from?<\/span><\/p>\n

The History of Literature as an economic tool<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

From the Classical Period to the 18th century, the study of Literature was closely related to the study of rhetoric and written expression.\u00a0But the Enlightenment, with its encyclopedic anxieties, begins to consolidate the concept of\u00a0<\/span>corpus<\/span><\/em><\/a>\u00a0, and literature begins to be perceived as a “set of books”.\u00a0And whenever we study a set, we must draw on\u00a0<\/span>representativeness<\/span><\/em>\u00a0.\u00a0What concrete works do we have to read to understand and know the whole?\u00a0In short, the methodology does not seem far-fetched.<\/span>
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The myth of Faust is one of the classic legends of German culture, which Goethe recovered in Romanticism. Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

But the nineteenth century arrives, the Industrial Revolution arrives and, with it, capitalism and the first globalization.\u00a0European countries need to position their product to face import threats.\u00a0And so, the writers realize that they do not have it so easy to sell, that they are now part of the system and that they are alone and unprotected against the new universal market (the feeling of loneliness and the complaining of the romantic writers has to do with more with this than with poetic sensitivity).\u00a0The price of paper is very low, the publication becomes cheaper and industrial production guarantees large print runs.\u00a0Suddenly, everyone is a writer.\u00a0Western protectionist economies panic: what do we do to protect the national product?<\/span><\/p>\n

Two things, fundamentally.<\/span><\/p>\n