Boža Krakar Vogel

Obravnavanje literarne klasike v sodobni šoli - na primeru Prešerna
Literary Classics in Contemporary School: The Example of Prešeren


Slovenski sinopsis
English synopsis
English summary

The issue of whether literary classics can still function as the core of contemporary literary classes in Slovene schools was addressed again when new curricula were being designed, and an empirical study into it was carried out on the occasions of the anniversaries of Prešeren's birth and of his death.

Answers of teachers, authors and literature experts show that they mostly agree that literary classics play not only an educational and humanistically encyclopaedic role, but that they act also as a corpus of fundamental literary patterns that significantly contributes to the formation of the young reader's horizon of expectations, helping him to become able of quality reading of new, unknown texts.

How classic literature and its art could be made more appealing to young generations was explored in two qualitative studies of responses of primary school, secondary school and university students to Prešeren's poetry. The moderate popularity of Prešeren's poetry, which derives from a naïve emotional experience and an admiration of its artism and which is reduced by poor comprehension of its messages, often seen as having little relevance to the present time, could be, according to our respondents, improved. To achieve this, teachers should help them to better understand Prešeren's poetic language, present his life and character in a more interesting way, allow them to develop a freer evaluation that would not be constrained by the generally accepted myth, and have them listen to oral interpretations of his poems. These suggestions support our earlier observations that these activities are frequently neglected at the expense of a too demanding »scientific« nature of literary classes, which implies that teachers' expectations are sometimes excessive and that they are not aware of communication noises in their teaching strategies.

On the basis of this research into students' responses to Prešeren and observations of classroom practice, the author proposes several ideas for improving the initially modest interest of young people in literary classics and motivating them to read and discuss this literature. With numerous timeless roles, classic literature remains one of the cornerstones of teaching literature.