Standards have fallen, though. When I went to school in the 80s and 90s, we
never had Classics teachers. I've learnt all my Latin from Umberto Eco and
Asterix, while my only familiarity with Virgil et al comes from Billy Bunter
and Wodehouse ("Death of Dido", anyone?).
As for literature, we did some vulgar common bestsellers written for the hoi
polloi (Dickens, Shakespeare), and some RomZoms (almost) written for rich
ladies of leisure (Bronte).
Lahar
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone
-----Original Message-----
From: ss <[email protected]>
Sender: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2012 08:56:45
To: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi
On Monday 04 Jun 2012 9:35:42 am John Sundman wrote:
> His satire of the British class system, and the upper class in particular,
> could be quite savage
I think that it was a curious anachronistic fact that while Wodehouse was
writing his satire in America in an era when the british upper class was being
democratized, Indian schools were traing Indians to appreciate the language
and attitudes of that very upper class of Britain.
Indian youth who learned English often got the language directly from Britons
(my parents' era) or from Indian or anglo-Indian teachers in "Public schools"
of the type that were attempted mirror images of "uppah class" British
"Public" schools of the Eton/Harrow/Rugby genre. Indian schools like Lawrence
school Lovedale, and Doon school were at the apex of this list, and my own
school, the Bishop's school in Poona belonged in that genre, if not that
class. We all had "Houses", "Prefects" etc. Our English accents had to be
right and our reading material was the "Classics".
shiv
