Unsurprisingly, I really, really, really disagree with you on the subject of English literature and the study thereof.
I also think it's a mistake simply to dismiss the books you've listed because they're by/about "dead white people". I don't mean to say that you Have To Like any given book that you don't happen to like, but even if you don't "like" them, there's a lot in those books. They are all by women. They all deal very sympathetically with women and they represent a period when women broke into the male literary establishment very impressively. You may well be thinking, "That's not my feminism" - and it may not be, and of course that's fine - not that you need me to tell you that, but I want to be clear that I don't for a minute think we have to share the same heroines and feminist backgrounds. But the great women novelists are a very central part of my feminism, and a lot of other people's, and I have spent quite a lot of time reading those books and many others like them. They - especially Jane Eyre - are incredibly important to me, and it makes me sad to see them dismissed like this.
I'm reminded a bit of how I feel about Ulysses. I really don't like it. Really, not at all. I didn't enjoy reading it; I felt it had very little to say to me. But I do still recognise that it is a) a very impressive artistic achievement and b) linked to all sorts of things that DO matter to me, and that I DO care about. All of which modifies my attitude and stops me from chucking my copy away, either literally or metaphorically.
Lastly (sorry, I'm afraid this comment is a bit long and pontificatory), I find it surprising that you can be so scathing, on political grounds, about the books you've listed and yet count yourself a great fan of S&A - surely Shakespeare is the original Dead White Guy? It seems to me that you're offering political arguments to explain what is really just a matter of personal taste - which of course you can do, given that It Is Your Journal, but it makes rather painful reading if one happens to count Austen, Eliot and the Brontes among one's Great Personal Heroines.
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I also think it's a mistake simply to dismiss the books you've listed because they're by/about "dead white people". I don't mean to say that you Have To Like any given book that you don't happen to like, but even if you don't "like" them, there's a lot in those books. They are all by women. They all deal very sympathetically with women and they represent a period when women broke into the male literary establishment very impressively. You may well be thinking, "That's not my feminism" - and it may not be, and of course that's fine - not that you need me to tell you that, but I want to be clear that I don't for a minute think we have to share the same heroines and feminist backgrounds. But the great women novelists are a very central part of my feminism, and a lot of other people's, and I have spent quite a lot of time reading those books and many others like them. They - especially Jane Eyre - are incredibly important to me, and it makes me sad to see them dismissed like this.
I'm reminded a bit of how I feel about Ulysses. I really don't like it. Really, not at all. I didn't enjoy reading it; I felt it had very little to say to me. But I do still recognise that it is a) a very impressive artistic achievement and b) linked to all sorts of things that DO matter to me, and that I DO care about. All of which modifies my attitude and stops me from chucking my copy away, either literally or metaphorically.
Lastly (sorry, I'm afraid this comment is a bit long and pontificatory), I find it surprising that you can be so scathing, on political grounds, about the books you've listed and yet count yourself a great fan of S&A - surely Shakespeare is the original Dead White Guy? It seems to me that you're offering political arguments to explain what is really just a matter of personal taste - which of course you can do, given that It Is Your Journal, but it makes rather painful reading if one happens to count Austen, Eliot and the Brontes among one's Great Personal Heroines.