“Archive” and “Repertoire”. Problems with Classics in the Primary School

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the issue of reception of literary classics by primary school pupils. The fundamental contemporary reception problem consists in the increasing linguistic and cultural strangeness which hampers, and sometimes even prevents independent reading by pupils. The theoretical reflection concerning the ways of preventing the rejection of the classics, as well as overcoming their strangeness is combined with the analysis of particular cases (Cinderella and its contemporary renarrations, The Barrel Organ by B. Prus, and Revenge by A. Fredro). The conclusions emphasize the importance of hermeneutic activities on the part of the teacher, which should precede and boost the act of reading. These are metaphorically referred to as the “gesture of familiarizing the classics”. The “archive” and “repertoire” metaphors introduced in the title are intended to indicate the direction of changes in the manner of presenting the works from the past. Classics should be perceived not as texts from an archive, but as works from the repertoire which are being prepared for staging, i.e. for (re)reading.