Man, this thread points out to me how dismal my education was. My High School education (and one year of university) was in the US in the '50s and '60s. I have always been a voracious reader, but I read things I was interested in rather that classroom assignments. I can barely remember some short stories that were mandatory to read from an anthology that was the English Literature class textbook. Thankfully I read a great many of the classics of literature on my own. With a few exceptions the great pieces of literature were certainly not a part of my formal education.