My argument is that a literary education should build on a primary level of responsivity towards literature, involving empathy and immersion in the world of the text. To engage with literary works from the past involves a play between familiarity and strangeness, and this play should be located as part of a reader's response to texts, rather than expecting students to imbibe the "dead knowledge" about literary periods and authors in which textbooks and literary guides traffic. Literary responsiveness involves sensitivity towards the specific character of the text, which means locating it in relation to other texts belonging to that genre without reducing it to being merely illustrative of a genre's so-called characteristics. In all these respects, contemporary educational standards reflect questionable assumptions about the development of a capacity to respond to literary texts, especially the supposition that a "mature" response to literature somehow involves moving beyond personal response to more analytical forms of engagement.