Catherine Belsey presumably gives marks to the work of her students, so why is she coy about assigning value to the work of writers they study? As students cannot cover everything, they can reasonably expect their teachers to present them with texts that will repay their reading. Spoon-fed cornflakes and Canaletto are (to borrow from Seamus Heaney) "pap for the dispossessed".
Neil Rhodes
School of English
University of St Andrews