Hamlet is out, Stranger Things and Four Corners to stay: Year 12 English text choices revealed
Hamlet, the English poet John Donne and 2001: A Space Odyssey have been dumped from the list of texts Year 12 English students will study in Queensland from 2026.
But the new list retains several classics, even throwing in a couple of Ancient Greek plays, and there will be even more Australian authors and creators, which will make up two in five of the texts available.
The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority has released its new English prescribed text list for 2026 to 2029, including documentaries, films, TV shows, memoirs, novels, plays, and poetry.
Frankenstein, Stranger Things and Rear Window are among the texts Year 12 students can study from 2026.Credit: Brisbane Times
William Shakespeare has the most contributions, with four texts, the same number in the list used from 2023 until the end of 2025.
However, As You Like It and Hamlet will be dropped, replaced by Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night, while Macbeth and Othello remain.
Macbeth, which will retire from the external assessment list at the end of this year but remain on the general list until at least 2029, was the most popular text in 2023, chosen by 347 schools.
Texts cut include the 2010 film The King’s Speech, Australian author Geraldine Brooks’ novel March, Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and Switzerland, a play by Australian writer Joanna Murray-Smith.
There are two new Ancient Greek classic plays – The Frogs by Aristophanes and The Trojan Women by Euripides.
Classics on the list include The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton, Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott, poems by Sylvia Plath, Schindler’s Ark (also known as Schindler’s List) by Thomas Keneally, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
