Editor’s note: This story was originally published on our sister site, The Content Strategist.
Is the art of headline creation really dead? As Contently senior editor Jordan Teicher writes in his feature story on headlines, “What was once a creative art has become a science concerned with maximizing engagement by any means necessary.”
That’s obvious to anyone who reads the Internet. But what happens if you take that perspective and apply it to the sacred literary canon?
On a rainy Thursday morning, Contently’s editorial staff cleared our calendars for an hour to dive down the rabbit hole of sensationalism. What we did wouldn’t make any of our old English teachers proud: We retitled 13 classic works of literature and did our best to rid of them of all prestige.
What happens next probably won’t shock you, but at the very least, it could be a fun way to spend five minutes.
1. The Catcher in the Rye
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Sun Also Rises
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. The Old Testament
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. Moby Dick
8. Lord of the Flies
9. Of Mice and Men
10. Anna Karenina
11. Slaughterhouse-Five
12. To Kill a Mockingbird
13. The Metamorphosis
