Why read classics

Let's start with some definitions.

1. The classics are the ones you often hear people say, "I'm rereading..." Instead of "I'm reading..." The book of

At least for those who are considered "learned"; It does not apply to young people, who are at an age when their exposure to the world and exposure to the classics of being part of it is important precisely because it is their initial exposure.

"To repeat", before the verb "to read", may represent a little hypocrisy for those who are ashamed to admit that they have not read a famous book. To reassure them, suffice it to point out that no matter how widely one reads in one's formative years, there will always be plenty of important work left unread.

Raise your hand if you've read Herodotus and Thucydides in their entirety. What about Saint-Simon? And Cardinal Reiss? Even the great series of novels of the nineteenth century are usually more mentioned than read. In France, they started reading Balzac in school, and judging by the sales of various editions, people apparently continued to read him long after their school days were over. But if a formal survey of Balzac's popularity were taken in Italy, he would probably rank very low. Dickens's admirers in Italy were a small elite who, as soon as they met, began to recall characters and episodes as if they were talking about people they knew in real life. When Michelle Bhutto was teaching in the US years ago, he was so annoyed that people kept asking him about Zola, which he had never read, that he resolved to read the whole Rugongmakar series. It turned out to be quite different from what he had imagined: an allegorical, mythological system of genealogy and celestial modelling, which he later described in a wonderful article.

As these examples show, reading a great work for the first time in full adulthood is a great pleasure, very different from that of adolescence (it is hard to say whether it is greater). In adolescence, every reading, like every experience, adds its own flavor and meaning; In mature age, one appreciates (or should appreciate) more detail, layers, and meaning. So we might as well try other ways.

2. Classics are books which constitute a valuable experience for those who have read and enjoyed them; But they also remain a rich experience for those who reserve the opportunity to read them until they are at their best.

For the truth is that what we read when we are young is often of little value, either because we are impatient, unable to concentrate, lack reading skills, or lack of life experience. This adolescent reading may (and may also) have a formative effect on the grounds that it gives form or shape to our future experiences, provides models for them, means of dealing with them, terms of comparison, ways of categorizing them, measures of value, paradigms of beauty: All this continues to work on us, even if we have almost or completely forgotten the book we read when we were young. When we reread the book in maturity, we rediscover the constants that are now part of our internal machinery, even though we can no longer recall where they came from. This kind of work has the special effect of leaving seeds in us while it may be forgotten. We can now give a definition like this:

3. The classics are books that exert a particular influence, either by imprinting themselves on our imagination in the form of forgetting, or by disguising themselves as individual or collective unconsciousness hidden in deep memory.

For this reason, one's adult life should be devoted to rediscovering the most important works we read as teenagers. Even if the books remain the same (and they change with historical perspective), we must have changed, and therefore this subsequent encounter is new.

So it's not really that important that we use the verb "read" or the verb "stress". In fact we can say:

4. A classic is a book which, on each reread, brings as much discovery as on first reading.

5. A classic is a book that, even when we first read it, feels like a reliving of something we have read before.

The fourth definition above may be seen as a corollary of the following definition:

A classic is a book that never runs out of everything it has to say to its readers.

The fifth definition implies a more complex equation:

7. Classics are books which come to us with the peculiar air of previous interpretations, and which drag behind them the traces of their passage through cultures or cultures (or just languages and customs).

This applies to both ancient and modern classics. If I read the Odyssey, I read Homer's text, but I cannot forget all the things that Ulysses' adventures have meant over the centuries, and I cannot help wondering whether these meanings are hidden in the original text, or whether they have been gradually added, deformed, or expanded upon. If I were to read Kafka, I would both accept and reject the legitimacy of the adjective "Kafkaesque," because we often hear it used to mean that anything can be said. I cannot read Turgenev's Fathers and Sons or Dostoevsky's Demons without wondering how the characters in these books continue to be reincarnated all the way into our own time.

Reading a classic work is also bound to surprise us when we compare it to what we had imagined it to be. This is why we always recommend reading primary texts and avoid secondary bibliography, reviews and other explanations. Schools and universities should reinforce the idea that a book discussing another book can never say as much as the book being discussed; But they go to great lengths to convince their students that, in fact, the opposite is true. There is a popular reversal of values, which is to say that the introduction, the criticism machine and the bibliography are used like a smokescreen to obscure what the text has to say and what it can only say without a middleman who always claims to know more than the text itself. Therefore, we can conclude that:

A classic is a work that keeps creating a dust cloud of critical discourse around it, but always shakes off the particles.

A classic doesn't have to teach us something we don't already know; Sometimes we find in a classic what we already knew, or always thought we knew, without realizing that the classic text had already said it (or that the idea had a special connection to that text). This discovery is also a very satisfying surprise, as we often feel when we figure out where an idea came from, or how it connected to a text, or who said it first. To sum up, we can arrive at the following definition:

9. Classics are books that the more we think we understand by hearsay, the more unique, unexpected, and original they seem to us when we actually read them.

Of course, this usually happens because the text of a classic "acts" as a classic, that is, it establishes a personal relationship with the reader. Without a spark, there is no point in doing so: there is no use reading the classics out of duty or respect, we should read them only out of love. Except in school: Whether you like it or not, school teaches you to read the classics in which (or by using them as a benchmark) you will later identify "your" classics. It is your school's responsibility to provide you with the tools to make your own decisions; But only the things you choose after or outside of school are of value.

It is only in compulsory reading that you encounter the book that will be "your" book. I know an excellent art history expert, a man of great breadth. Of all the books he has ever read, his favorite is The Pickwick Papers, and in any discussion he will cite excerpts from Dickens's book and relate every event in his life to the story of Pickwick. Gradually, he himself, the universe, and its fundamental principles all took on the face of the Pickwick Papers in a process of complete identification. If we go down this road, we form an idea of a classic that is both impressive and demanding.

10. A classic is the name given to any book that represents the whole universe, a book on a par with an ancient amulet.

Such a definition brings us one step closer to the idea of the all-encompassing book that Malameh dreamed of. But a classic work can also establish a powerful relationship not of identification but of opposition or opposition. All Rousseau's thoughts and actions were very dear to me, but they stirred in me an irresistible urge to resist him, to criticize him, to argue with him. Of course, it has something to do with the fact that I find his personality incompatible with mine; but, if it were so simple, I should avoid reading him; The truth is, I can't help thinking of him as one of my authors. So, here's what I want to say:

11. "Your" classic is a book which makes it impossible for you to remain indifferent to it, which helps you to establish yourself in relation to it and even against it.

I do not believe it is necessary to justify my use of the name "classic". I do not use the words archaic, stylistic, and authoritative here. (The history of these meanings of the name is covered in great detail in Franco Fortini's "Classics" entry for Volume 3 of the Encyclopaedia Ino.) In my opinion, what makes a classic different may simply be the resonance we feel from a work that, whether ancient or modern, has its own place in a cultural continuity. We can say:

12. A classic is a work that precedes other classics; But those who have read other classics first recognize its place in the family tree of many classics.

At this point, I could no longer put aside the crucial question of how to reconcile reading the classics with reading everything else that isn't. This question is related to other questions, such as: "Why read the classics instead of those that give us a deeper understanding of our own time?" "And" Where do we have the time or leisure to read the classics? We've been inundated with all kinds of print about the present."