Does reading classic literature really help us?

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Lost World

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Over the past few months I've taken to reading literature, mostly short fiction, by some of the great literary masters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I've developed an appreciation for it, one never felt during high school and college when the works of such figures were forced upon me by English teachers. Most of these men, when on their game, could seriously write, while others are and always have been overrated. For example, Silas Marner will still suck long after all of us have gone to the grave.

The question regarding these authors and their works is just as the title says. While the best of these stories are highly entertaining for those with the attention spans to handle them, are they what we should be reading in order to improve our own work in the present day? I think we could all benefit from their vast vocabularies and eloquence, but their rhythm is non-applicable in a modern sense, as is the length of their stories and the amount of extraneous information crammed in. Thus, I'm not sure these men play a role any longer in the education of the modern writer, who must be brief and to the point, his eyes ever on the word count in the bottom left corner, always writing "for a market".

Just wondering what others think about this.
 

JoNightshade

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Not sure why you refer to them as "men." Silas Marner was written by a woman. And it's what they give to people who aren't ready for Adam Bede or Middlemarch.
 

CaroGirl

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Depends on what you mean by "help," I suppose. What are you looking for help with by reading literary classics? I think if you want to expand your literary knowledge for discussion purposes, reading widely is essential. It's also essential if you want to write, read or discuss comparative literative. You can't compare literary works if you haven't read widely.

I also think people who haven't read classics are simply missing out. They're classics for a reason. There are some great works out there if people could only expand their mind enough to give them a try. Get over the whole my crappy 9th grade teacher with the nose hair and crusty armpits made me read Henry V and I'll forever hate both him AND Shakespeare.
 

TrickyFiction

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I loved Silas Marner, but I was an unwanted/adopted child so maybe I had a personal connection to the characters. If I recall, it was the characters who drove that story almost completely.

As to the question, I believe everything you read can help you improve your writing. You've just got to find the lesson in it. Like experiences--anything in life can be used as soon as you learn how to use it.
 

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I read a lot of female authors, as well as male authors, from that time period, and I think there is a great deal to take away from their works.

The things you cited are outdated, yes. Usually, I just overlook those traits. The story, themes, commentary on society, etc. are so strong in those works. They are wonderful to read, if you can cut through the excess.
 

gothicangel

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Classics are full of ideas and literary tricks modern authors could do worse than observing.

George Eliot is brilliant at psychological insight. James Joyce is a master class in povs. Dickens is a genuis when it comes to setting/atmosphere. As for Shakespeare - well he's credited with writing the book on master plots.
 

Kitty Pryde

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I think the stuff that's survived this long and still being read by people has something to offer us, primarily an engaging story. When I think about 'classic lit' the first thing that pops into my head is Nothing Happens. Like, some people mope around because they can't be with the one they love, they go to war but it's boring, they hate someone but they never do anything about it. Obviously this is a gross overgeneralization, and there are plenty of classics with a decent quantity of action, but my point is that while all this nothing much is going on, the storytelling is good enough that people keep reading to find out what happens. That's what I try to take away from books like that.

On the other hand, in high school and college I was mostly spared English Class Of Reading Books By Old Dead White European Guys. In high school, I was in an IB program, so we read books from all over the world, from Man-eater of Malgudi by RK Narayan to El Indio by Lopez Y Fuentes.

In college, we had to take Freshman lit, and I opted for the only available course that wasn't Old Dead White Guy Books 101. Instead we read stuff from native writers in south america and mexico, from ancient times up to modern stuff, and it was awesome. For my other lit requirements, I took Ancient Chinese Lit from an ancient chinese professor, and it was great.

Anyways, what's your point, Long-winded Kitteh? I have a point. Which is that American classrooms (and UK ones too, I think) have always taught the Old Dead White Guy lit, which is good, but there's a whole huge pile of good old stuff by other folks, from which we can learn just as much.

Over the past few months I've taken to reading literature, mostly short fiction, by some of the great literary masters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I've developed an appreciation for it, one never felt during high school and college when the works of such figures were forced upon me by English teachers. Most of these men, when on their game, could seriously write, while others are and always have been overrated. For example, Silas Marner will still suck long after all of us have gone to the grave.

Just wondering what others think about this.
 

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Classic works have filled me with admiration, awe and loathing. There are some classics I will want to reread - ranging from Jane Austen to Bram Stoker's Dracula. I have learnt a lot of things from them, for example how and how not to change and describe locations.

CaroGirl, Shakespeare did not write his plays to be studied but to be performed in front of a live audience. Try seeing a good production of one of his plays - preferably one of the comedies. Last summer I went to an outdoor performance of Henry V - there was a cast of five and it poured with rain! It was a brilliant evening!
 

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CaroGirl, Shakespeare did not write his plays to be studied but to be performed in front of a live audience. Try seeing a good production of one of his plays - preferably one of the comedies. Last summer I went to an outdoor performance of Henry V - there was a cast of five and it poured with rain! It was a brilliant evening!
Personally, I adore Shakespeare, even when I'm just reading him. But the problem is so many high school teachers forget their students need to see the play performed to fully appreciate his genius. No one exposes the intricacies of the human condition like old Willie, that's what I thinks.
 

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Personally, I adore Shakespeare, even when I'm just reading him. But the problem is so many high school teachers forget their students need to see the play performed to fully appreciate his genius. No one exposes the intricacies of the human condition like old Willie, that's what I thinks.


I agrees with you!
 

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Reading classic literature is part of sharing a common culture. I think it would be sad if what authors wrote never outlived them.
 

JoNightshade

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Okay now that I've calmed down enough to actually answer the question in a coherent manner... ;)

Saying classic lit is useless is like saying HISTORY is useless. After all, why should I learn about old dead guys who fought wars way back when? There's plenty of stuff going on today that I need to know about. Why waste time and energy learning about the past?

Whether you're aware of it or not, modern literature is a product of all the literature that has come before it. Whether we're talking about a literary masterpiece or your here-today-gone-tomorrow mass produced fiction. I mean, the form of the novel itself has evolved over time. What we understand as "standard novel structure" wasn't always so. The use of certain linguistic structures has evolved only as a response to previous conventions, and the conventions before that.

Literature is a conversation through time and generations. You can muddy along well enough without knowing anything about it, but you're still a product of it whether you want to be or not. Someone well read in literature has a greater and deeper command of language and communication, while someone who hasn't a clue will be more hit-and-miss. Personally, I'd rather join in the conversation than ignore it.
 

Lost World

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I also think people who haven't read classics are simply missing out. They're classics for a reason. There are some great works out there if people could only expand their mind enough to give them a try. Get over the whole my crappy 9th grade teacher with the nose hair and crusty armpits made me read Henry V and I'll forever hate both him AND Shakespeare.

Actually, I happen to enjoy Shakespeare; to me he doesn't fall into the forced literature category. Henry V is one of my favorites, along with Julius Caesar and Richard III.

Conrad is my favorite of all--action literature to extreme. His sailors, soldiers and colonial explorers--the latter portrayed for the nasty ethnocentrists that they were--are a refreshing respite from modern times, where society celebrates lawyers and stockbrokers as the highest expressions of manhood.
 

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Reading classic literature is part of sharing a common culture. I think it would be sad if what authors wrote never outlived them.
QFT.

I think m favorite part of writing is the idea of being immortal.
 

gothicangel

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Well put!

I saw an RSC production of The Tempest; Patrick Stewart was amazing as Prospero (I even got the jokes!)

Also I agree with Kitty's point of reading non-European writers. This semester I will be reading everything from Medieval to Victorian literature (and after reading Gulliver's Travels realised I hated Jonathan Swift's political posturing); but looking forward to February when I will be reading a module in post-colonial literature.
 

Lost World

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On the other hand, in high school and college I was mostly spared English Class Of Reading Books By Old Dead White European Guys. In high school, I was in an IB program, so we read books from all over the world, from Man-eater of Malgudi by RK Narayan to El Indio by Lopez Y Fuentes.

That's wonderful, and I agree that students should be required to read literature from diverse cultures.

However, why must you refer to certain literary greats as "Old Dead White European Guys"? Kind of an offensive double standard, don't you think? I doubt you would refer to Dumas as "an Old Dead Octaroon", or Sun Tsu as "an Old Dead Chinaman".

I realize that in universities today anything written or created by a white male is looked down upon. Seems the brainwashing is taking hold...
 

Kitty Pryde

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That's wonderful, and I agree that students should be required to read literature from diverse cultures.

However, why must you refer to certain literary greats as "Old Dead White European Guys"? Kind of an offensive double standard, don't you think? I doubt you would refer to Dumas as "an Old Dead Octaroon", or Sun Tsu as "an Old Dead Chinaman".

I realize that in universities today anything written or created by a white male is looked down upon. Seems the brainwashing is taking hold...

I did say old dead white guy lit was good, to be fair. And I'm not hating on it. And no, it's not even close to true that "in universities today anything written or created by a white male is looked down upon". I'm merely saying there's TONS of other stuff written by other people, just as good but badly neglected in the US/also UK I think.

And no, I would not ever call anyone, dead or not, a chinaman or an octoroon. You are the one coming up with offensive terms. I'm not sure how white or european are offensive terms.
 

Shakesbear

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That's wonderful, and I agree that students should be required to read literature from diverse cultures.

However, why must you refer to certain literary greats as "Old Dead White European Guys"
? Kind of an offensive double standard, don't you think? I doubt you would refer to Dumas as "an Old Dead Octaroon", or Sun Tsu as "an Old Dead Chinaman".

I realize that in universities today anything written or created by a white male is looked down upon. Seems the brainwashing is taking hold...

Possibly because they are presented to many students as such. And also possibly, because the curriculum in many places only had value for literature by old dead white European guys!

Hamlet does indeed rock and has a pertinent quote:

Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
II ii 255
 

The Lonely One

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Over the past few months I've taken to reading literature, mostly short fiction, by some of the great literary masters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I've developed an appreciation for it, one never felt during high school and college when the works of such figures were forced upon me by English teachers. Most of these men, when on their game, could seriously write, while others are and always have been overrated. For example, Silas Marner will still suck long after all of us have gone to the grave.

The question regarding these authors and their works is just as the title says. While the best of these stories are highly entertaining for those with the attention spans to handle them, are they what we should be reading in order to improve our own work in the present day? I think we could all benefit from their vast vocabularies and eloquence, but their rhythm is non-applicable in a modern sense, as is the length of their stories and the amount of extraneous information crammed in. Thus, I'm not sure these men play a role any longer in the education of the modern writer, who must be brief and to the point, his eyes ever on the word count in the bottom left corner, always writing "for a market".

Just wondering what others think about this.

To me, this type of reading is important in the respect a history class is important. It's a matter of perspective, a grasp of a timeline, a realization of the evolution of a language (depending on where you're from). Of course you should read modern stuff, but I don't think it's best to let that stuff float around in a vacuum.
 

Lost World

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And no, I would not ever call anyone, dead or not, a chinaman or an octoroon. You are the one coming up with offensive terms. I'm not sure how white or european are offensive terms.
My point is that it would be nice not to have race injected into every topic. Fine writing is fine writing; who cares what race the writer was? It's their characters, perspectives, and plots that matter.
 

Kitty Pryde

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My point is that it would be nice not to have race injected into every topic. Fine writing is fine writing; who cares what race the writer was? It's their characters, perspectives, and plots that matter.

Indeed, who cares what race the writer was? This is kind of the point I'm making. But almost every high school and college curriculum in general lit or american lit is almost entirely filled with books by white people, most of whom are European, and most of whom are male, and most of whom are dead! Why? The answer is long, but the abridged version is racism of the past.

So while we're learning from writers of the past by reading Old Dead White Guy Lit, why be restrained by racism in the past? Why not also read Old Dead Black African Guy Lit? Old Dead Native South American Woman Lit? Old Dead Chinese Guy Lit? etc etc etc. That's pretty pertinent to a discussion of the merits of a bunch of books that are by consensus considered the greats of the past but don't include any books by people who aren't white.
 

Red-Green

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My point is that it would be nice not to have race injected into every topic. Fine writing is fine writing; who cares what race the writer was? It's their characters, perspectives, and plots that matter.

Oh, right. That's it, that's what help we get from "classic literature." It helps us benefit from what's come before. So we don't have to re-invent the wheel. So every Intro to Creative Writing Class student doesn't have to stumble about unassisted, trying to figure out the narrative techniques and characterizations that are most effective.
 

katiemac

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Indeed, who cares what race the writer was? This is kind of the point I'm making. But almost every high school and college curriculum in general lit or american lit is almost entirely filled with books by white people, most of whom are European, and most of whom are male, and most of whom are dead! Why? The answer is long, but the abridged version is racism of the past.

I was damn lucky in high school to have an American Lit teacher who turned her back on the system and picked different books for us to read than what the curriculum wanted her to teach.

I got to study Their Eyes Were Watching God, The House on Mango Street and The Autobiography of Malcom X in addition to things like Streetcar Named Desire, Huck Finn and Grapes of Wrath (which I hated, incidentally, but that's another matter). This was during my junior year when the other classes were restricted to the so-called Dead White Guy Lit.
 
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