Classics

Recently, I took a job writing English Lit lessons for an online company. Kind of like Cliff’s Notes, but online.

For the most part, it has been an enjoyable experience. It has given me an excuse to revisit some of my favorite authors and titles, exploring them with new eyes and insight. It has pushed me to read books I always meant to read and never got around to like Life of Pi. It has convinced me that maybe I was a little too quick to dismiss authors like Hemingway and Dostoyevsky back in high school. Thinking critically and exploring Shakespeare has led to a deeper appreciation of his works than I ever got in my Shakespeare classes in college. A lot of it probably has to do with my growth as a reader, thinker, and educator, but I’m having fun looking at these texts in a more serious light.

However, not every text I have worked on has been enjoyable. Slogging through Moby Dick was the closest thing to torture I have ever experienced. I hated that book. And guess what, I wasn’t the only one. When it was published, everyone hated it too!

And this is my issue with classics.

There are many classics out there that deserve that title. I am thoroughly convinced Shakespeare was a genius. His works are like beautiful onions. Once you get past the language barrier, you are rewarded with layer upon layer of intricate meaning. They are timeless and universal stories of the human condition.

Melville also smashed tons of literary elements into his epic. More than plot or character development, in my opinion. I struggled to find the story for the forest of allusions, information dumps, and foreshadowing.

I also felt the subject hadn’t aged well. Something common in “classics.” I struggled with nautical terms, understanding the world of the story, and why I was wasting my time trying to summarize and analyze an industry and a world that would make no sense to a Millennial anyway. Or whatever generation we are in now. The truth is, there are plenty of other, more approachable, books that explore the same themes. Why make it harder on students? Or on myself?

I feel books like Moby Dick have become more of a status symbol than anything else. People who have read them are literary snobs or English professors. It’s like the top notch cosplayers or the comic book nerds who look down on newbies at conventions.

Just because a book is old does not mean it is good. A lot of “classics” seem to be hanging on just because the generation before and the generation before decided they were worth keeping around. Maybe they spoke to those generations, but that doesn’t mean they can speak to this one.

Literature can be a really stuffy place!