Once you leave middle school, you may have less freedom to choose which novels to read--at least for school assignments. Classics like Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, and The Scarlet Letter are more likely to show up on reading lists than The Hunger Games or novels in the Twilight or Percy Jackson series. Classic literature--novels, poems, and plays that have continued to impress adult readers for generations--can be challenging to read, sometimes because they were written so long ago. You may find it hard to relate to the characters as easily, and you may encounter many words that you don't recognize.
Why do English teachers make their students read classic literature? The video below may provide some insight.
I'm sure you can think of a thousand things you find more interesting than Homer's Odyssey or the Epic of Gilgamesh--watching TV, hanging out with your friends, playing sports. All of those things are well and fine, but do any of them teach you to think critically--to consider human nature? To practice deep thinking, we turn to the classics.
There are four basic instincts which all humans share:
- survival and security
- social mobility, power, and relationships
- adventure and excitement
- to gain meaning, to know oneself
The classics force us to think. First, we are to think about the characters in the story, then about ourselves, then about the people we know, and finally, about humanity in general. Reading classics can be tough--deep thinking isn't always easy or pleasant. Despite their difficulty, classics teach us how to think and demand that we exercise our intelligence.
Each culture is different because it has different shared stories. Different stories define each family, religion, and nation. We all connect ourselves to stories--stories are how we understand each other and ourselves. By reading classics, we connect to the people who share the stories, informing our own lives and giving us a lens through which to understand the world's narrative.
So cracking open Marcus Aurelius' Meditations or Sun Tzu's Art of War might not make you as excited as Monday Night Football, but it is clear which provokes more thought. The only thing anyone has is his or her experience--the beauty of the world is getting to share in other people's stories.
Question
What might you gain from the classic literature that you'll be asked to read in high school?
