At least for those who are regarded as "learned"; Not suitable for young people, because they are at such an age, it is very important for them to get in touch with the world and the classic works that have become part of the world, precisely because this is their first contact.
For some people who are ashamed to admit that they haven't read famous books, it may represent a little hypocrisy. In order to reassure them, it is enough to point out that no matter how widely a person reads during the period of character formation, there will always be many important works that have not been finished.
Raise your hand if you have read all the works of Herodotus and Thucydides. What about Saint-Simon? Where's cardinal Reyes? Even the19th century great novels are usually mentioned more times than read. In France, they began to read Balzac at school. Judging from the sales of various versions, it is obvious that people continue to read him after the end of their student days. However, if we make a formal survey of Balzac's popularity in Italy, his ranking is likely to be very low. Dickens' admirers in Italy are a few elites. As soon as we met, we began to recall all kinds of characters and fragments, as if we were talking about people we knew in real life. Many years ago, when Michelle Bhutto was teaching in the United States, people always asked him about Zola, which annoyed him. Because he had never read Zola, he made up his mind to read the whole series of Lugongmaca Family. He found that it was completely different from his imagination: it was a fable and a mythical genealogy.
The above examples show that it is a great pleasure to read a great work for the first time when a person is a full adult, which is very different from adolescence (it is hard to say whether there is more fun). In adolescence, every reading, like every experience, will add a unique taste and meaning; At a mature age, one will appreciate (or should appreciate) more details, levels and meanings. Therefore, we might as well try other ways:
Second, classic works are books that constitute valuable experience for those who have read and loved them; But for those who seize this opportunity and wait until the best time to enjoy it, they are still rich experiences.
Because the reality is that what we read when we are young is often of little value, because we lack patience, concentration and reading skills, or because we lack life experience. This kind of reading of teenagers may (or at the same time) have the function of forming character, because it gives us a form or form of future experience, provides a model for these experiences, provides a means to deal with these experiences, and compares the wording. The method of classifying these experiences, the standard of values, and the example of beauty: all these things continue to affect us, even if we have almost forgotten or completely forgotten the books we read when we were young. When we reread this book in a mature period, we will rediscover the unchanging things that now form part of our internal mechanism, although we don't remember where they came from. This kind of work has a special effect, that is, it may be forgotten, but the seeds remain with us.
3. Classic works are books with special influence. They either leave a mark on our imagination through forgetting, or disguise themselves as individual or collective unconsciousness and hide in the depths of memory.
For this reason, one's adult life should be devoted to rediscovering the most important works we read in adolescence. Even if these books remain unchanged (in fact, they change with the change of historical perspective), we must have changed, so this connection is brand-new.
Therefore, it doesn't matter whether we use the verb "read" or "stress". In fact, we can say:
A classic is a book, which will be found every time it is reread, just like reading it for the first time.
A classic is a book, which seems to relive what we have read before, even when we first read it.
The above fourth definition can be regarded as the inevitable result of the following definitions:
A classic is a book that never exhausts everything it has to tell readers.
The fifth definition means the following more complicated equation:
7. Classic works are books that come to us with the special atmosphere explained by predecessors, dragging behind them the footprints left when they cross culture or multiculturalism (or just multiculturalism and customs).
This applies to ancient and modern classics. If I read the Odyssey, I am reading Homer's text, but I can't forget everything that The Adventures of Ulysses have represented for centuries. I can't help wondering whether these meanings are implied in the original text or gradually added, deformed or expanded later. If I read Kafka, I will reject the adjective "Kafkaesque" while recognizing its legitimacy. Because we always hear it used to refer to anything. If I read Turgenev's Father and Son or Dostoevsky's Devil, I can't help but think about how the characters in these books have been reincarnated into our time.
Reading a classic work will definitely surprise us when we compare it with what we thought before. That's why we always recommend reading first-hand information repeatedly and try to avoid second-hand bibliographies, comments and other explanations. Middle schools and universities should strengthen the concept that any book discussing another book will not be better than the book under discussion. However, what they try their best to convince students is actually the opposite. There is a reversal of popular values, that is, the introduction, the criticism machine and the bibliography are used like a smoke screen, which blurs what the text must say and can only be said without a middleman, who always claims to know more than the text itself. Therefore, we can sum up as follows:
8. A classic work is a work that constantly creates a cloud of criticism around it, but always gets rid of those particles.
A classic work doesn't have to teach us what we don't know; Sometimes we find something in a classic that we already know or always thought we knew, but we didn't expect the classic text to have said it (or that idea has a special connection with that text). This discovery is also a very satisfying accident. For example, when we find out the source of an idea, or its connection with a text, or who said it first, we always feel this way. To sum up, we can draw the following definitions:
Classic works are such books. The more we hear from hearsay, the more we think we know them. When we really read them, the more we feel that they are unique, unexpected and novel.
Of course, this is usually because the text of the classic works "plays" the classic role, that is, establishes a personal relationship with the reader. If there is no spark, this practice is meaningless: it is useless to read classic works out of duty or respect, and we should only read them because we like them. Except during school: whether you like it or not, the school will teach you to read some classic works, among which (or pass) however, only those things you choose after or outside school education are valuable.
Only in compulsory reading will you come across books that will become "your" books. I know an excellent art history expert, an extremely broad person. Of all the works he has read, he likes The Tale of Pickwick best. In any discussion, he will quote a fragment from Dickens' book and relate everything in his life to Pickwick's life. Gradually, he, the universe and it. In a process of complete cognition, they are presented in the form of Pickwick's stories. Walking along this road, you will form the idea of a classic work, which is both daunting and demanding:
Classics are used to describe the name of any book that represents the whole universe, a book comparable to an ancient amulet.
This definition brings us closer to the concept of an all-encompassing book, which is the kind of book that Malarme dreamed of. But a classic work can also establish a firm relationship of opposition or opposition instead of identification. All Rousseau's thoughts and actions are good to me, but they make me have an overwhelming sense of urgency to resist him, criticize him and argue with him. Of course, this is out of place with my personality. The fact is, I can't help but regard him as one of my authors. So, I want to say:
Your classic is such a book that you can't be indifferent to it. It helps you to establish yourself in your relationship with it and even in the process of opposing it.
I don't think it's necessary to defend my use of the name "classic". I don't need to distinguish between antiquity, style and authority here. (The history of the above meaning of this name is described in detail in the "classic" entry written by Franco Fortyny for the third volume of the Encyclopedia of Enoch. Based on my point of view, the difference between a classic work may only lie in what we have learned from a book, whether ancient or modern, but in
Twelve, a classic is earlier than other classic works; But those who read other classic works first can immediately recognize its position in the genealogy of many classic works.
At this point, I can't put aside a key issue, that is, how to coordinate the relationship between reading classics and reading all other non-classic texts. This question is related to other questions, such as: "Why should we read classic works instead of those that give us a deeper understanding of our own times?" And "where do we have time and leisure to read classic works?" We are now overwhelmed by all kinds of printed matter. "
Thirteen, classic works are works that adjust the current noise to the background light tone, and this background light tone is indispensable for the existence of a classic work.
Fourteen, a classic work is such a work, even if it is out of tune with it, it still insists on becoming background noise.
The fact remains that reading classic works seems to be inconsistent with our pace of life, and our pace of life can't afford to leave long time or space for humanists' leisure; This is also inconsistent with the elitism in our culture, which can never compile a catalogue of classic works in line with our times.
On the contrary, this is exactly the living environment of Li Aupart Di: living in his father's castle, he had to use his father Monaldo's formidable library to dedicate ancient Greek and Latin books, and added all Italian literature and all French literature to the library at that time-except for recording novels and newly published works, which were very few. It's just to amuse my sister ("Your Stendhal" is the term he used to talk about French novelists with Pauline). Aupart Di even picked up a text that was by no means "recent" to satisfy his extreme enthusiasm for scientific and historical works, reading Buffon's works on bird habits, Fontenelle，Bernard Le Bovier de's works on Frederic Rice's mummy, and Robinson's works on Columbus.
Today, it is hard to imagine being influenced by such classical works as young Lee Aupart Di, especially when his father's library of Count Monaldo has collapsed. When I say collapse, I mean that there are few old books left, and new books have spread to all modern literature and culture. What we can do now is to let each of us invent our ideal classic library. And I want to say that half of them should include books that we have read and are beneficial to us, and the rest should be books that we intend to read and assume are beneficial to us. We should also give some space to accidental books and books discovered by chance.
I noticed that Li Aupart Di was the only name I mentioned in Italian literature. This is the result of the collapse of that collection. Now I should rewrite the whole article, and make it clear that the classics will help us understand who we are and where we are, and then understand that Italian classics are indispensable to us Italians, otherwise we will not be able to compare foreign classics. Similarly, foreign classics are indispensable, otherwise it is impossible to compare Italian classics.
Then, I really should rewrite this article for the third time, lest people believe that they want to read classic works because they think they have some purpose. The only reason that can be cited to please them is that reading classic works is better than not reading at all.
And if someone objects that they are not worth the effort, I would like to quote Giolen (not a classic writer, at least not a classic writer, but a modern thinker who is being translated into Italian): "Socrates was practicing a tune with a flute when preparing the poison. "What's the use," someone asked him, "at least I can learn this song before I die." "
Another: Excerpt from the translation of "Definition of Classics" (arbitrary translation)
1. Classics are books that we often hear people say "I am rereading …" instead of "I am reading …".
2. We regard books that people read and cherish affectionately as classics; But not only those lucky enough to read them for the first time will cherish them and appreciate them.
3. Classics have special influence. They can't be erased from my mind. They are hidden in the memory layer of the brain, disguised as a collective or individual unconscious.
Every time you reread a classic, just like reading it for the first time, it is a journey of discovery.
Every time I read a classic, it is actually a kind of pressure.
6. Classics are never said, but they are all finished.
7. Classics are handed down to us with traces of reading in the past, and left to culture, or more specifically, to language and customs.
8. Classics don't necessarily teach us things we didn't know before. In classic works, we sometimes find something we already know (or think we know), but we don't know that it was first put forward by the author, or at least related to it in a special way. This is also a surprise that brings us great joy, just as we can always benefit from the discovery of bloodline, blood relationship and in-laws.
By reading the classics, we feel that they are far fresher, more unexpected and more incredible than hearsay imagined.
10. We think that classic books have a general form, which can be compared with ancient magic weapons. According to this definition, we are approaching the realm of "complete book" conceived by Malamei.
1 1. A classic writer is the kind of writer you can't ignore. He helps define your relationship with him, even if you disagree with him.
12. Classics can only be determined by weighing with other classics; But everyone will read other classics before reading them, so that they can immediately confirm their position in the genealogy.
13. Classics are such things that it is easy to reduce the current interest to background noise, but at the same time it is inseparable from this background noise.
14. Classics exist with background noise, even though diametrically opposite interests control the situation.