What is the purpose behind reading a classic?

[Allison]

Thats a good point...they've been around for a long time so must be worth something lol. I love the classics because of how rich the writing usually is. Austen's perfect prose and Dickens humour and how he describes things. All my favorite writers are "classic" writers. The 2 mentioned above, Hardy, Eliot, Gaskill. Lovely.

[Everyman]

Joy wrote: "My main reasons for reading classics are

1. To educate myself
2. To understand references in other literature

I realized recently that I don't particularly enjoy classics except for a few childre..."

That's too bad. In my case, I find most of the classics compelling reading in their own right, as well as for the insights into human nature that I get from them. Certainly there are a few classics I haven't enjoyed, but for the most part I find them much richer and more enjoyable, and usually far more subtle, than modern writing. I love being able to read books where I don't need to cringe at the excessive use of profanity or explicit sexuality. Not that Shakespeare isn't full of insult and sexuality, but it's just so beautifully and subtly offered.

[Everyman]

Joy wrote: "But for now, beating my head against the wall with Faulkner and Dickens. "

Faulkner, I totally agree. My head is aching from its beating, and I doubt I'll get much further in the work before it gets thrown against the wall (metaphorically; it's a library book and I respect those) instead of my head.

Dickens, now, I do understand what you're saying, but maybe you're just reading the wrong Dickens. Some of him I struggle with, and some I adore.

[Sheryl]

Not going to list all the posts that had me nodding my head in agreement, since all the reasons I read classics have been touched on more than once, but did want to say there are a lot of good thoughts here.

I’m in the “lots of people over a long period of time have thought this book was good, so odds are it’s probably better than average at least” camp. I also agree with Chesterton’s “let other generations have a vote” idea; we all tend to get trapped into the mindless assumptions of our own generation, and reading stuff from another time can shake you out of those and make you reassess things from a new perspective.

I like being knowledgeable and being “in the club of those who have read book x”, but both of those together would not be enough to motivate me to read classics. The reason I keep going back to try another classic is that I’ve read so many that I really enjoyed. If I didn’t enjoy them, all the “this is good for me” or “this makes me look good” reasoning in the world would not make me do it.

Although I really enjoy discussing books, and it’s dead easy to find discussion on a lot of classics, so that might make a difference. I’ve read a fair number of more recent books that didn’t really excite me, just because the people I enjoy talking books with were into them, and I needed to read the books to have a good understanding of the conversation!

Joy said:

I realized recently that I don't particularly enjoy classics except for a few children's stories.

And

for now, beating my head against the wall with Faulkner and Dickens.

I would not read classics if I didn’t enjoy some of them. OTOH, I am willing to slog through them a lot further than I would with an equally boring or annoying current fic. I really didn’t think much of the first 100 pages or so of Dicken’s Pickwick Papers -- then Sam Weller showed up, and I adore Sam Weller to the point that those 100 pages were totally worth the eventual payoff. I won’t read anything I can’t stand from the git go, but if a classic is just boring or not grabbing me I’ll either keep going for a while or put it on my “try again when you’re in a different mood” list. Books that aren’t classics that don’t grab me in the first chapter or two go directly to the “tried and not worth the effort” list.

[Nathalia]

I read classics or any old book for that matter to
A)entertain myself
B) be fascinated with the continuity of human emotions and troubles (makes ones own troubles seem less daunting).
C) lose myself in mores of different cultures. I find I emerge a little changed with a fresh perspective on my surroundings.
D) have the thrill of finding the "Original Storyline", the time a popular trope was created.