3 ms·

It is a fine thing to revisit the question from time to time, but I doubt we will ever get a better answer than C.S.Lewis gave: https://stmonicaacademy.com/wp-c

It is a fine thing to revisit the question from time to time, but I doubt we will ever get a better answer than C.S.Lewis gave: https://stmonicaacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/C.S.-Lewis-On-the-Reading-of-Old-Books.pdf https://stmonicaacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/C.S.-... Which is not, again, a reason not to try.

veddox 6y ago
That essay was the first thing I thought of when I read the title :-)
jwilber 6y ago
To be honest, reading that essay reminded me why I (personally) don’t enjoy classics more than modern work: the language of modern works is already familiar, making for a far more enjoyable experience. I do enjoy some classics (love Dostoyevsky), but in general if I open a book and find the prose to be more of a hike than a stream, I don’t open it again.
- jweir 6y ago
  Keep in mind many classics are translated and retranslated in a contemporary tongue. I was reading some Plutarch and found it incredibly accessible and easy to read - most Latin texts that I have read are quiet easy. Until I started reading them I was expecting something more like the Bible - so terse it is exhausting.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  It doesn't take inordinately much practice/exposure to get into the flow of (good) past writing in a language you are fluent in, and if you keep at it, it gets easier with practice. You do have to pay a bit of attention to words whose meanings have drifted over time; comparable to false cognates in a foreign language.