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The classics are important because they are typically ‘classic’ due to their applicability over space and time. The authors managed to distil ever-recurring hum
by mikrl 4y ago
The classics are important because they are typically ‘classic’ due to their applicability over space and time. The authors managed to distil ever-recurring human drama and pathos (and the happy stuff too) into something timeless, though of course in the context of where and when they lived.
Every generation when it comes up will think they’re the first and best ones to experience anything, it’s just normal and always has been. Once the real world sets in or you hit your mid 20s angst (whichever comes first) the classics are a comfort and will connect you to a raw world of the past. You aren’t alone, nor especially abnormal nor special. Dostoevsky knew what you’d go through. Tolstoy already got your bullcrap. Hell, even Ovid can show you things and the Roman Empire is long dead.
Not everyone has to enjoy the same things and some haute things are definitely overrated. However, if you want to know yourself, your world and the other people in it in a way that transcends the capricious day-to-day, and has a bit more fuzziness, dimensionality (and spirit) than clinical psychology, the classics are waiting for you. They’ve seen it all before.
- oneoff786 4y agoI find a lot of classics to be foreign in their understanding of the human condition and generally just archaic, or deeply specific to their time and place.
- bckr 4y agoCan you give an example? I would love to read a blog post about this perspective
- oneoff786 4y agoWell I don’t write blogs. Or read much. Or write literary reviews. But let’s pick two. The odyssey is a very old classic. The framework of the adventure is still great. But Odysseus is a supremacist dick. He’s pretty similar to MCU Iron Man in terms of narrative and depth. We get the sense that it’s ok to kill the people in his home at the end because he is mighty Odysseus but I think that’s pretty lame. I could go on but it’s been too long to cite examples from memory. A tale of two cities was another one I enjoyed a lot as a teen. The sloppy romanticism of the dude who devotes his life to a love he will never have seemed really quaint, but now seems just pathetic. I’m actually really annoyed when I see behavior like this in fiction now. It’s very frequent in token gay characters because a lot of writers seem to assume that gay people fall in love with straight people and can never get over it. Stuff that’s resonated with me at a more thematic level recently… let’s say Parasite (Korean film), Mob Psycho 100 (anime, season 1), Over the Garden Wall, Bojack Horseman, and the midnight gospel. Not very universal, but they felt more relevant and more profound. The last one cheating a bit as it’s literally philosophical interviews. Good literature is entertaining and conveys some greater meaning. Classics tend to do a pretty good job on this, but entertainment and thematic relevance she over time quite a bit. The original SpongeBob SquarePants movie was a copy of the odyssey’s plot for entertainment but focused on a coming of age theme of what it means to be an adult and whether it was something to strive for. Dare I ask which of the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and the Odyssey is a better piece of literature for a 21st century kid? I think it’s a harder question than many would give credit. But I think regardless we should be more eager to discuss thematic comprehension of art with children for the stuff they watch. Because I spent a few years in school writing essays about how every book contained the theme of “Caring” and man that was fucking dumb.
- bckr 4y agoThanks for this response! Very brave comparing SpongeBob to The Odyssey, but also intriguing.
- pas 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33046327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33046327 ?