Why Read The Classics? By Italo Calvino

Why Read The Classics?

By Italo Calvino translated by Martin Mclaughlin

(1991) Penguin Books, London.

 

“This youthful reading can be (perhaps at the same time) literally formative in that it gives form or shape to our future experiences, providing them with models, ways of dealing with them, terms of comparison, schemes for categorizing them, scales of value, paradigms of beauty: all things which continue to operate in us even when we remember little or nothing about the book we read when young.” P.4

“Reading a classic must also surprise us, when we compare it to the image we previously had of it. That is why we can never recommend enough a first-hand reading of the text itself, avoiding as far as possible secondary bibliography, commentaries, and other interpretations.” P.5

“There is a reversal of values here which is very widespread, which means that the introduction, critical apparatus, and bibliography are used like a smokescreen to conceal what the text has to say and what it can only say if it is left to speak without intermediaries who claim to know more than the text itself.” P5-6

“it is no use reading the classics out of a sense of duty or respect, we should only read them for love.” P.6

“'Your' classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it.” P.7

“After that I should really rewrite it a third time, so that people do not believe that the classics must be read because they serve some purpose. The only reason that can be adduced in their favour is that reading the classics is always better then not reading them.” P.9