How a newer take on these older books could be key in bringing the classics to new generations. 

For decades, certain novels have captured the imagination of readers more than others. That raises the inevitable question: what exactly is a “classic,” and is it relevant at all? After all, there are no specific time periods, no tangible requisites, and certainly no set council of critics for bestowing this title. In fact, a classic is precisely known for its “timelessness.” The great Roman lyric poet, Horace, had described this phenomenon with his Odes III as a “monument more lasting than bronze.” In Mark Twain’s words, a classic is “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” What, then, constitutes a classic’s significance, if not its timelessness?

This conundrum is further complicated by the decline in literary reading in the US. In 2015, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reported that the percentage of adults who read at least one work of literature that year,  purely for pleasure, was the lowest in three decades. The report also established a strong correlation between education level and literary reading in today’s society, with those having a graduate degree making up the highest percentage of readers. Despite that, given that the number of college graduates has doubled since the NEA first started surveying in 1982, literary reading has been declining overall. 

One reason is the endless number of distractions that the modern world has to offer. South Senior Timothy Cho reflected that “we are often lost in our screens. With many alternatives to spend our time, we are less willing to pick up a novel.” Among highschool students, there is hardly enough time to read for pleasure. 

“I think many people feel really occupied with other things in their life that seem to have a more direct benefit, like work and school.” South Senior Iris Lin said. “I don’t think people dislike reading, but maybe feel as if other things should be more of a priority.” 

But even within the halls of institutions, many are questioning the relevance of the classics – especially those that are strictly the products of their times and are starkly in contrast with our own. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, for instance, shows conspicuous racism despite being critical of the hypocrisy and suffering of Belgian colonialism. Rudyard Kipling’s Kim – an Irish orphan in India who becomes the disciple of a Tibetan monk – is not overtly offensive in and of itself, but it is overshadowed by Kipling’s outspoken defense of colonialism in his other works. Despite all that, must we condemn their literary significance, their vigor, their incredible capacity to capture all the complexities of human emotion? 

One way is to treat the classics as a window to the past, a set of binoculars that we can use to broaden our perspective of the world and our history. The world of colonialism and prejudice are hardly a monochrome issue. Reading the classics – even the controversial ones – is invaluable for having nuanced discussions around colonialism, equality, and race.

“I think that because we don’t accept certain prejudices anymore, it makes reading books that may have these themes all the more important. Being educated on how our society has progressed is important, and a crucial aspect of that is understanding the degree at which it has taken effect in the past,” Lin elaborated.

Cho further emphasized that, “I feel that it is possible to acknowledge the literary significance of the Classics…because it does not mean excusing or ignoring… [their] prejudices, but rather analyzing their implications. However, there is a point where we have to draw the line…All in all, it is subjective.”

Some Classics, though, are hardly controversial at all, such as Tolstoy’s leviathan, War and Peace, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or the Brothers Karamazov, or Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Yet, they are often reserved for college classrooms and hardly seem to feature in the high school English curricula. The growing apathy for the classics may be due to a lack of variety, with the same set of novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird or the Scarlet Letter or the Great Gatsby, occupying the shelves of English classrooms year after year. If introduced to the great variety of classics from an earlier age, people will undoubtedly enjoy them much more. 

Another dilemma is how to diversify English classrooms. While a noble endeavor, the novels by authors of color included in classrooms are often recent and tend to focus directly on issues of race and prejudice, giving the false impressions that there are no “classics” from other parts of the world and that a novel by a person of color has to solely focus on issues of race. 

In 1913, the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore, became the first Non-European to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. With the onslaught of the First World War, he was lauded as the mythical man of the East who promoted peace and possessed some sort of spiritual intelligence to reward a war-torn West. In fact, Tagore received the most criticism and praise for this supposed “mysticism” in his work. European intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell and T.S. Elliot gravely criticized Tagore’s literary significance, believing that they were anti-logic. On the other hand, figures like Irish poet William Yeats applauded and emphasized this “spirituality.” In reality, Tagore was known for his deeply liberal and secular thinking at home, and often denounced institutionalized religion and largely defended science and reason throughout his life. This is just one example of how novels by authors of color are expected to be “different,” or to have ambiguous, spiritual jargon. 

Just as the classics by European authors explore universal themes of the human condition, so do the classics from other parts of the world. They serve as a tool for peering into the lives of the past – their poetry, and their prejudices. Instead of consciously picking novels solely for the purposes of discussing diversity, it is important to have a variety of novels both old and new, both directly addressing race and not, to enjoy the diversity of literature to its fullest. 

Part of the reason behind the classics’ towering glory is their legacy, their impeccable mark on the history of literature and civilization, their ability to “speak” despite being from a time long gone. It would be a shame to lose that, standing from a moral high ground and scrutinizing the actions of authors through our modern lens. 

By Sophie Anjum