Hiiii! I’m new to reading classics, these past few months I’ve been really really interested in reading classics, actually, I’ve finished around 5 already and it’s really fun! But I always need to look up other people’s annotation and litcharts to fully understand it, I really want to read and understand it, please helpp mee:))))
by Kaylenirobredo
2 Comments
It’s okay to have to look up stuff. There are terms in some classics that you don’t see today, and other terms that have a different meaning today. For example, the word “countenance” is a noun that refers to the face or facial expressions, but also used to be a verb that meant “to put up with” – as in “She would not countenance a liar.” As a big Sherlock Holmes fan, I love the annotated volumes that have side notes explaining terms and giving background.
‘Classics’ is an annoyingly vague term at the best of times, but if there’s one thing that makes something a classic, it’s that there are decades or more of scholarly and critical responses to it just waiting to be enjoyed. A big part of the fun of reading a widely-loved work is getting to see what others have thought about it, discovering new perspectives on it, readings that you would never have come up with on your own.
So I wouldn’t worry at all if you feel you’re not ‘fully’ understanding when you read in isolation, nor that you’re turning to others’ thoughts to help you understand. On the contrary, if you *don’t* do that then you’re depriving yourself of a lot of enjoyment.