The Iliad and The Odyssey were two extraordinary reads from this summer (you can find the reviews in past blog posts by just searching their names), and it was an exciting challenge to compare the two in their varying styles, themes, and characters. For the first semester of my senior year, our central text of study ended up falling on The Aeneid, a fortunate circumstance that enabled me to discover a new classical epic through a guided approach. Our teacher, who extensively studied the poem, provided us with context, extra reading, and hidden connections that made the reading experience all the more engaging.
Reading a book simply for the pleasure or to expand your knowledge of the various literary works that have been published throughout history can be a truly satisfying process. However, with the amount of tasks we are required to accomplish on a daily basis, it can be difficult to uncover the mysteries and richness of each book that we go through on our time. That is why professors and academics dedicate years of study to introduce students to the wonder that can be found in a work, creating an enlightening experience where the pupil feels like they have been introduced to a world that would never have been possible outside of the classroom.
This is how I felt when making my journey through The Aeneid, joining the tradition of scholars who have studied the epic for over 2,000 years now (see post: "Part of a 2030 Year Old Tradition"). Since I've already talked about the enduring nature of The Aeneid in another post, the topic of this discussion is going to be the different ways in which we can read a book. Let's dive right into it.
1. Concentrating on Content
This is the approach that we are most familiar with because it is the one that marks the start of our adventure as readers. Sometimes we read books purely for the plot in order to enrich our life experiences with a character's development. Finding parallels between our stories and that of a fictional person can be an extremely helpful to gaining insight and motivation. This is why characters like Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, are widely studied because they relate to a huge variety of readers, with human impulses and fluctuations in their emotions that everybody goes through at some point or another.
2. Reading for its Respect
Some books have been dubbed classics because of the respect that they have earned for their literary merit. In order to become more "cultivated" as human beings, and read about enduring themes that our ancestors studied, we sometimes force ourselves to read the classics in order to examine some part of the human condition. Whether it is pure Aristotelian philosophy or a more recent 1920s book like The Great Gatsby, they are studied because they continue to offer valuable lessons throughout the ages.
3. Prioritizing Prose
If you have ever come across a sentence in a book where you just step back, let out a sigh, and say to yourself that you just read the most stunning sentence of all time, then you have experience with this type of reading. Some readers enjoy observing the author's way of formulating an argument or a description and focus more on the construction than the content. This can be especially true of a poem, which has a clear theme throughout. but is more interesting to study because of the author's way of employing rhyme, literary devices, and inverted sentences to create a smooth piece.
4. The Classroom
No alliteration for this one— this is what I was talking about at the beginning of the post. When you have a teacher who can pass on their years of study about a particular text in a series of classes, you end up diving into an author's world with more depth than you could ever do on your own. Blogs and websites dedicated to certain books exist to bring this experience to readers after they make it out of school, since people are always willing to share their thoughts about a life-changing work. Finding a community of scholars is the first step to fabricating a "classroom" that can share thoughts and direct everyone's attention to a certain part of a book that is worth looking into further.
Which approach are you using most right now? Which one have you found most helpful in your reading? Let me know and I'd love to hear your feedback! Thank you for your support!
11/20/20