Great Books? Please!

Jonathan Rose has an awesome article in the City Journal about the importance of classic authors and art to the working classes. Most of his examples are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in England and America, but his accounts of the joy and inspiration under- and uneducated people derive from classical literature, philosophy, and music blew a hole in my notions of who and what this stuff is about. It's not elitist, it's not irrelevant, and it's something that can apply to anyone at any time. That's why these things are considered classics.

Certainly we should examine the process whereby an author or work is declared to be a classic, something that was dominated for far too long by old, white men. But these books really are great, and by having a notion of certain works being considered classics circulating, it provides a well-demarcated path for self-educating readers to follow and branch away from at will.

The article goes into a lot of detail I don't want to recap here, but if you're at all interested in literature, it's definitely worth a read.