Saturday, May 24, 2025
ESSAY - READING CLASSICS
Speaking of learning to love books, especially, "The Classics", he made the point that many readers, especially young ones, are not interested because these books ARE classics that they are told they should "work" to learn, rather than as exciting, inspiring stories, often full of adventure and mystery.
He met a young girl from a French farm family, who was excited at reading "The History of Rome" for the umpteenth time, comparing it, as a tale of adventure, to other, dry, factual books that were available to her.
I thought of my own bonding to poetry.
We moved to an old house in 1949, and there, on the bookshelves for many years of my youth, was a leather bound book of poetry.
One day, in my teens, the soft leather binding caused me to pick it up, and browse through it, in a typical bored-teenager fashion, rejecting poem after poem.
Suddenly I came upon one which excited my young, adventure-craving mind, molded by the tales of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Having read that poem, and having experienced an epiphany of sorts, I searched the book for others. There, hidden, among love poems (anathema to a teenage boy); and idyllic, again, to a teenage boy, laughable descriptions of nature, I found more high adventure. I read one after another of these stories in rhyme, presented in short form, more powerful for the intensity packed into the few carefully chosen words, and images created in my mind by the poets.
I was hooked. Lost that book for a few years, but recovered it recently, thanks to the efforts and keen eye of my sister.
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Labels: Abbé Ernest Dimnet, donovan baldwin, essay, poet, poetry, reading classics, the art of thinking
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
The Pleasures Of Reading The Old Stuff
By: Donovan Baldwin
I read almost anything, but, I still enjoy reading "the classics", at least in bits and pieces.
I go back, and dip into the Iliad and the Odyssey, Moby Dick, The Three Musketeers, Tale of Two Cities, old Roman poetry, and so on, for many reasons.
One reason, of course, is that I had the good fortune to have had a bit of a classical education.
Three years of Latin at Pensacola Catholic High School: Caesar's Gallic Commentaries, some Cicero, etc. Confession; flunked third year Latin. Sorry, Mrs. Semmes. You did your best.
Most of it just remains jumbled bits and pieces these days, pushed out of my cerebral cortex by hurricanes, elections, practical college courses, tech manuals, too much alcohol on too many late nights, and life in general.
But, that's one reason I like to read the old stuff.
Before there were jet planes, cell phones, or men on the moon, there was a Moon, and men and women who enjoyed entertainment, thought about "stuff" even if not fully understanding it, had conversations with one another as they tried to understand themselves and the world around them, and the "stuff" in it.
Reading old stuff, not just "classics", but writing from earlier times, is about spending time with them...people...like you and me...in their time. Dressed funny, and talking weird, and probably drinking really bad wine, but, still, like you and me.
Old friends.
I go back, and dip into the Iliad and the Odyssey, Moby Dick, The Three Musketeers, Tale of Two Cities, old Roman poetry, and so on, for many reasons.
One reason, of course, is that I had the good fortune to have had a bit of a classical education.
Three years of Latin at Pensacola Catholic High School: Caesar's Gallic Commentaries, some Cicero, etc. Confession; flunked third year Latin. Sorry, Mrs. Semmes. You did your best.
Most of it just remains jumbled bits and pieces these days, pushed out of my cerebral cortex by hurricanes, elections, practical college courses, tech manuals, too much alcohol on too many late nights, and life in general.
But, that's one reason I like to read the old stuff.
Before there were jet planes, cell phones, or men on the moon, there was a Moon, and men and women who enjoyed entertainment, thought about "stuff" even if not fully understanding it, had conversations with one another as they tried to understand themselves and the world around them, and the "stuff" in it.
Reading old stuff, not just "classics", but writing from earlier times, is about spending time with them...people...like you and me...in their time. Dressed funny, and talking weird, and probably drinking really bad wine, but, still, like you and me.
Old friends.
Labels: Caesar's Gallic Commentaries, Cicero, classics, donovan baldwin, Latin, Pensacola, Pensacola Catholic High School, reading classics
