Lessons from Clouds and Literature When it Comes to Classics

I don't think that we reread classics because they are always the best, it would be really difficult to measure the best, and I believe many classics are not the best.

I think that literature is culture, or a part of it, and reading classics is because others have read them and we will keep rereading them. When you read a classic, it connects you to the culture of literature. Somehow, between High School English and Graduate Degrees, I think that we missed the point of reading classics.

It is not because they are the best.

It is not because we like them even.

It is because other's read them, and this creates the culture of literature.

Recently, I found myself staring at the sky in the Southwest, captivated by the shifting clouds. I wanted a poem to complement the photo and that search led me to Emily Dickinson’s poem,

“The Clouds their Backs together laid."

The Clouds their Backs together laid,

The North begun to push—

The Forests galloped till they fell,

The Lightning skipped like mice—

The Thunder crumbled like a stuff—

How good to be safe in tombs,

Where Nature's temper cannot reach,

Nor vengeance ever comes!

When I read Dickinson’s poem about clouds, I really do enjoy it, and I become a part of the countless readers who enjoy and will enjoy her poetry.

Impact Classic Literature has on Culture

Classic literature shapes culture because it becomes part of our shared imaginative history—stories and voices that generations return to, reference, debate, rewrite, resist, and reinvent. But when the "classics" is a narrow slice of humanity, it reinforces power rather than humanity and cultivates an echo chamber. The definition of “classic” must include the work of women, writers of different races, authors from varied socioeconomic backgrounds, and those who live at the margins. A culture of literature cannot grow from exclusivity, as a true classic resonates across time, and resonance is not owned by any one demographic.

Literature becomes classic not because it is “the best”—a standard that is both impossible to measure and shaped by historical bias—but because readers continue to engage with it. Readers pass texts to one another, teach them, argue with them, respond to them, and reinterpret them. Culture is created through participation.

So here, here is to participating! Here is to reading women authors and calling them classics and here is to expanding the definition of "classic" to include the human experience as it embodies a culture of reading and literature.