午夜剧场

The modern world is overflowing with a vast amount of information, where it is difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. Looking at the internet, it is truly an inexhaustible sea of information. The biggest problem with information overload is that truth and genuine good books are hidden. This is because bad money drives out good. In this sea of information, modern people are in a state where they do not know what to rely on. At such a time, the most reliable guidepost is the "Classics."

Because hundreds or thousands of years have acted as a sieve, there are no mistakes. It is the most efficient way to encounter a good book. This is the first reason I recommend the classics. The second reason is that "books that are immediately useful soon become useless" (Shinzo Koizumi, "On Reading"). Books that sell by riding the current trends stop being read once those trends pass. Who remembers the bestsellers from 20 or 30 years ago? The great writer Goethe mentions the names of then-bestselling authors in his "Conversations with Eckermann," but there is not a single author or work among them that we know today. Books selling in bookstores now will attract no one's interest in 10 years. However, the classics are different. You want to pull them off the shelf and read them every 10 years. And every time you read them, there are new discoveries.

What is the difference between the classics and modern books? Modern books are easy to understand. Since they are set in the present, they require no background knowledge or study. On the other hand, because the classics are old, they require effort to focus on the past and a bit of empathy. However, if you can clear those hurdles, they provide an incredible amount of wisdom. This is because whether it was 2,000 years ago or in a highly information-oriented society dominated by AI, individual life remains basically the same.

Just because we are in the modern era does not mean the time required to read Homer's "Iliad" becomes shorter. Humans, just as in the past, are born, fall in love, grow old (fall ill), and die. In every era, there are dreams and hopes, frustrations and failures, partings and encounters. These basic characteristics never change as long as we are human. The various personal troubles we face are basically the same as those faced by the tens of billions of humans who came before us. By knowing the classics, you can connect to that vast wisdom. Our troubles are not new; they are merely things that many people of the past have already experienced.

There is no need to follow in the same ruts as the people of the past. Rather, modern problems stem from repeating the same mistakes by not learning from the wisdom of the ancients. Playing games does not expand one's experience or knowledge, but by experiencing countless lives through reading, the life of one person is transformed into the lives of ten thousand. Could there be any greater treasure than this?

The classics consist only of good books. This is because, unlike modern books, the classics were created through the hands of countless poets and writers. Let me introduce an example. Everyone knows the title of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." However, this was not a creation written by Shakespeare alone. The oldest version dates back to Masuccio Salernitano's "Mariotto and Giannozza," published in Naples in 1476. Next, Luigi da Porto adapted this plot and published it in Venice in 1530 under the title "A Newly Discovered Story of Two Noble Lovers and Their Pitiful Death." Incorporating the story of "Pyramus and Thisbe" from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and elements of Boccaccio, the plot and characters became quite close to Shakespeare's later work. The setting also moved from Siena to Verona, and the lovers' names became "Romeus and Giulietta."

The two are the children of the feuding Montecchi and Cappelletti families, but this was the result of Da Porto misreading line 106 of Canto VI of the Purgatorio in Dante's "Divine Comedy," where the "Montecchi and Cappelletti" appear, as the two families being in constant conflict. Omitting the details, after six other writers rewrote this story, it was translated into French and then English, and finally, Shakespeare polished it into its current form. In modern times, this would be impossible due to copyright issues, but because the classics have no copyright, they passed through the hands of many writers, unnecessary branches were pruned away, and they were refined each time. Therefore, the classics always possess a perfected beauty.

Greek mythology was similarly rewritten and refined by countless poets for 800 years until it was completed by Ovid's "Metamorphoses." Because countless writers added their own experience and wisdom to the work each time, it has truly become a storehouse of wisdom. Dante's "Divine Comedy" incorporates the best parts of all previous literature, philosophy, and the Bible, making it one of the most organic and perfected things humanity has ever created. This is the difference between the classics and modern works, and it would be a waste not to use this precious heritage.