Classical Literature Teaches Us Life Lessons

I believe classic literature can teach a person to have important, eternal, moral and intellectual qualities. Today, the youth strongly and negatively depend on the internet, which can sometimes contain content that promotes ruthlessness, violence, greed and egoism.

What can we learn from the writers who wrote novels a few centuries ago?

Classical literature represents the tool of intellectual consciousness and self-education. For example, novels by famous French writer Honoré de Balzac like The Shagreen Leather and Lost Illusions teach us to trust people and be reliable to your friends and acquaintances. Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman teaches us to differentiate between valuable and invaluable work and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Last Tycoon teaches us to not replace love and family with work.

It also gives us the answers to difficult questions that require deep philosophical judgment. You can find the answer to “what is the meaning of the life?” in Albert Camus’ The Stranger or Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Stories like William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind  and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights also teaches us to love even when you feel like the world is against you. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe proves that it is impossible to classify people under only bad or good. Classics like Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway gives us the perfect examples of resilience and bravery.

Classical literature can also teach history, so you don’t have to constantly pursue heaps of encyclopedias and history textbooks. If you want to learn about the Russian-French War of 1812, it would be better if you read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy which is regarded as a central work of world literature.

So, how does classic literature make our lives better?

Literature, especially the classics, assists people with managing many personal and social problems. The greatest writers have written “about us” and “for us.”  Indeed, it is a huge consolation for humans when the book not only describes sufferings and general problems, but also gives answers to guide us in our difficulties.