There's some discussion around whether the classics of English Lit are bad actually, and I can't wait to paraphrase for you all the reasons why it's a complicated but valid point to make.

Expand this thread. Validate my degree.

What do we mean by bad? How a work becomes a 'classic' is obscure. Elevation into 'the canon' usually takes a lot of time and academic debate, which should make the 'high vs low literature' light flash on your dashboard. I'm using quotes as those words are debated terms.

Not to mention that academic readings of texts can be pretty inaccessible and distant for non-academic readers. I mean, a subscription to one of the many academic journals where papers are published isn't the done thing for the general public. Anyway, that's not my main point.

The main thing is a lot of 'classics' are valued as historical artefacts, rather than works of literature that are still relevant to modern readers today. Our reading of classics is largely from the perspective of new historicism, even if you're not aware of it.

Simply, it means that texts should be interpreted and studied within their historical contexts. For example, to critique a poem written by an English Civil War cavalier poet, you need to approach it from that historical setting. This shifts how we interpret 'classics.'

One: it makes us alert that we read older works as someone from 2020, which can lead us to make errors in understanding. For example, a modern reader may think all the hugging, crying, and displays of male to male affection in Beowulf is gay. Err... no. That's 2020 talking.

(Bonus, the words gay and homosexuality itself as we understand it are only a recent phenomenon. We don't know what words an Anglo-Saxon would use to describe homosexuality as we do today.)

Two: it shifts the idea of 'classics' away from the idea that they are universal metanarratives or stories that convey unchanging, timeless truths to us in the present despite their age. Instead, they are key works for the age in which they were written for one reason or another.

Does this mean the classics are bad? No. Beyond theory you can use measures like mastery of language and structure - key literary developments that shape the development of literature into what we know today. But we really need to be aware of literature as products of their time.

Eg: In Austen's Mansfield Park, Bertram's other estate in Antigua gets a couple of mentions,and its why Sir Thomas is absent in the book. Why? He's putting down slave revolts. They're slave owners. It's 2020. You have to be aware of this when reading.

Edward Said wrote a great postcolonial essay on Mansfield Park (go read it), and it fundamentally changes how you should read those novels. It makes you aware of the violence, brutality, and oppression that provides the wealth of the stately homes the books are set in but ignore.

And therefore, it makes it super problematic that it's largely ignored in celebration of Austen's works today.

Anyway... are the classics bad? It's not a question to ask. They're complicated works that require a lot of study, in more depth you'll probably go into at school.