Read the classics to spend time with language, ideas, and histories that shaped—and were shaped by—particular societies. Reading them slowly can reveal how a work makes meaning and what assumptions it carries. Read them alongside voices beyond the familiar canon, too: no single list can represent the range of human experience.
What makes a book a classic?
There is no single, neutral list of classics. A classic is often a work readers return to; a canon is a body of works selected and treated by institutions, educators, and readers as especially important or representative. The categories overlap, but they are not identical. A book’s canonical status can tell us about its influence—and about the choices that made it influential.
In an essay on why anthropologists read classics, Adia Benton suggests approaching canonical works as records of the historical questions and debates they helped shape, rather than as untouchable masterpieces or simply outdated texts. That is a useful lens on canon formation, not a universal definition of literary classics. Benton’s essay in HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory appeared in 2017.
Why slow down while reading?
A slower reading makes room to notice choices that a plot summary can miss: a shift in voice, a revealing word, an unresolved contradiction, or a form that shapes what a narrator can say. It also gives readers time to ask what historical circumstances the work reflects and whose point of view it centers.
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Slowing down is a way to read attentively, not a guaranteed route to a particular personal outcome. The evidence cited here does not establish that reading classics causes empathy, tolerance, or appreciation of diversity. The value is in the questions attentive reading makes possible.
How can classics help us consider cultural diversity?
UNESCO’s 2005 Convention defines cultural diversity as “the manifold ways in which the cultures of groups and societies find expression.” It includes not only heritage passed between communities, but also varied forms of artistic creation, production, distribution, and enjoyment. The UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s explanation presents this definition from the Convention.
A literary work can offer a particular encounter with a society, period, or artistic tradition; it cannot stand in for an entire culture. UNESCO says that learning about tangible and intangible heritage can broaden perspectives, deepen knowledge of history and society, and enrich intercultural understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. That is guidance about culture and education broadly, not a specific finding about reading classic literature. UNESCO’s overview of culture and education was last updated on 23 November 2023.
Education findings also need careful interpretation. UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report described reported tolerance toward immigrants as two percentage points higher at each step from primary to secondary to tertiary education. It also reported that learning about other countries’ histories was associated with positive attitudes toward ethnic-group rights in 12 of the 22 countries participating in the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. These are associations involving education and curricula, not proof that reading classics produces tolerance. The report’s diversity chapter gives the figures and context.
How to build a more thoughtful reading list
- Choose a work you want to understand. Start with its language, setting, form, or influence—not the assumption that every reader must regard it as a masterpiece.
- Find the context. Ask when and where it was written, what questions it addressed, and how its original audience may have encountered it.
- Notice the point of view. Consider whose experiences the work represents, whose it omits, and what ideas it treats as normal or debatable.
- Read in conversation. Pair the work with writing from a different period, language, social position, or genre. A comparison can show both what has endured and what a familiar canon leaves out.
- Look at how the work became canonical. Consider the role of schools, publishers, critics, translation, and other institutions in shaping what later readers were taught to value.
UNESCO’s 2019 report also noted that 27 of 38 predominantly high-income countries offered intercultural education as a stand-alone subject, integrated it into the curriculum, or both, referring to 2015. That is a dated policy count, not a current global statistic or a measure of how well reading lists represent cultural diversity. The report provides the original qualification.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What a classic can—and cannot—do
A classic can slow a reader down, make an inherited idea newly visible, or open a path into a historical conversation. It can also carry the exclusions and assumptions of its time, as well as those of the institutions that preserved and promoted it. Reading with attention means taking both possibilities seriously: examining the work on its own terms while asking what else belongs beside it.
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