Source: ThoughtCo
Here are the tips and tricks on how to read classics because many people find reading classics very daunting and it's often seen more as a task rather than an enjoyment.
Tips and Tricks To Read Classics
Start Small
If you never read classics before, the first tip to you is to start small. Pick a book that is small in size that you know you can tackle down. And if you pick a book of 500 and more pages, the book is left unfinished because it’s so massive and it's so daunting and most of the time it's really small print so your progress is extremely slow in the book, you don’t see yourself moving forward in it.
And it seems like the ending it’s just something unachievable; so pick a very small book, something like Animal Farm, or Anne of Green Gables. Those books are very small in size and you can read them very quickly.
Picking a small book will also give you a feeling of being filled once you finish it because you fill that task, you read that classic, you read that book, it’s done and over with and then you can move on to something else, it makes it easier to deal with classics.
To Break Your Reading Down
The second tip to you is to break your reading down. Many of the classics you will not be able to read in one sitting, this is something you're used to do with fiction. Honestly, pick a classic that has very short chapters, to begin with, because it makes breaking it down that much easier, and for example Pride and Prejudice because the chapters are only a few pages long.
A page is too long most of the time so you can read a couple of chapters a day very easily and it's something that you'll be able to fit into your time/schedule very easily it will not take much time to read also picking a book that has short chapters will once again encourage you to keep reading because you’ll see the chapter count going up fairly quickly and you’ll see some form of progress which again will give you a feeling of fulfillment.
Find Your Pace
The third tip is to find your pace. If you're a reader, who is used to reading, read fantasy fiction. You're probably fine with reading the same book for 4 or 5 hours straight or even some people read throughout the entire day and finish that book within a day.
And don't feel bad if your pace means that you're only reading for half an hour a day. That's ok that you're still reading.
Annotate the Book
The fourth tip is to Annotate your Book. It makes it so much easier to understand what's going on and this is because you should annotate any events that have a strong impact on the plot or the characters. This includes noting down foreshadowing.
And the reason why annotating classics is so important is that you're actively reading and taking part in the act of reading and this will mean that you will memorize what's happening much more easily but you'll also be critically thinking about what you're reading, you won't be a passive reader.
You'll be analyzing what's happening and that will make it easier to assimilate classic and google terms that you don't understand or cannot guess the meaning of and note them down in your classic because like that you can go back to it. You have that reference already and you don't have to google again. Example King Lear.
Buying the annotated edition of the classic can make the reading experience much easier and much more digestible and it means that you have most of the information you need to know already and that only all the information you need to know to understand the classic is actually in that book which means that you don’t have to go research online a bunch of information while you're reading the classic which can make the reading experience more enjoyable.
Read Summaries
The fifth tip is to Read essays that will analyze the book of a chapter but also don’t hesitate to read even the spark notes summary the reason is some people will read a classic and actually they haven’t really understood it but it’s read and done so well of them there is so much to have access to help us understand these classics and why not use it?
And if that tool is a SparkNotes summary of a chapter you've just read and that's great you might use it fairly. It's easily accessible because when you start the next chapter or next scene, you'll know what has happened and you won't be lost while reading that classic.
Written by Madhumitha. R
Edited by - Rumela Gupta
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