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What is a great book?

时间:2007-6-12栏目:大学英语作文

ld not be interested in reading them. But the great books are never outmoded by the movement of thought or the shifting winds of doctrine and opinion.

People regard the 鈥渃lassics鈥?as the great has-beens, the great books of other times. 鈥淥ur times are different,鈥?they say. On the contrary, the great books are not dusty remains for scholars to investigate, they are, rather, the most potent civilizing forces in the world today.

The fundamental human problems remain the same in all ages. Anyone who reads the speeches of Demosthenes and the letters of Cicero, or the essays of Bacon and Montaigne, will find how constant is the preoccupation of men with happiness and justice, with virtue and truth and even with stability and change itself. We may accelerate the motions of life, but we cannot seem to change the routes that are available to its goals.

Great books are the most readable. They will not let you down if you try to read them well. They have more ideas per page than most books have in their entirety. That is why you can read a great book over and over again and never exhaust its contents.

They can be read at many different levels of understanding, as well as with a great diversity of interpretations. Obvious examples are GULLIVER'S TRAVELS , ROBINSON CRUSOE and the ODYSSEY. Children can read them with enjoyment, but fail to find therein all the beauty and significance which delight an adult mind.

Great books are the most instructive. This follows from the fact that they are original communications; they contain what cannot be found it other books. Whether you ultimately agree or disagree with what they say, these are the primary teachers of mankind; they have made the basic contributions to human thought.

It is almost unnecessary to add that the great books are the most influential books. In the tradition of learning, they have been most discussed by readers who have also been writers. These are the books about which there

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