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Classics Revisited
Poet, translator, essayist, and voracious reader––Kenneth Rexroth was an omnivore in the fields of literature. The brief, radiant essays of Classics Revisited discuss sixty key books that are, for Rexroth, “basic documents in the history of the imagination.”
Ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Huckleberry Finn, these pieces (each about five pages long) originally appeared in the Saturday Review. Distinguished by Rexroth’s plain, wide-awake style, Classics Revisited presents complex ideas in simple language, energized by the author’s air of talking eye-to-eye with his reader. Elastic, at home in several languages, Rexroth is not bound by East or West; he leaps nimbly from Homer to The Mahabharata, from Lady Murasaki to Stendhal.
It is only when we pause for breath that we notice his special affinities: for Casanova, lzaak Walton, Macbeth, Icelandic sagas, classical Japanese poetry. He has read everything. In Sterne, he sees traces of the Buddha; in Fielding, hints of Confucius. “Life may not be optimistic,” Rexroth maintains in his introduction, “but it certainly is comic, and the greatest literature presents man wearing the two conventional masks; the grinning and the weeping faces that decorate theatre prosceniums. What is the face behind the mask? Just a human face––yours or mine. That is the irony of it all––the irony that distinguishes great literature––it is all so ordinary.”
Ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Huckleberry Finn, these pieces (each about five pages long) originally appeared in the Saturday Review. Distinguished by Rexroth’s plain, wide-awake style, Classics Revisited presents complex ideas in simple language, energized by the author’s air of talking eye-to-eye with his reader. Elastic, at home in several languages, Rexroth is not bound by East or West; he leaps nimbly from Homer to The Mahabharata, from Lady Murasaki to Stendhal.
It is only when we pause for breath that we notice his special affinities: for Casanova, lzaak Walton, Macbeth, Icelandic sagas, classical Japanese poetry. He has read everything. In Sterne, he sees traces of the Buddha; in Fielding, hints of Confucius. “Life may not be optimistic,” Rexroth maintains in his introduction, “but it certainly is comic, and the greatest literature presents man wearing the two conventional masks; the grinning and the weeping faces that decorate theatre prosceniums. What is the face behind the mask? Just a human face––yours or mine. That is the irony of it all––the irony that distinguishes great literature––it is all so ordinary.”
214 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
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234 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Rexroth
203 books108 followersKenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 22, 2018
Ok. I feel this book is so important that I don’t know where to begin. I have always admired Rexroth’s poetry and I bought this many years ago, thinking that I respected his taste so much that I would appreciate his essays. However it is beyond that. So much so that I have made a list of the 60 or so texts, studied in this book, with a view to reading them all.
He makes them that important. And, interestingly, behind the syncopated beats of these distinctly different essays, the hint of a life lived wild and wisely is revealed.
I genuinely feel that this work is a must, as a guideline, for anyone who wants to have had a life well read.
He makes them that important. And, interestingly, behind the syncopated beats of these distinctly different essays, the hint of a life lived wild and wisely is revealed.
I genuinely feel that this work is a must, as a guideline, for anyone who wants to have had a life well read.
December 8, 2008
Kenneth Rexroth was part of the "Beat" scene, knowing Ginsburg, Ferlinghetti, etc. However, his main role was as a critic. Fluent in several languages, he often did translations. In this slim book, CLASSICS REVISITED, he offers incredible insights into the world classic from both the Western and Eastern canons. Each essay is only a few pages long, but each is packed with allusions that had me in awe. I used it in my World Lit AP course, and it humbled even the brightest students--who complained bitterly about how hard it was, and then often took it to collge with them! It's been an honor to spend time with such a mind.
October 2, 2016
More wisdom, intelligence, insight and clear writing than you'll find in most whole universities or literary journals.
December 4, 2007
Perfect for workplace longueurs. Untaxing brevity is important, given the madhouse florescent lights under which we Gogol-esque clerkish types are expected to cerebrate.
January 10, 2021
Pensei aprender mais com este "Revisitar os Clássicos". Só consegui raspar a superfície da maioria das exegeses aqui apresentadas o que me deixou um pouco desalentado.
April 28, 2025
3 3/4 stars
May 24, 2025
Thinking Day Finland 2025
January 10, 2008
I'm not anywhere finished with this...I wish I owned a copy. I've already renewed from Central--twice, I think.
October 17, 2016
If you ever wonder why the F___ literature is important, read this and its sequel.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews