XI SERIOUS READING

Chap­ter XI of “How to Live on Twen­ty-Four Hours a Day” dis­cuss­es “Seri­ous Read­ing,” empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of choos­ing chal­leng­ing lit­er­a­ture for self-improve­ment rather than indulging sole­ly in nov­els or prose fic­tion. The author argues that while nov­els, includ­ing great lit­er­a­ture, are valu­able and should be read, they often do not require sig­nif­i­cant men­tal exer­tion from the read­er, which is cru­cial for cul­ti­vat­ing the mind. The chap­ter sug­gests that the feel­ing of strain and dif­fi­cul­ty faced when engag­ing with text is essen­tial for intel­lec­tu­al growth, some­thing that typ­i­cal­ly is not found in read­ing nov­els.

Instead, the author advo­cates for read­ing imag­i­na­tive poet­ry as it demands a high­er lev­el of men­tal appli­ca­tion, describ­ing it as the high­est form of lit­er­a­ture that offers the great­est plea­sure and wis­dom. Rec­og­niz­ing that poet­ry may seem inac­ces­si­ble to many, the chap­ter rec­om­mends start­ing with Hazlitt’s essay on poet­ry to under­stand its val­ue and then mov­ing on to nar­ra­tive poet­ry for those unfa­mil­iar with the genre. It specif­i­cal­ly prais­es “Auro­ra Leigh” by E.B. Brown­ing, sug­gest­ing that this work could change read­ers’ per­cep­tions of poet­ry and prove them wrong in assum­ing they dis­like it.

For those who final­ize that poet­ry is not to their lik­ing, his­to­ry and phi­los­o­phy are pre­sent­ed as noble alter­na­tives. How­ev­er, start­ing with such texts should come after prepar­ing one­self through a year of dis­ci­plined read­ing to tack­le these more com­plex sub­jects. The chap­ter also advis­es focus­ing one’s efforts on a spe­cif­ic area, like a his­tor­i­cal event, sub­ject, or author, to derive plea­sure from becom­ing a spe­cial­ist in that field.

The over­ar­ch­ing mes­sage is a push towards engag­ing with intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­leng­ing mate­ri­als as a part of per­son­al devel­op­ment, empha­siz­ing that seri­ous read­ing should strain the mind, and thus, con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the cul­ti­va­tion of one’s intel­lect.