When you have actually felt some of the emotion which great writers
have striven to impart to you, and when your emotions become so numerous
and puzzling that you feel the need of arranging them and calling them
by names, then--and not before--you can begin to study what has been
attempted in the way of classifying and ticketing literature.
Manuals and treatises are excellent things in their kind,
but they are simply dead weight at the start. You can only acquire
really useful general ideas by first acquiring particular ideas,
and putting those particular ideas together. You cannot make bricks
without straw. Do not worry about literature in the abstract,
about theories as to literature. Get at it. Get hold of literature
in the concrete as a dog gets hold of a bone. If you ask me
where you ought to begin, I shall gaze at you as I might gaze
at the faithful animal if he inquired which end of the bone
he ought to attack. It doesn't matter in the slightest degree
where you begin. Begin wherever the fancy takes you to begin.
Literature is a whole.


There is only one restriction for you. You must begin with an
acknowledged classic; you must eschew modern works. The reason for this
does not imply any depreciation of the present age at the expense
of past ages. Indeed, it is important, if you wish ultimately to have
a wide, catholic taste, to guard against the too common assumption
that nothing modern will stand comparison with the classics.
In every age there have been people to sigh: "Ah, yes. Fifty years ago
we had a few great writers. But they are all dead, and no young ones
are arising to take their place." This attitude of mind is deplorable,
if not silly, and is a certain proof of narrow taste. It is a surety
that in 1959 gloomy and egregious persons will be saying: