Hey /lit/, might seem like a dumb question but how do you properly

Trying picking up a Norton's Critical Edition of the next classic you're thinking of reading. That should help you understand a lot of references and other things you might miss.

>>8521840
yeah, these can be helpful. also, just read more and read things more than once as the years go by. something you don't fully grasp now may make more sense on another read in five years after more reading and life experience. you don't have to be an expert on something in the first read through. just enjoy it.

>>8521820
Both of the other comments are good. Also you can try reading some books by Harold Bloom or Mortimer J. Adler's "How to Read a Book"

>>8521820
Honestly, you're probably "getting" everything that matters most. Certainly some works have a lot of detail you'll miss without notes (Divine Comedy, for example), but the core of what makes them "classics" isn't the fine contemporary detail. Otherwise, they wouldn't be classics. To put it another way, no one reads military manuals from the early twentieth century, but everyone reads Sun Tzu.

Still, the other anons are right.

Classic is not a genre, it's just a classification for works of the canon. No two are going to work the same way. Your approach for the Iliad is far different than how you approach Anna Karenina. But one very general tip is not to consider it scene for scene but as a whole work, then you'll understand why, for example, there's a whale encyclopedia in Moby Dick.. Historical background is important as well.