Calvino's "Why Read the Classics?" Authority

Italo Calvino has a lot of authority as a writer and a reader. To write about books being classics and what classics means, then he would have to be an avid reader. Being an avid reader, his vocabulary would expand every time he would read a book. throughout the essay I noticed around ten words he used that I have never heard of. For example, "they are later accretions, deformations or expansions of it." I have never heard of the word accretions before, but I looked it up and it means growth in size or extent. (Accretions) Because Calvino reads a lot, he is able to cite all the different authors he has read. He talks about "Lucretius, Lucian, Montaigne, Erasmus, Quevedo, Marlowe, Goethe, Coleridge, Ruskin, Proust, and Valery." on the seventh page of his essay. Being a writer he can choose what he writes, how he writes, and can quote whoever he wants. In the essay he chose to write about reading the classics, using first, second, and third person. And he decided to quote the Italian author Emil Cioran in his conclusion paragraph. Italo Calvino must enjoyed reading Cioran because using a quote from him is a pretty big honor, considering how popular this essay is.

"Accretions | Define Accretions at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 30 July 2011 .

Calvino, Italo. "Why Read the Classics." Lecture.