yeah a lot of people call the classics Snobby and everyone with a lit degree has taken that as a personal offense and decried it as anti-intellectualism and blah blah blah instead of actually like addressing why people might say that

but to anyone who cares im pretty sure people say that shit as a defense mechanism

The Classics as a whole can be intimidating, especially if you already struggle with reading/writing or didnt have a good education on the subject

theres decades if not centuries of people talking about these works and interpreting and argueing about them and on top of that theyre Great Works that Everyone Should Read and Everyone knows about. theres also, whether you like it or not, a nice sheen of Only Smart/Highly Educated People Can Truely Appreciate This on top

so when someone approaches one of these works for the first time it already feels like coming in late to the party

but on top of that the writing styles can be dense, the books/poems/plays lengthy. theres usually a lot of historical context thats needed to fully appreciate the story being told. and thats before you get into whatever literary/mythological illusions thatll almost certainly be inside the story itself

then they take a crack at it and its slow and confusing and boring and really time consuming but everyone else is talking about how amazing it is and what a Classic it is but because of all the reasons listed above this new reader Just Doesnt Get It and well

that makes em feel fucking stupid. they feel like an idiot

so they brush it off as pretencious and snobby because otherwise theyre just too stupid to get it

or alternatively, they push through the whole thing, dont get what the fuss is about, and assume everyone praising it is so far up their own ass theyre now a circle

the same can also be said for things like movies, art, and music

im not saying that the brushing off of The Classics or more involved books/art/movies etc is GOOD