swim through the fires to stay in this world

This is a good post. I agree that I think it's valuable to have some knowledge of the literary canon if only to enrich the rest of your pop culture experience. As another example, I am not religious but I've found it useful to have a knowledge of the Bible and other religious texts, as well as mythology, as the references are everywhere in literature, film, etc. You can watch and read something like Game of Thrones and have a greater appreciate for what GRRM is doing with the narrative if you get that he is playing with Classical tragedy, as well as traditional fantasy. That said, I love to read things that would probably be considered "low" art. It sucks that genre fiction gets such a bad rap.