"My" classics are The Lord Of The Rings, Jane Eyre, Les Miserables, The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, and Little Women. They're one which I never get tired of re-reading, continue to have an emotional impact upon re-reading, and which have had a significant positive impact on my understanding, opinions, values, and morals. Despite all but one of them being over a century old, their ideas and characters feel timeless and continually relevant, as well as having been relevant to the time in which they were created.
edited 28th Aug '14 10:24:44 PM by WarriorEowyn
Three-Puppet Saluter
14. A classic is a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.
I think this was basically Vincent Starrett's argument in that sonnet about Sherlock Holmes. Heck, that sonnet itself qualifies - I can't think many fans of BBC's Sherlock spend a lot of time bemoaning, say, the Lost Generation and the naturalistic beauty of the 1911 Britannica, but by Gar they recognize powerful poetry when they see it.
edited 29th Aug '14 4:07:00 AM by DomaDoma
Hail Martin Septim!
Whenever I consider what it means for a work to be a "classic", I think back to Calvino's essay, which has my favourite definitions. You can read the full essay here
, but I will post his 14 definitions of a classic:
2. The Classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them.
3. The classics are books which exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual's or the collective unconscious.
4. A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.
5. A classic is a book which even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.
6. A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.
7. The classics are those books which come to us bearing the aura of previous interpretations, and trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures (or just in the languages and customs) through which they have passed.
8. A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off.
9. Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.
10. A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.
11. 'Your' classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it.
12. A classic is a work that comes before other classics; but those who have read other classics first immediately recognize its place in the genealogy of classic works.
13. A classic is a work which relegates the noise of the present to a background hum, which at the same time the classics cannot exist without.
14. A classic is a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.
The definitions are almost entirely useless for objectively determining what books are classics, but they appeal to me. I'd like to know what books are your classics, and which definitions do they fit (and why)? I'm particularly curious about #11, the books you define yourself in opposition to. Do you disagree with any of Calvino's definitions?
"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj