What makes literature classic

The Iliad and Odyssey were copied numerous times. From the ancient trash piles and at times within the mummy wrappings of Roman Egypt, scrap papyri, written by the hands of students and filled with mistakes, emerge.

Monks in medieval monasteries created copies and translations of these and other works. Byzantine authors such as Empress Eudocia used lines from Homer or Virgil then to retell Biblical episodes. The list goes on. They endured through time not only because their works were beautifully written which, they were , but due to the fact they tapped into issues so universal to humanity that they transcend time and culture.

What is true about those works is also true about the works in the more recent literary canon as well. Long after their original publication, they nevertheless remain relevant and resonate. Nor do I think that every single work can or should resonate with everyone. There are authors that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get through. Perhaps the right time has not arrived for those works in my life, but perhaps it never will. There are other issues, as well. This conversation is becoming more and more prevalent, which is really important.

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. 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.

A classic is a work which constantly generates a pulviscular cloud of critical discourse around it, but which always shakes the particles off. 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. A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.

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. 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. A classic is a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

Where Dickens offers an acute insight into the nature of struggle and Flaubert relates a remarkably accurate portrait of human yearning, the authors are able to transcend the boundaries and limitations of their own cultural and social contexts. For every moment of resonance felt in the dialogue and actions of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet, I have been acutely aware that classic novels offer a fascinatingly profound relatability that remains unconstricted by technology or lack thereof , social strictures, or dialogue.

Beyond this ability to transcend their own historical contexts, classics also offer a particular kind of subjective experience for the reader. Perhaps nothing speaks to this more than the incredible disagreement that characterises what we all think about when we attempt to define and categorise classic literature. Eliot suggested that there is no real classic, other than Virgil. You see more in you than there was before.

The notion that classic novels work a kind of revelation in us, leaving us understanding more of ourselves and our experience than we did before, is foundational to art as whole. It is, therefore, both troubling and understandable that classic literature would find itself heavily associated with the most pervasive literary snobbery. While I am always keen to encourage people to look outside of their traditional reading habits and explore, this a trend that should apply equally to those who restrict themselves solely to works of classic literature.

Every genre has something peculiarly original to say about the human experience and thus carries with it its own category of classics — both old and new. The key here is to find appreciation for what Calvino describes of the humanising and enlightening effects of reading classic novels. This feeling — of discovering something new about ourselves and, through it, a sense of greater connection to our shared experiences — is what we are all seeking when we pick up our next novel.

Whether we find that in Jane Eyre or J. Rowling is, to some extent, beside the point. Authors that have managed to access something so intrinsically human in their work — so human, in fact, that historical and cultural differences do not inhibit our recognition of these truths — must surely be recognised as amongst the most skilled literary voices in our history.

A loftier set of questions would, I think, be hard to find.