What makes a work of literature considered a classic? I have always wondered about this. Some people have told me that there is some sort of elite society that decides these things, but that seems outrageous to me; if suddenly that elite society decided that murdering babies with meathooks was right, would it suddenly become acceptable? Perhaps. But it does not make sense to me how a work of literature becomes a classic. Any help would be appreciated.
Gotta say, I wonder the same thing.
LOL you are ridiculous.
This is one of my favorite philosophical questions and I wish I had more than one minute to sit here and think and type! Anyway, I don’t think people are all that wrong in claiming that it is determined by an elite, but it tends to be an intellectual elite. For example, most people you know would probably claim that the most important music in the world is The Beatles or whatever their current favorite band is because of the way it moves them. I’m not going to lie, when I am not thinking intellectually, I have an emotional response that makes me think that Radiohead’s Kid A and Ok Computer are two of the best pieces of art ever created. But the intellectual elite (read: academics!) obviously don’t agree (at least not yet) or the amount of research time devoted to Radiohead would far outweigh any devoted to Bach. Same would be true of J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown : Joyce or Andrew Lloyd Webber : Shakespeare or Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged : Russell’s Principia Mathematica. It’s still normative of course, but a norm decided on by the intellectual elite. It may not have repercussions now (many will still enjoy Bruce Springsteen more than Phillip Glass) but it may have implications 100 years from now when research is still devoted to Glass but not to Springsteen, and the cultural zeitgeist has moved on from him and Harry Potter and etc etc.
At the same time, as a society we tend to give the intellectual elite a social contract to make such decisions. They have the right to decide which art is the most important, or literature, or what have you. The public would probably not grant them the right to decide that we should murder babies with meathooks.
Of course, humanity is so fucked up you never know.
A classic book’s story, characters, eloquence, prose, and message appeal and remain unique to many people over a long period of time. Not too many works accomplish this…thus the ‘classic’ brand is given by those who study literature when this is accomplished.
Classic literature is largely decided by academic elites.
A piece of classic literature is what the Ph.D.s are writing their theses on.
Oprah, interestingly enough, has revolutionized this field. Strange, but true.
Yeah it’s a little known fact, but Oprah and I get together and if we both like a book then, Presto, it’s an instant classic! Sorry it can’t be a more democratic process, but that would be rather cumbersome and waste a lot of time. We just email our choices to the academic elites. They can usually start cranking out ridiculous critical analyses in six or eight weeks. The funny thing is sometimes Oprah and I don’t even read the book. We may just like the cover or one or two chapters. We can’t help it. When you like something, that’s just the way it is. Anyway thanks for asking the question. Usually nobody does. They just stick the books we recommend in the “Classics” section of the book store and people who want to seem intelligent scarf them up. We’ve got a bunch of Internet sites that will tell you what to buy too, you should check them out. 