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Modern Definitions

The document discusses different perspectives on what defines a "classic" work of literature. It describes how in the 1980s, Italo Calvino said a classic work is one that never finishes expressing itself and helps readers define themselves. An 1920 article by Fannie M. Clark also examined what makes a work classic, including student answers like books passed down through generations. Both Calvino and Clark concluded that analyzing what makes a work classic can take away from simply enjoying it. The document later notes a 2009 blog post that identified two types of classic novels - those we feel we should read but haven't, and those we've read multiple times and enthusiastically recommend to others.

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57 views1 page

Modern Definitions

The document discusses different perspectives on what defines a "classic" work of literature. It describes how in the 1980s, Italo Calvino said a classic work is one that never finishes expressing itself and helps readers define themselves. An 1920 article by Fannie M. Clark also examined what makes a work classic, including student answers like books passed down through generations. Both Calvino and Clark concluded that analyzing what makes a work classic can take away from simply enjoying it. The document later notes a 2009 blog post that identified two types of classic novels - those we feel we should read but haven't, and those we've read multiple times and enthusiastically recommend to others.

Uploaded by

scmp2009
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Modern definitions

In the 1980s Italo Calvino said in his essay “Why Read the Classics?” that “A classic is
a book that has never finished saying what it has to say” and comes to the crux of
personal choice in this matter when he says (italics in the original translation): “Your
classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you define yourself in
relation to him, even in dispute with him.” Consideration of what makes a literary work
a classic is for Calvino ultimately a personal choice, and, constructing a universal
definition of what constitutes a Classic Book seems to him to be an impossibility, since,
as Calvino says “There is nothing for it but for all of us to invent our own ideal libraries
of classics.” Most experts agree that a strong foundation in the classics makes your
education more enjoyable..

You don’t need to take an IQ test to read a classic book. What actually makes a work of
literature a ‘classic book’ is not just a consideration of extensively published authors. In
1920, Fannie M. Clark, a teacher at the Rozelle School in East Cleveland, Ohio,
predates Calvino’s similar conclusions by 60 years when she also essayed the question
of what makes a book a ‘classic’ in her article “Teaching Children to Choose” in The
English Journal, Volume 9, No. 3, “The Official Organ of the National Council of
Teachers of English”

Over the course of her essay Clark considers the question of what makes a piece of
literature a classic and why the idea of “the classics” is important to society as a whole.
Clark says that “teachers of English have been so long trained in the ‘classics’ that these
‘classics’ have become to them very much like the Bible, for the safety of which the rise
of modern science causes such unnecessary fears.” She goes on to say that among the
sources she consulted was a group of eighth-graders when she asked them the question:
“What do you understand by the classics in literature?” Two of the answers Clark
received were “Classics are books your fathers give you and you keep them to give to
your children” and “Classics are those great pieces of literature considered worthy to be
studied in English classes of high school or college”. Calvino agrees with the Ohio
educator when he states “Schools and universities ought to help us understand that no
book that talks about a book says more than the book in question, but instead they do
their level best to make us think the opposite.” Clark and Calvino come to a similar
conclusion that when a literary work is analyzed for what makes it ‘classic’, that in just
the act of analysis or as Clark says “the anatomical dissection”, the reader can end up
destroying the unique pleasure that mere enjoyment a work of literature can hold. Her
thought process is a direct change compared to earlier thinking.

While blogging on the website guardian.co.uk in 2009, Chris Cox echoes Twain’s
‘classic’ sentiments of 1900 and Bennett’s witticism about classic books when he
opined on the Guardian.Co “Books Blog” that there are actually two kinds of “classic
novels”: The first are those we know we should have read, but probably have not. These
are generally the books that make us burn with shame when they come up in
conversation…The second kind, meanwhile, are those books that we’ve read five times,
can quote from on any occasion, and annoyingly push on to other people with the
words: “You have to read this. It’s a classic.”

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