Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
How about defining "Classic" as being perpetually reprinted?
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Nothing wrong with that definition. But we then have to include, as classics, many religious texts, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, and several works beloved by people almost everyone else thinks are bigots.
Traditionally, a classic, in addition to being perpetually reprinted, is a book that is widely taught, and written about, by scholars of literature or philosophy, and commonly believed to have layers of meaning. Plus, a classic was a book generally educated people will have read in order to learn how best to live their lives.
The curriculum of pre-twentieth century universities commonly amounted to reading and discussing these books -- and hearing lectures about them. A few small American colleges still have a classics-centered curriculum, as here:
http://www.sjca.edu/
The traditional classics concept is inherently elitist, and as dated as the English class system.
One reason for the death of the classics concept is that there came, with passage of time, to be so many great books that even English professors can't be assumed to have read them all.
Another is that the disagreement over which books are truly great, while it always existed, is now so overwhelming as to make it impossible to say what it a classic. And a lot of today's literature scholars probably do not even believe the concept is valid.
Now, personally, I think I do know a classic when I read it. Charlotte Brontė wrote classics, and Wilkie Collins did not. But both are probably taught at Harvard, and with roughly equal respect or disrespect for the values at the heart of their works.
When Gone with the Wind
is commonly called a classic, maybe your definition, rkomar, does follow the word's current usage.
Favorite twentieth century classic novel: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck.