Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Two questions:
1. Will there be classics in the future -- books (and poems, and plays) from distant past generations that there is a semi-consensus are better than most of today's? My impression is that it is becoming less common to assign works, written more than a century ago, in American high schools, but I could be wrong. And even if I am correct, classics could make a come-back
2. Is the Harry Potter series great literature, whatever we mean by that? I've only read one of the books, and didn't think so. Of course, just one person's opinion.
So Potter has two big hurdles to climb over before becoming a classic. One is that society would have to value old books, and the other is that society would have to value that series.
If it did become a classic, there might be a semi-consensus that one book in the series is Rowling's Hamlet, Jane Eyre, or Middlemarch. Does anyone here have an opinion on which stands out, and, briefly, why?
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1. Yes there will always be classics. Will the moldy oldies still be called classics? I hope not as the older they get, the less relevant they become.
2. I don't consider some of the "classics" to be great literature.I think a book doesn't have to be great literature to be a classic. If that was the case, then some of those old classics would ne be able to be called classic.
I would not compare Harry Potter to those old books as they don't compare.Harry Potter is very different. If? Harry Potter already is a classic.Classics don't have to be old books. There are modern classics and instant classics.