Handicapping Future Classics

[Suzanne]

Perfect.

[Beej]

Speak for yourself, carol!! (haha just kidding!)

[Carol]

I am so perfectly flawed it is pitiful, so I guess that just leaves me beautiful.hehehehehehe

[Whitaker]

Capitu wrote: "My fear is that this “popularization” will impact the canon mor..."

Capitu, our minds seem to be running on parallel tracks. :-)

If I may be pardoned for thinking out loud here.

I am starting to understand that originally the idea that it was essential to read the “classics” sprang from a belief that this allowed the well-read person to understand and participate in the cultural patrimony of his country. To talk to others about art meant having interacted with the works that formed the corpus of the country’s culture.

It used to be that the leading intellectuals and artists of the day learnt the works of their predecessors, and when talking about a new work, could place it in the tradition of where it had come from. Should the novel examine the lives of common people? Is the novel to be realist or exemplary? When writing a novel, writers would be as much informed by the techniques of accepted “great writers” who had gone before them. So, writing in a style or on a subject that broke with that tradition was to develop or extend that tradition in ways that would eventually become accepted or acceptable or not.

The problem with the democratisation or populism (depending on which side of the fence you stand) of art is the expansion of the numbers of readers and writers. The sheer amount of prior material built up over the years and the sheer amount of current material being produced meant that no one person can now “read it all”. Gone are the days when a well-educated man could honestly say that he had read all the books that made up the cultural patrimony of his country or of Western Civilisation.

This democratisation therefore has also meant a certain cultural amnesia, where we have forgotten where we come from. We no longer see free verse in its context as a response to stifling rules of strict form; we do not read a novel about a serial murderer as a response to the belief that novels should only touch on refined subjects and worthy people. The centre no longer holds, and the affective response is privileged almost to the exclusion of the intellectual response. Books written in ways that cross-refer to past cultural referents are seen as too elitist and ivory towered, too hard and therefore--in this age of the People--too wrong-headed.

This is not to pass judgment on this development. The world turns and we shuffle along. I would no more wish to see a return to the days when novels or art were the sole preserve of an elite few any more than I would wish to see a return to the days of nobility and bad sanitation. But in that context, and particularly post-1914, whither the importance of having studied the Western canon: that corpus of works that forms the foundation of Western civilisation's cultural and emotional heart? If a pure and simple affective response is to be all that informs our reaction to a novel, how do we find our bearings in placing that work within Great Cultural Conversation that is Western Civilisation's artistic patrimony?

[Ken]

Whitaker, your reverie reminds me somehow of Rousseau vs. Voltaire. True, both were "men of the people" but Rousseau even more so, what with his ideals of people being born purely innocent and learning evil whereas Voltaire had it that we were born with "the seed of evil" planted firmly inside (you know, in that dark part of that organ between the pancreas and the liver).

I think Rousseau would be quite pleased with the populism run amuck in literature (and thus infiltrating the "classics," which, because of the process, need the quotation marks all the more). Ironically, it is Voltaire (Candide) who is standing the test of time better than Rousseau (Confessions).

And all this dichotomy and populism talk has me thinking of another pair of philosophical rivals -- Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. (And I'm sure, somewhere in some withering grave, Adams is giving a big thanks to David McCullough for rescuing him from XYZ obscurity.) Jefferson, for all his patrician airs and his highfalutin lifestyle at Monticello, liked to fancy himself a real agrarian steadfast. Meanwhile (more ironically), in the bustle of blue colonial collar Quincy, we had the short and squat (but highly intellectual and wisely-wed) Johnny A. getting tagged as the pompous one. Carrying labels like "Federalist" will do that to a guy. And I think, in the literary face-off, Jefferson wins this match with his little flight of fancy on pursuing happiness.

Um. Where was I? Oh. No clue. Constant Readers, apparently. Supposedly handicapping future classics. Only I'm still handicapping ancient ones. Eh. It's all one and just as fun.

[[deleted user]]

Newengland, he may have dissed the concept of original sin, but, wouldn't quite pass the mantle of 'man of the people', to Rousseau having read 'Emile' 1762. Us gals and poor 'Sophie' do badly, considering he felt the most enduring positive benefits of books, for girls, would be to put them on their heads to improve their posture. Bad man some of the time..hence (go for the jugular) Mary Wollstonecraft with her subsequent offering, on the vindication of women..although I have to say I like his mantra 'that our best and deepest learning is in the unlearning' and the immediacy and fresh perspective that it can bring to you. (great concept in theory) and I suppose he did influence Romanticism favourably, hence The Prelude from Wordsworth and influenced a few ideas relating to a couple of Revolutions!
Still, think 'The Social Contract' is a head above 'Candide! but then I like 'book club' fodder...
ah-yuh.hehehe

Bizarre, that he was reinterred beside Voltaire when they hated one another.
Now Mr Jefferson and Mr Adams..ah now there is a whole other blessed story..

[[deleted user]]

I'll just hum a tune to myself cos Now! I'm starting to feel plain old lonely..

[Rosana]

Windfall, don’t take the lack of response to heart. I doubt it was meant to you personally. My experience in CR is that weekends are generally slow – I myself have been away from the computer for a while. Then, certain threads just die when most people figure that they have said all that they had to say on a subject. But, very soon another will jump up somewhere else. Or this one will regain strength. Anyway...

Newengland, I do wonder if you are the one that did scare others away. You took the discussion to a much higher level. Rousseau and Voltaire, hum?

Whitaker, you do such an amazing job of explaining my thoughts in a much more rational and elevated way. Thank you.

The centre no longer holds, and the affective response is privileged almost to the exclusion of the intellectual response. Books written in ways that cross-refer to past cultural referents are seen as too elitist and ivory towered, too hard and therefore--in this age of the People--too wrong-headed.

I am left wondering if I would side with Voltaire or Rousseau in this one? Voltaire, more likely!

[Ken]

Sorry, Windfall. I wasn't bailing, just busy. I like the quote you throw in the mix: "... our best and deepest learning is in the unlearning" because it reminds me of Mark Twain's famous line about education: "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned."

OK, more famous still is the maxim, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." This has been attributed to Twain as well, but not verified (or so I read).

Speaking of Twain, he fits nicely into this discussion, having opined early and often on the topic:

"Classic: a book which people praise and don't read."

"High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water."

"Creed and opinion change with time, and their symbols perish; but Literature and its temples are sacred to all creeds and inviolate."

The first quote is not only funny but often true. Think of the "Great Books" series that adorned so many bookshelves back in the 50s and 60s. Beautiful spines, they were!

The second quote is ironic because Twain himself is now considered classic. Of course, whether Twain liked it or not, Sam Clemens would be pleased no end. He was a big fan of many classics, in reality. I know he loved Don Quixote, for instance. But he loved hating Jane Austen ("Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone." Also: "Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.")

Another author that drove Twain to distraction is James Fenimore Cooper, a mainstay on American Literature canons ("It isn't worth while, in these practical times, for people to talk about Indian poetry--there never was any in them--except in the Fenimore Cooper Indians. But they are an extinct tribe that never existed.")

P.S. Capitu, I don't know much more than what I already said of Voltaire and Rousseau. An intellectual I'm not. Just another hack reader, is all....

[[deleted user]]

Not to worry, Newengland,
only cos I'm new, I get sensitive, but I'll live to post another day!
Think it has talked its way out of existence here for now anyway with the excitement of 'the vote' in. Nice diverse list that it is too.

One last thing though, I'm gutted to learn, Mr Clemens of the 'never the twain' variety disliked my poor Jane so intensely, pourquoi?? I ask myself, can't figure that one at all.
Rousseau loved 'Robinson Crusoe' easy enough to see why with his 'back to the trees' man tra.
So, thanks to your thread title here, I NOW, know even less, as to what on earth constitutes a 'classic' but not feeling even a bit bereft without the definitive answer.
Wise old Roland Barthes said,
'Literature is the question, minus the answer'

It's just us mortals that like a list of names shrouded in a blaze of Glory. That'll do me.

[Ken]

Windfall -- The more we learn, the less we know. It's one of life's great paradoxes (and one of the reasons I love to read!).

[Marian]

It might have been that Mark Twain just got fed up with all the female conversation praising the novela of Jane Austen. She was even more popular in Twain's day because there were far fewer woman writers published. Or they wrote under men's names (George Sand) Mmost men prefer action & adventure to descriptions of drawing rooms or the latest fashion. Mark Twain wasn't nasty about Jane Austen, it was a bit of a sport.
James F. Cooper is a different matter. I have tried to read a couple of his books & didn't get very far. The biggest complaint is that he did not portray the Native Americans the way they really were. He belonged to the "Noble Savage" - his Native heroes were too noble to be real. The movie versions of his books are better.

[Michael]

Capitu wrote: "But, this leaves us where in this definition of “classics”?" [post 143:]

Classics develop and endure because there is enough special life in them to transcend (or at least survive) the fashions of the times, and appeal to different readers in different times with different preoccupations. That's how I think of them, at any rate. We know how many books that seem riveting in their own time often seem painfully dated a generation later. But when the ephemera fade, some new generation discovers (or rediscovers) part of the authorial compulsion underlying the classic book, and claims it for their own.

If that makes any sense, then it is also why the library-management gimmick of throwing out the books that have not been checked out much for the past five or 10 years is so frustratingly wrongheaded. How will the next cycle rediscover titles when they can't notice it on the shelf, pull it down, and say, hmmmm.... ? Maybe the brave new electronic world will change that. But the experience of reading is so individual.... discovering a book is fun! Going through some authority's list of the books you should have read doesn't quite compare.

[Ruth]

I agree, Michael. We also have to consider that the books we consider classics may not be considered classics by a future generation. Each book speaks in its own way, each generation of readers reads from a different experience.

[Mary Ellen]

Twain: "Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

So, if he hates P & P so much, why read it more than once?

[Sherry, Doyenne]

Maybe there weren't as many books back then?

[[deleted user]]

I think Mr Clemens really loved her writing. Whats not to love about Miss Austen?

[Michael]

Ruth wrote: "...We also have to consider that the books we consider classics may not be considered classics by a future generation. Each book speaks in its own way, each generation of readers reads from a different experience."

Agreed, Ruth. Even classics cycle in and out of readerships. Or are you suggesting classics have their particular lifespans, too, just on a far longer scale than average? More for Sophocles, less for, Idunno, Cervantes? Or could the Spaniard be waiting for one more surge of interest someday?

[Michael]

In fact, could a modern classic almost everyone here agrees upon -- To Kill a Mockingbird -- fade into obscurity as history closes around the civil rights era and moves on to other dramas? Will this ever be a book that everyone mentions, but no one reads, like Uncle Tom's Cabin?

[Erin]

Mary Ellen wrote: "Twain: "Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

So, if he hates P & P so much, why read it more than once?"

Maybe he didn't really re-read her, but was just saying so for effect.

[☯Emily]

Michael wrote: "In fact, could a modern classic almost everyone here agrees upon -- To Kill a Mockingbird -- fade into obscurity as history closes around the civil rights era and moves on to other dramas? Will th..."

Just finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for the second time. There are quite a few people who do read it.

[Book Concierge]

Michael wrote: "In fact, could a modern classic almost everyone here agrees upon -- To Kill a Mockingbird -- fade into obscurity as history closes around the civil rights era and moves on to other dramas? Will th..."

I think TKAM is less about racism than it is about personal responsibility and integrity. About doing what is right when most people around you disagree. On that basis, I believe it will continue to endure.

[Gina]

☯Emily Who Wonders Why GR Is Silent wrote: "Michael wrote: "In fact, could a modern classic almost everyone here agrees upon -- To Kill a Mockingbird -- fade into obscurity as history closes around the civil rights era and moves on to other ..."

I loved reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and To Kill A Mockingbird. I rated UTC a 5, but most readers rated it a 3. I would hate to think that these two books wouldn't endure, because there is still so much discontent about race in the US.

[☯Emily]

Uncle Tom's Cabin will continue to be read in the future. Its impact on American history was tremendous and, for that reason alone, it will continue to be read and appreciated as a classic.