Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 32 views

    A112B Introduction To Literary Classics

    Uploaded by

    hudhoud.93
    The document discusses the definition of literary classics and how works become considered classics over time. It explores how classics are defined in terms of influence, originality, and the test of time. The concept of the literary canon is also examined, how it is comprised of classic texts deemed culturally authoritative, and how the canon is dynamic and shifting as societies' values change over time.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    A112B Introduction To Literary Classics

    Uploaded by

    hudhoud.93
    32 views21 pages
    The document discusses the definition of literary classics and how works become considered classics over time. It explores how classics are defined in terms of influence, originality, and the test of time. The concept of the literary canon is also examined, how it is comprised of classic texts deemed culturally authoritative, and how the canon is dynamic and shifting as societies' values change over time.

    Original Title

    A112B Introduction to Literary Classics

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses the definition of literary classics and how works become considered classics over time. It explores how classics are defined in terms of influence, originality, and the test of time. The concept of the literary canon is also examined, how it is comprised of classic texts deemed culturally authoritative, and how the canon is dynamic and shifting as societies' values change over time.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    32 views21 pages

    A112B Introduction To Literary Classics

    Uploaded by

    hudhoud.93
    The document discusses the definition of literary classics and how works become considered classics over time. It explores how classics are defined in terms of influence, originality, and the test of time. The concept of the literary canon is also examined, how it is comprised of classic texts deemed culturally authoritative, and how the canon is dynamic and shifting as societies' values change over time.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 21

    Introduction to

    Literary
    Classics
    Slides prepared
    by Dr Nour Dakkak
    What do we mean when we say classic?
    How and why does a literary work become a
    classic?
    And why are classics important?
    What is a classic?
    • ‘Classic’ is a term related to the discipline known as Classics or Classical Studies.
    • It derives from the Latin word classicus, meaning of the highest social class.
    • It first appeared in English in the 1610s as an adjective meaning ‘of or belonging to
    the highest class; approved as a model’.
    • By the 1620s it meant ‘belonging to or characteristic of standard authors of Greek
    and Roman antiquity’.
    • By the early eighteenth century, ‘a classic’ referred to ‘a Greek or Roman writer or
    work’.
    • In the middle of the eighteenth century, this meaning extended to any work or author
    held to have a similar quality or standing; an artist or literary production of the first
    rank.
    • A classic is outstanding of its kind, displaying technical mastery.
    Are all classics the same?
    Imaginary Hierarchy:
    Popular Classic vs High Classic High
    • There are different kinds of classics that are determined by
    how original or influential the work is supposed to be.
    • For example, Agatha Christie’s crime writing suggests that
    her works are the best of their kind, but that their kind is
    formulaic, not ‘original’ in style and structure, voice and
    topic, and therefore does not sit high up an implied literary
    hierarchy, however beloved these works and their authors
    may be by a large and continually regenerating readership.
    • Although these works may be very influential on others
    working in the same formula, they are not felt to exert more
    wide-ranging influence upon culture either at the time they
    are first produced or subsequently.
    Popular
    High Classic
    • By contrast, the ‘high’ literary classic is felt to be:
    • a serious and important book that has stood the test of time
    • a treasured repository of shared cultural wisdom or moral
    understanding to be passed on down the generations.
    • Classic status is more usually given to an older work that has been
    carefully preserved and in one form or another is felt to be still active
    and relevant in the present.
    How much time needs to pass between the release
    of the work and its recognition as classic?
    Is the work classic or the writer classic?
    Inside the Brontë Parsonage Museum
    The literary canon?
    The Literary Canon
    • The literary canon is comprised of classic texts and classic authors.
    • ‘The canon’ originally referred to those books of the Old Testament in
    the Bible that were considered to be historically authentic or
    ‘canonical’.
    • Within literary studies, the canon is a collection of works that are
    considered to be culturally authoritative.
    Different canons?
    Shakespeare features in the recently
    installed ‘The World Literary Giant
    Square’ in Shanghai (2019) close to
    the house of a major Chinese classic
    author, Lu Xun.
    This resembles a sort of literary
    drinks party attended by the greats
    of European literature plus Lu Xun
    (Figure 2).
    Figures 3–4 show Shakespeare and
    Dickens, in company with Goethe,
    Pushkin and Edgar Allan Poe. (No
    women are present, though.)
    Can the meaning of canon change?
    Women?

    BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic)


    writers?
    The shifting meaning of canon:
    • The literary canon, and the classics that make it up, are in fact in a
    state of constant making and remaking.
    • This is because the canon of classics simply expresses an idea of
    ‘essential cultural inheritance’.
    • What a culture chooses to describe as its inheritance depends on what
    it currently finds valuable.
    • Thus, canons of literature in English will vary widely depending on
    where they are located.
    How can the canonical texts endure our
    changing societies?
    The Power of the Classics: the case of
    Shakespeare and Brontë
    Preparation for next class:
    Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

    You might also like