Piffka wrote:Originally, Classics meant Greek and Latin literature, both fiction and non-fiction.
Piffka
I'm sure, you were just referring to litterature when defining 'classics' by this. :wink:
Walter??? Written works as opposed to marble, y'mean?
I definitely like the idea of adding drama. After all, if you don't, then where does Shakespeare fall?
If the past 100 years of lit. are removed, we lose these:
* Catch-22
* The Great Gatsby
* anything by Hemingway
Is that right?
I agree that a work has to kind of 'stand the test of time'. And be popular and read somewhere other than just one little corner of the globe.
By this definition, does Lady Chatterley's Lover make the cut?
LCL written less than a century ago - if we follow that definition.
I think that it is also interesting to decide (or not) are you talking about the writer or the work? The definition in my dictionary is the work... but I go for the writer.
To me the test of time allows a classic to become more than just famous. Will you read Catch 22 in 100 years and consider it in the same light as Midsummer Night's Dream or Hamlet?
Piffka, speaking strictly for myself, I have serious doubts about reading anything a hundred years from now. But if I was to (were to? ... if I did? ... do? ... whatever) anyway, it's the bio of Tristram Shandy. Flippin' 'eck, it takes the cobber nearly that long to get properly borned ... at least 40 odd chapters (emphasis on odd.) Though not to everyone's taste, it's the touch-tone ... nay, the epi-tome of indefatigable digression.
"Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is), is but a different name for conversation." ... Tristram Shandy, bk. II, ch. 11
"L--d! said my mother, what is all this story about? -- A Cock and a Bull, said Yorick." ... Ibid, IX, ch. 33
Debacle -- Can't say as I've read it... maybe I'll save it for a hundred years from now.
nice quotes!
I read alot of trashy novels and to balance out the habit I'll read some of what are considered to be classics in between, just for some variety
I just recently read Lord of the Flies and confess that I know why I never read it before. Although it is a slim novel I had to make myself read it. From my perspective, I wasn't the slightest bit interested in a bunch of 12 yr. old boys stranded on an island. I know the context of the book was filled with symbolism etc.,
The other book I just recently read was Brave New World. Again, I had to make myself get through it.
On a happier note, my most favorite classic book is Dantes Divine Comedy.
woudl Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky fit into the category, loved that one too.
Gala -- Well if you like trashy novels but your favorite is the Divine Comedy, then I'm impressed!
I didn't like Lord of the Flies or Brave New World either, and doubt that in a hundred years they'll be considered classics!
Piffka, you are correct I was mixing "required reading"(school days) and the Classics. However, in the 20th century context, books that I have listed above are considered to be classics of their time. There is, no doubt, a distinction , as you have pointed out.
By the way, there is a Great Books program at St. Johns college in Sante Fe NM, and Maryland.
http://www.sjcsf.edu/academic/curri8.htm
What an excellent link... it should definitely be in the Links Section of this Forum.
I noticed that:
(1) I haven't read at least half of all the Great Book Writers
(2) Hemingway wasn't listed but Fitzgerald was
(3) Willa Cather was, I agree
(4) Virginia Woolf was, I don't agree... but obviously am no expert
(5) More than 50 would have to be read in English translation or else you'd need to know, Arabic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish and probably some others!
(6) Nothing was listed from all of Asia: China, India, Japan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Confucius
Wrote in Chinese
551-479 B.C.E.
more info
Lao-tzu
Wrote in Chinese
6th century B.C.E.
more info
Sun Tzu
Wrote in Chinese
4th century B.C.E.
more info
Ferdowsi
Wrote in Persian
935-1020 A.C.E.
more info
Omar Khayyam
Wrote in Persian
1048-1141 A.C.E.
more info
Sa'di
Wrote in Persian
1213-1291 A.C.E.
more info
This is from the classics list on the link Gala posted (thanks so much for that). Wasn't it a (or perhaps still is?) a sign of a truly well-read person that they learned the languages of all the classical authors?
Sun Tzu's The Art of War is probably very appropriate reading these days.
It's quite short, and provocative (in terms of thought-provoking) to my eye.
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
Beth - I was looking at the Great Books Writers.
Piffka
Those, who don't speak English (or American :wink: ) must wait for their translations, too, or read the books in the original language
It is interesting to compare different translations. Sometimes the translator attempts to be more lyrical, sometimes more straightforward. I really like it when a translated book contains the original and two or three of the best translations. That helps!
Our languages definitely divide us. Sadly. English and American are certainly different and it is sometimes nearly impossible to understand what a person with a regional accent speaking in idioms is meaning.... from either side of the ocean. Canadian is closer, at least in Spelling, to English, but their accents are their own.
Piffka, I was consdering entering the great book program, but alas, it is for those who can afford to pay the tuition.
OH? I thought those were online books! And the assignments are online -- of course you wouldn't get the lectures, but they seem to be going through things awfully fast. (Four lectures on the Illiad, three on the Odyssey.)
If you wanted to be an autodidact, you could read them online according to the assignments, then read the various critiques about these books. You'd probably get as good an education as any. There is, I noticed, a Q/A forum as well. (A little dry, but.....)
Piffka, you may, or mayn't, have noticed that my esteemed friend, Tristram Shandy, Gent., is lodged amongst that pile of Great Books, as well he should be. For is he not the patronising founder of dlowan's infamously notoriotous digression freds? Aye, he is.
http://www.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/TS/i.1-19.html
