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Ayn Rands, The Fountainhead really settles this argument, she says that we should not revere that
which men say to be great and awe inspiring simply because it is old and everyone says that it is
great. We should have our own opinions and not always be so conformist. I have personally read many
"classical" books and novels and found only a handful to be truly worthy to be deemed as classics,
the rest were exceedingly overrated. |
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 123  01 Aug 2008 22:37
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Yeahhhh, a lot of it is really boring! |
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Yes anything can be admired by some or most. But just because something is deemed to be classical,
doesn't automatically prove its worth. |
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Grenache worded it well for me. |
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I’ve always considered both ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Ethan Frome’ to be highly overrated. I
suppose you could say that they are both about two people who manage to destroy themselves and
everyone close to them by being incredibly stupid, selfish, horny, and stupid. As great a premise
that is for a story it just never attracted me. They both read like an episode of Jerry Springer. |
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Some classical literature is really quite rubbish, but it seems to have an aura of respectability
because it is quaint and old. I might get shouted at for this, but I always found the Bronte sisters
a little cheesy and Victor Hugo's Notre Dame, Leroux's Phantom and most of Rudyard Kipling's fiction
less than stellar. Susanna Moodie's works are not much better.
At the same time, we don't seem to appreciate later twentieth century classics quite as much as
those written earlier on. With the exception of James Joyce, some of the best contemporary authors
still get the short end of the stick, yet their ability to develop complex characters and address
issues in a thoughtful manner rivals many of their predecessors. Graham Greene, for example, is a
fantastic author, yet he is often marginalized in North America. Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies is a
great interwar satire, while Jack Kerouac's On the Road should be treated as more than a just a
gritty cult classic. Margaret Laurence, the matriarch of modern Canadian literature, remains unknown
outside of Canada, but just read The Diviners and you will see how unfair her lack of an
international status really is. |
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We tend to revere the bygone age and its classical art productions because we know we can't have any
more of it. These art forms imploded with the catastrophe of modernism. We yearn for an age in which
poetry was comprehensible and music was harmonious.
This does, in some cases, lead to the veneration of works which really don't deserve it. Our
critical faculties are suspended by our sheer awe at the fact that composers were once able to
compose music which wasn't discordant. Music that's pleasant to listen to - wow, what will they
think of next? Soldiers than can fight, dogs that can bark, rain that's wet. The possibilities are
endless. |
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Sure, tastes change, circumstances change. A work which was groundbreaking in it's time may make
little impact in current standards. I think often "Classical" is used in a more historic context
than a literary merit context. |
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Crime and Punishment could have been about 50 pages shorter. I think that if it was published
today, either it wouldn't make it, or more would happen than just the guy passing out by the road
about twenty times. ( I know there was more than that. I just haven't read it in about 14 years,
and that is all I really remember happening.. Cause it happened over and over) |
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Classical literature is great because of the messages it tells. For example, the Prince and the
Pauper (Mark Twain), is about a prince who wants to be a common folk and a pauper who wants to be a
prince. Don't tell me there's not a message there. Read classical literature and modern literature
and then try and tell me that modern literature has a point. |
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Sorry to buck the trend, but the motion inspired an iota of indignation within me which grew to such
an extent that eventually I found impossible to ignore.
What defines classical literature? Surely anything one defines as classical should be revered by
one, or else it would not classified as such? |
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