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As always happens when you try to fit ideas into clear and definite categories, the lines that define a classic remain... fuzzy.
So I'd love to ask you bookish people of Twitter what, in your mind, are the ingredients that make up a "classic"?
(1/8)
So I'd love to ask you bookish people of Twitter what, in your mind, are the ingredients that make up a "classic"?
(1/8)
Is it age? Do we have to go back as far as Beowulf written a millennium ago? (but still capturing the hearts and minds of our own poets today!)
(2/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Beowulf-A-New-Translation_9780571203765
(2/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Beowulf-A-New-Translation_9780571203765
Or can something as recent as Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" published... "only" 28 years ago... be called a classic?
(3/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/The-Secret-History_9780140167771
(3/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/The-Secret-History_9780140167771
Is it the impact it's had on other works? Is Shakespeare only remembered now because we're all caught up in a loop of references or is there something inherent and timeless about Hamlet?
(4/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Hamlet_9780007902347
(4/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Hamlet_9780007902347
Should it capture a sense of the time and place in which it's written like the works of F.S. Fitzgerald?
(5/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Great-Gatsby_9781847496140
(5/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/Great-Gatsby_9781847496140
Or create its own world like Tolkien's works?
(6/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/FELLOWSHIP-OF-THE-RING_9780008376062
(6/8) https://www.dubraybooks.ie/FELLOWSHIP-OF-THE-RING_9780008376062
If a classic is something that stands the test of time, what is it that makes them worthy? And why do some great books get buried along the way in favour of others?
(7/8)
(7/8)
On that note, I'd love to see your #BuriedTreasure books over this weekend! Books that you think deserve to be talked about more, books that you found at the back of a dusty bookshelf that turned out to be hidden gems!
