This essay is Sainte-Beauve's attempt to define classic literature, or at least to provide some sort of guide or definition so that we may find our own classics. He begins by saying:
A DELICATE question, to which somewhat diverse solutions might be given according to times and seasons. An intelligent man suggests it to me, and I intend to try, if not to solve it, at least to examine and discuss it face to face with my readers, were it only to persuade them to answer it for themselves, and, if I can, to make their opinion and mine on the point clear.He then discusses various definitions and various writers. What makes them classic, or are they really classics at all?
In paragraph 7, Sainte-Beauve gives us what he would like to see as the definition of a classic:
A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth, or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known and discovered; who has expressed his thought, observation, or invention, in no matter what form, only provided it be broad and great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in itself; who has spoken to all in his own peculiar style, a style which is found to be also that of the whole world, a style new without neologism, new and old, easily contemporary with all time.Then in paragraph 24, he has this to say:
Such are our classics; each individual imagination may finish the sketch and choose the group preferred. For it is necessary to make a choice, and the first condition of taste, after obtaining knowledge of all, lies not in continual travel, but in rest and cessation from wandering. Nothing blunts and destroys taste so much as endless journeyings; the poetic spirit is not the Wandering Jew. However, when I speak of resting and making choice, my meaning is not that we are to imitate those who charm us most among our masters in the past. Let us be content to know them, to penetrate them, to admire them; but let us, the late-comers, endeavour to be ourselves. Let us have the sincerity and naturalness of our own thoughts, of our own feelings; so much is always possible. To that let us add what is more difficult, elevation, an aim, if possible, towards an exalted goal; and while speaking our own language, and submitting to the conditions of the times in which we live, whence we derive our strength and our defects, let us ask from time to time, our brows lifted towards the heights and our eyes fixed on the group of honoured mortals: what would they say of us?I found this an interesting essay, and there were portions that inspired me in both my reading and my writing. I hope you will find it inspiring and interesting, as well.
2 comments:
One of my high school English teachers described a classic as something that one would find meaningufl reading on a rocket ship in a future era.
I think of how the human condition for those in developed countries seems to have changed so much. We have so many luxuries. It is easy to think that has changed humankind as well. Aside from having to struggle less to survive for many people, the people in these modern homes, cars, sitting at computers, watching satellite t.v., are still the same on the inside. We have the same range of emotions and stories of adventure or romance still appeal to us in the 21st Century as they did at the start of civilization.
I think you're right, Barb, and it's kinda interesting when you stop and think about it--that the basic human being hasn't changed all that much inside, in spite of all the progress we've made.
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