What is a Classic? This was the topic of the Presidential Address to the Virgil Society delivered by T.S. Eliot in 1944. Eliot said classic is used “as an indication of the greatness, or of the permanence and importance of a writer in his own field.” and “for it is only by hindsight, and in historical perspective, that a classic can be known as such.” And a classic requires “a lifetime of labour” of a writer with a matured mind.
EB says the classical literature is used for “the literature of any language in a period of any notable for the excellence and enduring quality of its writers’ works.”
T.S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.” His verse departed from the ‘classic’ of the age that he had so arduously studied and produced a classic--The Waste Land. James Joyce’s novels were shockingly revolutionary in technique comparing to the classical novels that we come to know, and yet one needs not apologize if one declares Ulysses or Finnegans Wake a classic.
This is my way to convey the concept of classic, which is also defined as “A book which people praise and don’t read.” by Mark Twain.
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