Discussion: what makes a classic?

I've been reading up on classical horrors (from Dracula, to The Invisable Man) and I've been a great lover of classical novels. And lately I've began to wonder, What makes a book a classic? We could say time, but many great books were written and never reached the zenith that, say, Great Expectations reached. Everyone knows who Pip, Count Dracula, Dr. Watson, Mr. Hyde, Elizabeth Bennett, and Sidney Carton are. What made these books classics? I can say with Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain were wildly popular, But Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera was passed by with nary a glance until more recent times. Also, not all their novels are as classical as some of their other works.

Will someday The Twilight, Harry Potter and Hunger Games series be considered classics?

What do you think makes a classic?

In all the classics, the awesome characters die. Look on the cover of your favorite classic. Chances are, someone on that cover is dead.

LOL Amaranthine!

Well, I think a classic is a book that never goes out of style and always connects with the reader. Also, talent too (or what people perceive to be it). I think people love Austen and Dickens so much because in the end, they are truly great writers.

Classics seem probably kind of seem outdated to most kids now, who judge them as boring. Most girls probably don't think reading the Anne of Green Gables series or the Scarlet Pimpernel would be fun, even though I do.

When I was little, I couldn't read, but my mother used to watch the movie versions of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibilities etc., and explain the plots to me and what was going on and why someone was doing this and that. Even though many of the movies had sad endings, they were overall enjoyable, even for a 6 year old. I still get surprised when a movie takes interesting twists and turns, plot wise. The only problem I have is when they only air sequences of one on TV, I end up looking up the ending because it just got to the good part. XDDD

I love The Scarlet Pimpernel and Anne of Green Gables

And I agree, Pink

Well, you do have a point, Amaranthine! Lol

Pink, that's kinda what I thought. Girls can connect with Anne as much today as the moment it came off the press.

Oh, and Sir Percy is MY love, you can't have him.

Maybe that brings up another point...the heroes never age or fade for hopeless romantic readers...

I think a classic is a wonderful story that will be read over generations and seem to never age and will always be considered just a wonderful piece of work. Like Great Expectations for example. We read it this year in English and afterwards everyone in our class was talking about it as excitedly as The Hunger Games.

I personally think Harry Potter is a classic. I mean, it's been around for more than 10 years already. I highly doubt Twilight or The Hunger Games will last that long

I love The Hunger Games, but I doubt it will become a classic. I love the books, wish they could be a classic, and SC is an amazing writer, but they are too much of a fad. People read them because they are popular; because there was going to be a movie.

Harry Potter has great potential to be a classic. It is completely timeless with Hogwarts, and the fight of good agents evil is obvious. The lead characters are memorable, and who dosent like magic!

Yeah, i just had to comment on those being classics.

Take Narnia for example: It has been around FOREVER (ok, more like 62 years) and are still a huge success. Multiple movies have been made on most of the books, they are often used in Christian study, and there is a fight between good and evil, again. But here is something interesting: there is not one fight between good and evil, but continus fights. Evil comes, is destroyed, but then it comes back. In many books, the evil is conquered once and for all. The evil dies, and it ends with "they all lived happily ever after" (ok, not all books, but think about how many books do!) Narnia is much like our world: Evil comes back. The only way to destroy it is with God, and God alone (but it does help to have an army of wizards and demigods!) In the end of the series, evil is defeated, but not everyone is free of it. Creatures serving Tash still serve Tash, and do not go back to Aslan.

Adventure: There is action and sword fights and boats and dragons and talking animals and kings and queens and a whole different world and OUR world. C.S. Lewis combines our plannet, Earth with a whole different world. The only way between the worlds is the use of magic rings, or to be called into that other world. It is a truly genius way to travel.

Characters: The characters all act entirely human (well, the humans do). It gives more life to the book and makes them easy to relate to. they get scared, they get bullied, they are bullies, they are trusted and mistrusted, tell the truth and lie, they get sad and happy. You can see how they are great characters.

Imagination: And then, of coarse, there is just the immaginative part of it, where every child pretends to go to Narnia, pretends to meet Aslan, pretends to fight evil, pretends there is a wardrobe made out of a Narnian apple tree, pretends that they can save others, and when they grow up, they do. They are taught by playing as the good guy to be the good guy.

So that is just my opinion of one classic. Other things are comedy and romance. those help make a good book.

This is a great topic!

Satine: yeah. Great Expectations is wonderful. I read it in 3 days. I just couldn't put it down.

Shaak Ti: I only read THG to see what it was all about, and while I love it, I don't think it truly has the Classic quality either.

This is a really good discussion idea.

To me what makes a classic is the writing style, memorable characters, and a well done, strong plot. Many books now days just try to come up with these crazy, dystopian style plots and while these books are very good, they don't ever last for that long. Of course, though, not all books written a long time ago are perfect either; plenty of books written a long time ago are hardly ever read.

I definitely think Harry Potter has the makings to become a classic; it's been around for a very long time and is still as popular as ever. I think it will be one of those stories passed down from generation to generation and enjoyed by all. Just like Star Wars as been for the last 30 plus years and will continue on for many more years to come .

Even though I like The Hunger Games books I also don't see them becoming classics; they seem to much like a fad which will fade over time. I'm sure they'll still be read but people won't look back on it decades from now with fondness like people do with such greats as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

Twilight will most definitely not become a classic; the story is not well written in the least and the main characters are horribly flat(well, Jacob was okay in the first book which is the only one I have read).

I am one of those kids that has read a lot of the classics and as enjoyed them. For example, last summer I decided I wanted to read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables; it is a very good book and I recommend reading it when you have time to sit down and read it(it's 1222 pages long). I also really enjoyed Anne of Green Gables when I read it several years ago, as I did The Secret Garden and The Hound of the Baskersville (Sherlock Holmes).

Totally! I agree with you Siri! It need all of those things to be a classic. And those books wont be classics.

The hound of baskersville was GOOD!!!!!

~May