What is a literary classic?

After the Thanksgiving feast and time of revelry and being desirous of conversation, we kicked around a few topics before lighting on two mainly:  pastors who are extremely wealthy (which got somewhat heated) and then between a few of us, why literary classics are awarded that status thereby becoming part of the canon of Great Books.

It’s necessary to note that the term “canon” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary refers to sacred texts. It always did until the nineteenth century when writers began to offer a secular list of classics, or canon, of their own. Louise Cowan claims that this was natural in a post-Christian world. The term is a kind of misnomer, really, but is widely used in the field nonetheless.

A satisfying list of criteria is offered by Cowan in an early chapter of the text that she edited with Os Guinness, Invitation to the Classics, a book which I heartily recommend. The two authors introduce selected “must read” works from Homer to Frost with instructive essays, biography, and art.

According to Cowan (paraphrased here)

A classic exhibits artistic merit.

A classic portrays life as complex and depicts negative and positive aspects of human nature and the trying of values and character.

The reader’s understanding of self is affected.

It can be and deserves to be reread.

It is appreciated in various times and places as it portrays the human drama.

It is considered a classic by a sufficiently large number of people.

It stands the test of time.

So, a recent work, say of the last thirty years, cannot really yet be labeled a classic, can it? It’s too early to make the call. Many Pulitzer winners won’t become classics, neither did the works of many fine, skillful writers of earlier times.  I can’t say that I’ve read a recent work that will end up on the must read list of 2050.