‘An Oldie but a goodie!’Classic Literature
Year 10 English – Term I
TJ Ruckendorfer | English Faculty | The Ponds High School
“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.” – John Green
Top 10
Greatest
Novels of
All Time
As you watch the video, answer the
following questions:
1. How do the novels on the list
challenge the societal expectations or
norms at the time they were written?
2. What themes were identified in the
novels on this list?
3. How would these themes contribute to
the enduring relevance of these novels?
Characteristics of Classic Literature
Year 10 English – Classic Literature
What makes a book a classic?What do we mean when we say a novel is a classic?
Characteristics of Classic Literature
1. The text explores universal human concerns.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
Moby-Dick explores universal human
concerns such as brotherhood,
obsession and revenge. Published in
1851, the novel was received poorly in
America and gained international
acclaim after his death in 1891. Moby-
Dick is often read for its exploration of
the conflict between fate versus free will
and has been cited as one of the most
powerful novels written about the sea.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
2. It is a pioneering work.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
What make to The Catcher in the Rye a
pioneering work? J.D. Salinger’s only full-
length novel, it was once considered a
scandalous story about coming of age,
lust, rebellion and teenage angst. It was
also one of the first novels to feature the
‘teenage voice’ rather than seeing
teenagers through the eyes of adults.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
3. The text influences other great works.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
What inspired Chinua Achebe to write
Things Fall Apart? Achebe wrote the
book in response to Joseph Conrad’s
classic Heart of Darkness. He also took
the title of the book from the first stanza
of William Butler Yeats’ apocalyptic
poem, The Second Coming:
Characteristics of Classic Literature
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919
Characteristics of Classic Literature
4. It is respected by authors and experts.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
Why is Wuthering Heights popular with
authors and academics? Emily Bronte
created a perdurable novel that has left
its mark on popular culture and has
been embedded into the English
curriculum around the world. Wuthering
Heights has challenged readers, critics
and academics since its publication in
1847 and received mixed reviews on its
release:
Characteristics of Classic Literature
“The success is not equal to the abilities of the writer; chiefly because the incidents
are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable,
with a moral taint about them, and the villainy not leading to results sufficient to
justify the elaborate pains taken in depicting it.” – Spectator, 1847
“We rise from the perusal of Wuthering Heights as if we had come fresh from a pest-
house. Read Jane Eyre is our advice, but burn Wuthering Heights.” – Paterson’s
Magazine, 1848
"How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without
committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a
compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.” – Graham’s Lady Magazine,
1848
Characteristics of Classic Literature
5. The text is challenging through its prose and technical construction.
Characteristics of Classic Literature
The most experienced, intellectual, and
seasoned reader can come to a
crossroads when they pick up Ulysses.
The novel is widely known as one of the
most difficult novels due to Joyce’s
layered allusions, stream-of-
consciousness technique and rich
vocabulary. Ironically enough, those
same qualities have made it one of the
most revered book in history, and many
readers who have managed to finish it
have argued that the struggle is worth it.
Pioneers of Literature
Year 10 English – Classic Literature
Pioneers of Literature
What we consider a classic can also be subjective. Horror fans may consider H.P. Lovecraft’s
The Call of Cthulhu and Stephen King’s The Stand to be classics while many academics and
critics would disagree. On occasion, authors may have to defend their genre or works:
Pioneers of Literature
In 1927, H.P. Lovecraft defended the weird genre in his seminal essay Supernatural Horror
in Literature.
Pioneers of Literature
In The Simple Art of Murder, published in 1950, Raymond Chandler defended the hard-
boiled detective genre as well as criticising crime fiction as art.
Pioneers of Literature
Stephen King, a prolific writer who has published sixty-four books and over two-hundred
short stories, has also been forced to defend his craft in Danse Macabre (1981) and On
Writing (2000). In 2003, when King received the National Book Foundation’s Medal of
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, outraged academics condemned the
decision in no uncertain terms.
Why should we read Classic
Literature?
Year 10 English – Classic Literature
The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say: “I am rereading…” and never “I am reading…” – Italo Calvino
Why should we read Classic Literature?
“Why Read the Classics?” by Italo Calvino
Why should
we read
Classic
Literature?
As you read through the article answer the following questions:
1. How does Italo Calvino define ‘classic literature’?
2. Does his definition agree with the five points above?
3. According to Calvino, why is reading classic literature so important to us as readers?