As a former English student, I have always been curious about what makes a book a ‘classic’. It always felt like a category that had a mysticism around it and, while it was certainly the type of book I gravitated to, I never felt I could define it. Each classic seems to have some je ne sais quoi that made it so. Entering university, it then felt as though I was being confronted by the idea that what had been decided as a ‘classic’ was dictated to by the whims of white European males of a bygone era. This definition did not seem to fit either though. Sure, what had been considered literary canon of eras may have been defined at the time, and afterwards, by the dominating and narrow social sphere, but what has emerged as beloved pieces of literature or poetry and has outlasted the confines of their own era were not always the same. When I saw that ‘What is a Classic?” was an event hosted during the York Literature Festival, I was delighted. With my two favourite writers’ works alluded to, I was hopeful to get an in-depth discussion between all three speakers.
On the evening of Wednesday 12th March, Prof Vybarr Cregan-Reid, Prof Jennie Batchelor and Dr Sarah Dustagheer hosted a discussion on the enduring nature of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Shakespeare. It was a wonderful event, filled with information but also with humour.
Batchelor, author of Jane Austen Embroidery, began her introduction to her author to her reading with “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when discussing Jane Austen, you begin with an extract from Pride and Prejudice”. Then she promptly read an excerpt from Northanger Abbey. Her first stipulation of what makes a classic is that, unlike other novels, when she reads a classic “I don’t inhabit it. It inhabits me!”
Author of We Are What We Read, Cregan-Reid brought to the audience his rereading of Great Expectations. Returning to Great Expectations at different points in his life, each reading has brought a different impact. A new understanding. In the discussion between the three academics came the idea that “while most books become claustrophobic over time, the classics do not”. Springboarding off that thought is that the classics are like sculptures – new patterns and imagery emerge as we move around them.
Bringing in her authority on Shakespeare, Dustagheer claimed that classics “reach us because it is saying something essential about being human” and that they are about connecting to the text. Dustagheer quoted a conversation in The Tempest between Prospero and Ariel after Prospero has exacted his revenge, where Ariel declares that if he were human his “affections would become tender” and that he believes his master would feel the same if he saw these men. It’s a moment of powerful connection.
After these introductions on each academic’s specialism, they delved into a more balanced discussion with questions like ‘Is plot necessary?’. Defining the function of a plot as to “make it satisfying and leave us wanting more”, Batchelor then went on to say that Austen’s plots seem to unravel – she begins reading knowing that by the end of the book, the right people will be together and the wrong people will be separated. However, through the novel she wonders how any of this could even happen.
In the case of Dickens’ works, Cregan-Reid allowed that when he had the time to think a plot through it works. At the same point in Dickens’ career, he wrote The Old Curiosity Shop and A Christmas Carol. The latter he thought through beforehand, but with The Old Curiosity Shop released in instalments he made changes faced with reader feedback. Amusingly, Cregan-Reid commented that at this time Dickens is busy and this text reads like the person writing is the head of a department. A problem that he, Batchelor and Dustagheer all know well as heads of departments.
They also questioned how the classics are innovative. A novel, after all, has two meanings: a long printed story about imaginary characters and events, and new and original, not like anything seen before. During the evening, the statement “Classics are genre-defining and genre-establishing” was supported again and again. In this, great writers draw attention to the form they are using and its limits.
Greek plays were traditionally set over 1 day, in 1 location. Shakespeare has the audacity to break the rules with his work. Dustagheer pointed to his innovation in plays like Romeo and Juliet where he mixes the sonnet and the play together when his central characters meet. The mix of the high-class art form (the sonnet) and the low-class art form (the play) is radical.
Similarly, Batchelor pointed out Austen’s use of free and indirect discourse. Austen was writing at a time when novels were truly novel, and she was an avid reader of the ‘trash’ books of the time. With her understanding of the novel at the time, Austen can understand the limits of the novel. She became one of the first to use free indirect speech, where you move from narrator to character smoothly, to give all the characters in her novel a life of their own. Hand in hand with this is Austen’s economy of prose. The lives of her characters still fit within the length of a normal novel, so Austen is working very hard to make her writing look effortless and move between multiple characters easily and concisely. It is this that makes her work multifaceted and allows the reader to gain a new understanding with each new reading.
The evening wrapped up with lighter questions:
“Favourite and least favourite adaptations?” Batchelors’ least favourite Pride and Prejudice adaptation is the 2005 movie; her favourite is Fay Weldon’s 1985 TV series. Dustagheer’s favourite Shakespeare is Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet – “it’s meant to be sexy and violent!”. Her least favourite is Kenneth Branagh – Hamlet does not need to be 4 hours long!
Cregan-Reid doesn’t like any adaptations of Great Expectations, but his favourite Dickens adaptation is A Muppet’s Christmas Carol.
“What are the next classics?” Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and ‘Mr Loverman. Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Lungs by Duncan McMillan and Prima Facie by Suzie Miller.
“Is there an element of luck in what becomes a classic?” On the whole, the consensus was yes but only because there was a lot of work put in at the same time. Think of what might have happened if Marlowe had lived longer.
There was much more discussed, but too much to put into this one article. If this is something you would be interested in attending, I suggest looking at the York Literature Festival next year and book your tickets!
– Rachel Di Nucci