In the bustling corridors of literary discourse, few words are flung around with as much careless abandon as classic. Everyone wants a piece of it—critics, publishers, academics, prize panels, even the marketing arms of corporate presses. “Classic” has become a broadly misused word. A charade behind which elites hide their propaganda, innuendos, and cult, ascribing any work of art the label of a classic, might have become the most significant white-collar intellectual crime gone unnoticed so far.
A critical reconsideration of what truly constitutes a classic in literature is not only timely, it is imperative. The popular imagination is too often held hostage by received wisdom—books labelled as classics in syllabi, recommended by high-society reviewers, or adorned with heritage dust jackets in vintage bookstores. These are assumed to be of literary worth without requiring readers to ask: do these books really deserve that tag?
Honestly, tell me what should be the ideal percentage of these so-called classics in literature you can read without going ‘meh! I cannot read that thing… even in one hundred days… it’s boring.’ The greatest example should be the works by authors who take inspiration from ongoing social issues, take advantage of the tide, get some awards and voila. Their works become classics after a few decades. The issues? Well, they are dead. The book will be alive in classrooms and book clubs. The relevance? That’s none of your concern!
Take To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance. It rode the waves of racial politics in the USA. However, except for the issues that it takes up, is there anything timeless in the novel? The racial divide? Ah, it might be an eternal issue for the US. The language? The narrative? The style? Other than the fact that readers read it with anticipation of the courtroom passages or the black-white episodes, do they have their chance to enjoy this work of literature? I will not pass a verdict on that. The following extract will:
“Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.
Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.”
This narrative style is, at best, passively descriptive and, at worst, just plain. It lacks the vivid psychological insight, layered prose or reflexive complexity that allows readers to revisit a work and discover something new each time. It hooks readers with courtroom tension, yes, but fails to provide sustained literary pleasure. The resonance of the themes may justify its study, but does that make it a classic in the truest literary sense?
On the contrary, even with the overenthusiastic indulging nature of the narrator in Vanity Fair, I will enjoy William Thackeray’s novel more than To Kill a Mockingbird, any day, any hour, any year… even after centuries have passed, and my soul may remain in a new body. Vanity Fair offers you much more to enjoy in a work of literature, along with the serious issues it deals with, the time it was written, and the timeless ones. In Becky Sharp, we have a character who defies simple categorisation. Thackeray gifts readers a complex interplay of class, ambition, gender and satire. His narrative voice may intrude, yes, but it also invigorates the novel with wit and commentary that still feels fresh.
Critics, god knows who, who have assumed the task of calling out classics, should learn first that literature is not politics. It may have a certain political undercurrent, but IT IS NOT POLITICS! Literature’s first (and perhaps last, being an overly pragmatic critic, someone may think) rule is to offer readers something to relate to, enjoy and, possibly, offer a few good hours of leisure. Vanity Fair does offer these things. Moreover, the story also explores the universal and timeless themes of love, affection, and women’s expectations from society… and the novelist has woven these timeless themes into the ongoing economic slowdown and social issues of English society at that time. Is that too difficult to understand?
This brings us to a proposal that is both simple and sensible: The classic formula on which we should measure the classics in literature should be simple. A classic literary piece should be timely, timeless and, most importantly, enjoyable. By enjoyable, I mean readers should relate to its story whenever the work is read, wherever it is read, and with whatever is going on in society. Issues of language, diction, style and narrative structure, I believe, should be best left to readers to decide.
This is not an attack on complexity, far from it. Literary sophistication is welcome, even necessary. But sophistication alone does not make a work classic. Nor does obscurity. The obscurity of literature should not make it classic! We are not talking about works that are merely difficult to read or comprehend. We are talking about books that seem to revel in difficulty without any substantive aesthetic or emotional payoff.
A publication year, if it is 200-300 years old, does not necessarily vouch for a work being a classic. Nor does its place in the footnotes of a professor’s thesis or a critic’s top-ten list. A classic should appeal to your consciousness. It should reach your soul, but first, appease your senses. If a literary work does not compel you to keep turning pages, it cannot be a classic. Let the publishers print attractive blurbs, write bold inscriptions on the cover pages, and garner inviting views from elite NYT critics or Oxford dons. If a novel does not induce readers to continue reading, it will never be a classic. Seriousness and readability should go hand in hand, along with the publication date and recommendations by critics.
For instance, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre explores the themes of identity, self-belief, women in society and love. Even with its slow pace, the novel’s lyrical and rhythmic language perfectly complements its universal themes, as well as the timely exploration of the governess roles by English women, the ongoing migration from rural to urban areas and the industrialisation of England. Does it fit the formula I proposed for measuring classics? It does! In Jane Eyre, what critics recommend, the publishers promise, and readers find perfectly blend together. That’s what makes it a timeless classic.
On a more technical note, such works manage to combine what one might call the ‘triple resonance’—they speak to the era in which they are written, maintain their appeal across eras, and communicate directly to the reader’s emotional and intellectual faculties. They are not always perfect, but they possess a quality of sustained relevance and aesthetic pleasure. Works like Jane Eyre perfectly master the equilibrium of emotional and intellectual appeals. Without making one hijack another, such works of literature remain validated, demanded and appreciated for long.
Novels by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, R. K. Narayan, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raja Rao, Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, and a few by Virginia Woolf and even by Amitav Ghosh always come to my mind when I think of classics in English literature. These writers, despite their differing styles and periods, manage to engage readers beyond their contemporary moment. They are masters of the inner life. Their characters breathe. Their plots unfold organically. Their language often demands careful attention, but seldom alienates.
Yet, one cannot help but question the motivations behind certain literary consecrations. Some supposed classics in literature are boring. Outrightly boring. Can a tag of the classic become a veil for a work tedious, slow and unhappening? Should it?
One would think not. The first job of a literary classic must always be to entertain and engage its readers. If that is accomplished, serious issues will be considered based on the urgency with which they are presented. The seriousness of the themes and issues in a classic work must be paired with an appealing, entertaining, and timeless presentation. This is the secret sauce.
It is also what distinguishes a book written for the moment from one that lives beyond the moment. A novel reacting to a political crisis or popular trend might win prizes or secure a brief stint on bestseller lists. But a work that probes human nature with narrative ingenuity, stylistic richness, and imaginative depth earns the right to endure.
We must not surrender the judgment of classics to external agencies. Readers must reclaim their role as the arbiters of literary permanence. Institutions, awards, trends and critical fads cannot reliably produce enduring literature. A true classic demands time. Not just the passage of time but investment of time—the reader’s time, imagination, and experience.
When readers repeatedly return to a novel not because they must, but because they want to—because it makes them think, feel, and be—then the work earns the right to be called classic. A great literary classic should not require an introductory essay and ten pages of footnotes to be understood. It should require a human heart and a curious mind.
So, the next time someone offers a list of classics to read before you die, ask them why. Ask them what lives in those books that will live in you after you finish reading them. Let us stop building shrines to books we no longer open. Let us stop praising novels that bore us into submission.
Let us stop hiding behind the term ‘classic’ and start asking whether the book truly makes us feel. Whether it transports, transforms or at least temporarily relieves us from the dull passage of our days. If it does not, then no number of academic panels or heritage awards can save it from irrelevance.
A classic should appeal to your consciousness.
It should reach your soul, but first, appease your senses.
That is not too much to ask. That is what readers deserve. That is what literature is meant for.
PS: If supposed classics were the best works of literature so far, why did critics have to come up with concepts like easy-to-read classics or classics for beginners? Think.
Alok Mishra for Indian Book Critics
(Alok Mishra is the founder of English Literature Education, a platform dedicated to making English literature accessible. He is a poet and literary critic.)