Classic Literature

"It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature."  -Henry James




Classic literature, I believe, produces the best and greatest aesthetic pleasure above all. Writing was more of an art form in the last few centuries than it is today, and because of that, there is much to learn from it. The writing style was so much more thought out and there was more originality and issues and themes that writers wanted to convey back them. There was imagery and metaphor and a vast vocabulary all around. Writers like Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Butler, and countless others all had things they wanted to communicate with their audience; they all had feelings they wished to convey. It wasn't just about telling a good story, it was about communicating an idea.


This has been lost in today's post-modern writing. There is no more originality, no more attempt at metaphor or even good sentence structure or imagery. The novels of today consist of poor writing, poor story telling, and just horrible stories. While you can find great modern novels today with actual meaning, they are few and far between and never make it to the mainstream circles. People need to look back into the works of history, to classic literature, and really absorb what was present then that is lacking now.