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When Publishers Define "Classic"

A good book is a work of amazing depth.

Perhaps that should be the qualification that defines "classic" literature?

In 2016 the popular magazine Taiwan Panorama published an article about the Eslite Bookstore's "Reading Classics Together" project. The heart of that story was a survey of participating publishers' definitions of what a "classic" text was and the factors they considered when choosing books from their catalogues for the project.

In a second article, the magazine intereviewed writers and scholars about their understanding of what characteristics define a "classic" work of literature. That report considers "the expert reader" and questions of what raises a text to the status of "classic" despite changes in the social environment of readers.

Among those characteristics most valued by the scholars and writers of Taiwan who were interviewed for the "Classic Works: Reading Together, Thinking Together" piece was the notion of great literature representing and transcending cultural identifications. "Classic works are endlessly thought-provoking, perhaps not only because of their abstraction, universality, and openness, but because they are lights that continually shine on the road ahead."

They are also aesthetically beautiful for any reader who takes the time to appreciate the power of words and ideas. 

Importantly, one of the writers interviewed for the article warns that so far the understanding of a "classic" text is imposed from the top-down, with scholars and communities of writers often deciding what gets included and excluded. 

The writer suggests that the term "classic" can be interpreted widely and may be adaptable to the changing times across human history. "Anything that is meaningful to a group of people and around which a reading public takes shap can be a 'classic'--even a comic book, not to mention books that happen to be out of favor at a given time, such as Marx's Capital." 

With that in mind, it is fascinating to see how the many publishing houses of Taiwan's Chinese-language market responded to the challenge of defining which of the works from their own catalogues could be qualified as "classics." 

Those publishers' criteria is outlined in a short blog post at the Grandfather Hu Reviews blog site. It's worth checking out, if only for the ways in which these business entities that straddle the line between Art and Marketing rise to the challenge of deciding how to define the notion of "classic" writing.

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Graphic by Chuang Kung-ju in Taiwan Panorama magazine, used here without permission. 

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