Not all books written a long time ago are considered classic literature. The word classic means far more than old, after all. Usually, classic describes something that has remained popular with a large number of people over several decades--or even a few centuries. Examples of classic literature generally include timeless themes and very memorable characters, and they demonstrate a high quality of writing. Classic novels were often part of a literary movement when they were first published, or they may have represented something entirely new, such as the first horror story or graphic novel.
If you access a classic novel online, you won’t necessarily see the book’s cover or even its illustrations--you’re more likely to find a simple text version. You can tell if the book would be considered a classic, though, using the same prereading strategies you use to explore any book. The examples on the tabs below will show you how.
If you’re reading a book online, you should be able to find information about the author very quickly, using a simple search engine, such as Google or Bing. Most print copies of books have information about the author somewhere inside the covers as well. Read this paragraph from a web page about Charlotte Bronteë, the author of a novel titled Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte and published in 1847. Bronte was an English novelist and poet. She used the pen name Currer Bell because women authors during the 1840s were not taken as seriously as male authors. Jane Eyre revolutionized a style of writing called prose fiction. Prose has to do with sequence and structure, and Jane Eyre has a specific descriptive style that exhibits a natural flow created by the language and grammatical choices made by Bronte.
Question
What does the information about Charlotte Bronte tell you about Jane Eyre?
Many books include a few pages at the beginning--before the story starts--in which the author introduces the book, perhaps explaining why she wrote it or what provided the inspiration for the story. In classic novels and in non-fiction books, that section is often called a forward or preface. Take a look at this excerpt from the preface to Jane Eyre.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as Jane Eyre: in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.
Question
What point does the author want readers to keep in mind as they read her novel?
The way in which a novel is written provides the strongest clues about its status as a classic. As you read the first few paragraphs of Jane Eyre, consider how the style of writing compares other books you’ve read.
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so somber, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
Question
As you can see from Jane Eyre’s beginning, the story will be told by a narrator who is a character in the novel. The narrator is young enough to have been “chided” by adults and seems to have been excluded from some activities because of her behavior or attitude. What is odd about the style of the writing, given that the narrator is most likely a young child?
