Classics of World Literature
Wide international distribution alone is not a sufficient condition for attributing works to world literature. The decisive factor is an exemplary artistic value and the influence of the respective work on the development of humankind and science in general, and on the development of literature(s) of the world in particular. An agreement on universally accepted criteria to decide what works have literary world ranking is not easy, especially since individual works have to be considered in their respective temporal and regional contexts.
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Famous quotes containing the words classics of, classics, world and/or literature:
“The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
“In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)