PICKING TO-MORROW'S CLASSICS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 529, 12 August 1949, Page 6

PICKING TO-MORROW'S CLASSICS

F making many books (as.a contributor reminded us last week) there is no end, and the same might be said of the making of book lists. But it is satisfying to record our votes, even on a literary ticket, and it can also be good for us if we think hard enough before voting. The opinions printed below are intended to be footnotes to the British Ministry of Education’s list of English classics (printed on page 7). Readers may find them interesting in themselves, and useful as a framework for discussion.

HE critic who said Dr. Johnson would be forgottén if it wasn’t for the accident of having a brilliant biographer was not joking. Who to-day, apart from the serious student, reads Rasselas, The Lives of the Poets, or the once famous Dictionary — itself? The great dictator of 18th Century let-~ ters-so honoured at his death that his "respectable remains" were buried in Westminster Abbey with the feet pointing towards Shakespeare’s statue-is remembered not for anything he wrote, but as the man with uncouth table manners and brilliant conversational powers. He remains a classic by proxy, as it were, and it was no surprise to find Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson among. the 23 British classics recently | issued by the Ministry of Education for inclusion in a list of the world’s 100 best books being prepared by UNESCO. Picking the winners, even in literature, is not a new idea, but when posterity is to be the judge the contest becomes a difficult one. Who can say, for instance, which among contemporary writings might be included in a list, of the world’s classics published a hundred years from now? What is it that makes a classic? A study of the recent UNESCO list would make an interesting chapter for an essay on the casual and causal in literature. It is not merely that Thackeray and Trollope are ignored in favour of two women _ considered minor writers in their day. The whole list is full of surprises. What of Blake, Bunyan, Bacon, and Burns, to keep to the "B’s for a moment? Blake could find no market for his books and was regerded as mad; Bunyan was a remorseful tinker who spent most of.his life in and out of gaol; Bacon’s great philosophical work, Novum Organum, is forgotten, while phrases from his casual jottings, the Essays, have almost become proverbs in the language. And so on through the list. Defoe, a scribbling rogue of a journalist who was despised by nearly everyone who knew him, is given precedence over Henry Fielding and Samue! Richardson, the father and mother of the English novel, The Macaulays, Carlyles, and Ruskins are displaced by J. S. Mill’s _ Essay on Liberty. The big guns of Victorian poetry, Browning and Tenny‘son, are omitted altogether, the poets being represented instead by Keats, ‘killed off (according to Byron) by contemporary criticism, and Shelley, who died believing the world ‘had forgotten his poetry. Byron himself, once the

toast of London and a symbol of freedom to all Europe, is not considered worthy of inclusion. What will be time’s verdict on our own age? Will Bernard Shaw be remembered for his postcards, the. solemn ruminations of Henry James be neglected in favour of Treasure Island and Mr. Standfast, or Winifred Holtby’s South Riding be read while we consign the trinity of Galsworthy, Wells, and Bennett to the dust? It isn’t likely, perhaps, but on the evidence, quite possible. Who can predict whether anyone in futuge years will read James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, or any other of the recognised contemporary masters? Of course, no-one can; but it is a provocative subject for speculation, and one that is not without some profit for the speculator. Here are some opinions to argue about: EBB AND FLOW (F. J. Foot, Barrister arid Solicitor, of Wellington) TO boldly express opinions on a matter of this sort qualifies one as a coconut shy for readers of The Listener, either now or 100 years hence. So let me protect my head forthwith by proclaiming that my judgments hold good for myself, They are to/be imposed upon nobody and I am to have leave to reverse myself in a year or two hence if so. minded, and if still here. Righty or wrongly, we regard as classics those -works which entertain, surprise and delight us, and which entertained, surprised and delighted our grandparents, and/ their grandparents. (Classics have an ebb and flow like tides and I skip generations to demonstrate the syncopating effect they exhibit.) Trollope was neglected for more than one generation; though Barchester Towers is one of our best novels. , The theme of course need not be light and. the entertainment may be incidéntal to a didactic purpose (Ruskin), or advancement of a social of other reform (Dickens), to biography (Trevelyan’s Early History of Charles James Fox), to autobiography (Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua), or nothing but a story or romance (Trollope).

The field need not be wide and sometimes is extremely restricted (Jane Austen; Surtees). Generally we have to leave memoirs to the French. All this is as of course and is description rather than definition and pretty negative at that, and by no means exhaustive. There is the question of verse. What happened in your columns recently to a certain "Ode" whose author adopted a certain poetic license, inclines me to leave this question to others. Attempting some rough classification, however, and keeping mostly to the very moderns, begging pardon for omissions, and apologising for all these participles, I shall vote for E. M. Forster’s Passage to India (didactic?), George Santayana’s The Last Puritan (philosophic novel), L. M. Nesbitt’s Gold Fever (social-re-form), Jean Burton’s Sir Richard Burton’s Wife (biography), Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall (satire), Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory (psychological novel), Geoffrey Household’s The Salvation of Pisco Gabar (iong short story), Agnes Repplier’s The Sin (short short story). And now here’s an _ extraordinary thing which I didn’t intend. The list includes two Americans (one of French descent), a Canadian, a. Spaniard, three Englishmen, and Nesbitt, who was part Italian, part French and part Scottish. A fairly world-wide medium of expression of thought for our ‘English tongue. As Falstaff said to the Chief Justice, "It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common." SHIRT ON CHURCHILL (Denise Dettmann, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Victoria University College) ]F I were forced to bet on just one book in the English language as certain to be read in 100 years’ time I would ut my shirt on Winston Churchill’s memoirs. It is not in every country or in every century that you get a first-flight statesman who is also a master of presentation and style. Churchill will be a classic for the same reasons that Thucydides and Julius Caesar are classics,

Q: Which brings us to the chief problem in this quest-what makes them classics? D.D.: Oh, readability-which is ultimately the same thing as survival value. We read a book either for content or style-Aristotle’s Matter and Form. And I can’t think of any book frecognised to-day as a classic which has not been distinguished on both counts, We must be interested in what the author says and in how he says it; as style usually wears better than subject, it follows that the subject must be one with universal and lasting interest. Q: And have you a book to fit this requirement? D.D.: Perhaps. Hemingway’s For Whom the Bel] Tolls fits. The reaction against Hemingway has already begun, among the professional critics chiefly; but I expect him to go on being read in spite of it. For Whom the Bell Tolls has a universal theme-the conflict between the claims of a man’s personal life and the cause to which he is devoted. Miss Dettmann said she thought this age would come to be remembered as one of minor classics, books of enduring charm rather than earth-shaking emotional or intellectual impact; she would look forward to re-reading, if reincarnation happened to give her the chance, C. S. Forester, as a present-day R.LS., ‘Evelyn Waugh (for the extraordinary blend of atomic tragedy and sheer farce), Angela Thirkell (for her picture of an England that is passing, drawn with just that touch of exaggeration by which Art improves upon Nature), Joyce Cary’s Mr. Johnson, and the Father Brown stories, Q: No Shaw? ‘ D.D.: Oh, I regard Shaw as already a classic and therefore as good as dead. He is in. the unusual position of having lived to enjoy his own immortality, as Pliny said of Verginius Rufus. Q.: And no poetry? D.D.: No poetry. The last true English poet for me was James Elroy Flecker. Unfashionable, I know, but there it is. : ’ SIXTH SENSE A (Roy Parsons, bookseller, of Wellington) ‘FIRST of all I don’t want to set myself up as an expert. I have a superficial knowledge of contemporary literature through reading current critical writing about books and authors, For instance, I haven’t read T. S. Eliot, yet I know he has a certain quality ‘and stature, he is recognised by the other poets, influences his contemporar- ies, and so on; he also outsells any other poet and has done for some time,

so I'd put my money on him. I’m a bit like the average pifnter. I study the form charts, but I don’t _ necessarily know anything about the horses from first-hand experience. I may not go to the race-track to see them run, but I make my pick and place my bets. As a bookseller I often have to rely on a sort of sixth sense that urges me to invest in a certain book or author, and I think the same thing can be applied in this case. Bernard Shaw has of course already stood the test of time for 50 years or so, and I'd place first on my ‘list his Saint Joan because of its great dramatic excitement-a physical as well ag an intellectual excitement -and because in that play he has got beyond himself. Second, I would put T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, for its tremendous appeal as an exciting story, with underneath it the feeling of someone trying to work out fundamental values, and Winston Churchill’s The Second World War, which may date as far as style goes, but should live for its story and because he lived ‘through what he describes. Next I would put a selection of T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce’s Ulyssesthat’s a case of a book which seems difficult now but may have a wider appeal as time goes on. On a slightly lower plane-probably not on our list, but close to it--Virginia Woolf, for some of her slighter’ essays like that one where she goes out into the streets of London to buy a pencil, because she gives us something unique in them, not only in her sensibility, but in the language she uses to express herself. On the same level Bertrand Russell ‘for one of his less popular works like his Principles of Mathematics, because one feels that here is an acute mind saying something new, breaking new ground, yet saying something fundamental. SHAW IS TOO TOPICAL (Prof. P. S. Arden, at preserit attached to English Department, Victoria University College) MET a Welshman yesterday and he told me that in every Welsh household there are two books-the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress. I can’t think of any two books in our time that might endure in that way. What makes them endure anyway? Permanent value, Q.: How are you to assess permanent value? P.S.A.: How are you to assess any matter of taste? It’s difficult. For one thing a future classic won’t have to be too topical, it will have to be truthful, and it will have to have a general human appeal, not a particular appeal. Then again a work may have an artistic value that far outweighs any topical disability. For instance, take a Renaissance painting of a Madonna and Child, and consider the numbers of people who enjoy and admire that painting even if it has

no particular religious significance for them. John Masefield’s Gallipoli is topical, but it may live through its literary power and its emotional power. Now Shaw is too topical. He won’t last. Maybe some of his earlier plays; St. Joan probably, because it deals with a dramatic and ‘Significant historical evént;. Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, Mrs. Warren's Rrofession may lastbecause Mrs. Warren’s was a very old profession. But I shouldn’t expect much of the rest. ’ Then there’s an even more dangerous thing than plain topicality and that’s topical mood. For example, Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, with their adulation of the Prince Consort and other Victorian emotions that are quite debunked now. There’s topical mood for youmakes best sellers but not classics. Does anyone ever read Anthony Adverse now? Q.: Do you suggest that one might safely skip all best-sellers? P.S.A.: Well hardly that. The Authorised Version of the Bible is a best-seller -but true, it began its big circulation by authority, so perhaps it should not eount. A book I might expect to live is Galsworthy’s Man of Property. It’s in a doldrum now, but I think it may pick up. It has the great virtue of honesty, truth to the scene of the upper-lower-middle class of England. . TWO AND TWO (Thelma Maurais, Editor, School Publications) course the hardest thing to work out is what the conditions for survival might be. Anyway, all our editorial staff had a lot of fun talking it over, and we agreed first on E. M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread, which I thought had more of the "classic" qeaty: than A Passage to India, I also

favoured Ivy Compton-Burnett, and I’d be inclined to go for her, hook, line and sinker, and include all her novels. Of the poets we agreed that T. S. Eliot was likely to become a classic, and another suggestion was NRobert Frost. Then. someone thought of Trevelyan’s Social History, but eventually we demolished him completely, and we followed that up by wiping out neafly all the minor women-Mary Webb, Winifred Holtby; Vera Britten, Phyllis Bent-ley-for various reasons, retaining only Virginia Woolf. To the Lighthouse is I suppose the obvious choice for her, although some of us thought The Common Reader might be the one book of hers to live, NO COTERIE WRITING (A. E. Campbell, Director, pratigs for Educational Research) NEGATIVELY speaking one onaid say that writings which are technical or addressed to small groups or cliquescoterie writing-won’t survive for long, and I think this applies to much modern poetry. I should say the main quality required of any work likely to become a classic is readability. It must be entertaining} and interesting; and have great directness, simplicity and honesty of approach. I think there should also be a noble breadth of spirit and the quality of touching life closely--"seeing life steadily and seeing it whole," as Matthew Arnold said. On these grounds I would pick something by A..N. White-_ head, perhaps his Adventures of Ideas, and Arnold Teynbee’s History of Western Civilisation; T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets; Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga, because it gives a complete picture of a period (although a little over-senti-mentalised) and is a living social document with the intrinsic interest of a

good story; some of the early WellsKipps or Mr. Polly-for their sheer liveliness and gusto; and. for an essayist Virginia Woolf’s The Common Reader. TIME WILL TELL (G. TJ. Alley, Director of National Library Service) "HE whole idea is horrible-an arbitrary list* of 23 or even 100 classics, fio allowance for borderline cases,-it’s wrong. Impossible to make a short list-one name leads to ‘another, and then to another. Interesting. to make a symposium, but one is not enough; you need many symposia, many panels, Jong discussion." Q.: "Could you suggest some requitements for a classic?" ’ G.T.A. "Even the word is wrong! Say a thing’s a classic and you've labelled it déad!" Q.: "Well, shall we call it a bestlaster?" G.T.A.: "Yes; or a last-bester. It must jump fences, leap boundaries. Without being perfect, it must do its particular job very well. If we relate it to human needs, and we must relate it to human needs, then a railway timetable could be a classic-if enough depended on it at a particular time, a turn of history, the fate of a people." Mr. Alley turned in his chair and reached for a book, scattered the pages over, and began to read a passage on reading, the mental and ghysical activity of reading. Then he reached for Adler’s How to Read a Book, turned a ‘few pages, shut it with a look of distaste, clasped his hands together and gazed at his desk, not apparently seeing anything particular on it. "And remember, for every great book there’s a horde of subsidiary pegple, the little fish who interpret and explain. You can’t imagine’ the Himalayas with just Everest and Kanchen Janga sticking up there by themselves with nothing round them, just flatness." Q.: "Will you name any present-day Everests-to-be?" G.T.A.: "T. S, Eliot, Joyce, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell-but this clasical garment doesn’t fit anyone, Take a nuclear physicist-he has certainl broken boundaries; but in our time w cannot assess him, we simply haven’t the knowledge. In fact, the knowledge with which we choose our giants is restricted and small. It may be that our time will come to be known for the writings of Einstein. We can’t tell. We'd better have him on our list." Mr, Alley got up and walked about the room, sighing about the difficulty, the doubtful enjoyment of ttying to draw the curtains aside. "Weather forecasting," he muttered, and walked some more. Suddenly he stopped walking, stopped frowning, smiled quite peacefully and said: "It is pleasant to feel that Time will deal very capably with the problem,"

TWENTY-THREE BRITISH CLASSICS

[#E British Ministry of Education has issued a list (on-which comment has been invited) of 23 British classics which it has recommended should be included in the ‘list of 100 of -the world’s best books now being prepared by UNESCO. Here is the British list: ; Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"; Francis Bacon, "Essays"; William Blake, "Songs of Innocence and Experience"; James Boswell, "Life of Samuel Johnson"; Emily Bronte, "Wuthering Heights"; John Bunyan, "Pilgrim’s Progress’; Robert Burns, selected poems; Geoffrey Chaucer, "Canterbury Tales"; Charles Darwin, "Origin of Species"; Daniel Defoe, "Robinson Crusoe"; Charles Dickens, "David Copperfield"; George Eliot, "Middlemarch"; Edward Gibbon "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"; John Keats, poems; Sir Thomas Malory, "Morte d@’ Arthur"; John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"; John Milton, poetical works; Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man"; Sir Walter Scott, "Heart of Midlothian’; William Shakespeare, complete works (or if a selection has to be made-"Hamlet", "Macbeth", "The Tempest", "Twelfth Night’, "King Henry IV.", parts one and two, "King Lear’, "Julius Caesar’, "Midsummer Night’s Dream", "Antony and Cleopatra", "Venus and Adonis", the sonnets); Percy Bysshe Shelley, selected poems; Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver’s Travels’; William Wordsworth, selected poems. j The committee of experts responsible for the list comprised Professor C. M. Bowra, Warden of Wadham College, Oxford; Professor B. Willey, professor of English at Cambridge; John Hampden, head of the literature group of the British Council; and V. S. Pritchett, author and critic.