WHAT MAKES A GREAT BOOK

LOIS KRISTY T. HERVIAS  BSHM3-C
Literature 1             TTH 5:30-7:00 PM

1.WHAT MAKES A GREAT BOOK?
Great book have great characters. Characters we can love. Characters we can hate. Characters we can root for. Characters we want to hang out with. Characters we want to be. I believe great characters are the most important part of a great book.
Great books also have great plots. Plots that matter. Plots that make our hearts pound and linger with us long after we put the book down. Great plots stem from great characters.
Great books also have a strong sense of setting. We feel like we are there, whether it's New York City, a small country farm, or a faraway fantasy kingdom. We can see it, smell it, feel it, live in it. It's so much more than just the geography. It's the culture, the history and everything else culminating in a place so real we can visit it again and again in our mind.
Great books have real emotion. They make us feel something. Joy, pain, love, hate, envy, peace. Great books bring out the strongest emotions inside us. They show us what it is to be human.

2. WHAT IS CLASSIC?
A classic usually expresses some artistic quality--an expression of life, truth, and beauty.
A classic stands the test of time. The work is usually considered to be a representation of the period in which it was written; and the work merits lasting recognition. In other words, if the book was published in the recent past, the work is not a classic.

A classic has a certain universal appeal. Great works of literature touch us to our very core beings--partly because they integrate themes that are understood by readers from a wide range of backgrounds and levels of experience. Themes of love, hate, death, life, and faith touch upon some of our most basic emotional responses.

A classic makes connections. You can study a classic and discover influences from other writers and other great works of literature. Of course, this is partly related to the universal appeal of a classic. But, the classic also is informed by the history of ideas and literature--whether unconsciously or specifically worked into the plot of the text.

3. WHAT IS LITERARY MASTERPIECE?
A literary masterpiece is part of the literary canon, which denotes a canon of books that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture.

4. WHAT ARE THE STANDARDS/CRITERIA FOR ONE TO BECOME A MASTERPIECE?
To be a masterpiece, and hence, part of the canon, the work needs to be approved by critics, the public and his contemporaries. In order to gain such approval, it has to have certain qualities, in terms of thought, originality, stylistically brilliant, insightful... etc. It also needs to withstand the test of time in order to be immortalized as such.

5. WHAT IS A LITERARY CANON?
The term "literary canon" refers to a classification of literature. It is a term used widely to refer to a group of literary works that are considered the most important of a particular time period or place. For example, there can be a literary canon comprised of works from a particular country, or works written within a specific set of years, or even a collection of works that were all written during a certain time period and within a certain region. In this way, a literary canon establishes a collection of similar or related literary works.