The classics enable us to judge the present from the telescopic perspective of the past. Good contemporary literature is always rooted in the past, in the sense that it is influenced by the great literary works that precede it. This rootedness makes good contemporary literature part of a continuum of culture. Any contemporary literature which endeavors to ignore the classics will be fatally flawed by its embrace of the shallow and the superficial. Such literature, in refusing the life-giving roots of tradition, will wither and die within a few years of its being published because, as C. S. Lewis reminds us, fashions are always coming and going, but mostly going! If an author is preoccupied with being “up-to-date” his work will very quickly be out-of-date and therefore unread and forgotten.
The classics, being rooted in those aspects of humanity which are perennial, have a shelf life measured in centuries, not months!
Read Full Article by Paul Senz from Catholic World Report
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