经典是什么？

——摘自卡尔维诺《为什么要读经典》 
                 [意]卡尔维诺  逸人译
    1．经典是我们常听人说，“我在重读……”而不是“我在阅读……”的那类书。
    2．我们将人们读了爱不释手，加以珍藏的书冠之以经典；但并非只是那些有幸初次阅读它们的人，才精心珍藏它们，欣赏它们。
    3．经典具有特异的影响力，它们不可能从头脑中清除，它们潜藏在大脑的记忆层中，披上了集体或个体无意识的伪装。
    4．每一次重读经典，就象初次阅读一般，是一次发现的航行。
    5．每一次阅读经典实际上都是一种重读。
    6．经典从来不会说，它当说的已说完了。
    7.经典带着以往的阅读痕迹传承给我们，并且带着它们本身留给文化，或者更明白地说，语言和习俗的痕迹。
    8．经典不一定教给我们以前不懂的东西。在经典中，我们有时发现的是某种自己已经知道(或者以为自己知道)的东西，但不知道是该作者率先提出的，或者至少以一种特殊的方式与其联系在一起。这同样是一种带给我们莫大欢愉的惊喜，就象我们总能从对血统、亲属关系和姻亲关系的发现中获益。
    9．通过阅读经典，我们感到它们远比传闻中所想象的更新鲜、更出乎预料、更不可思议。
    10．我们冠之以经典的书具有一种类似总体的形式，可与古代的法宝相提并论。根据这一界定，我们正在趋近马拉美所构想的“全书”的境界。
    11．经典作家是那类你不可能置之不理的作家，他有助于界定你与他的关系，即使你与他有分歧。
    12．经典只有与其它经典相权衡才能确定；但任何人都是先读了其它经典，然后才读它的，因而立刻就能在族谱上确认其地位。
    13．经典是这样一种东西，它很容易将时下的兴趣所在降格为背景噪音，但同时我们又无法离开这种背景噪音。
   14．经典是随背景噪音而存在的，哪怕在截然对立的兴趣控制着局面时，也是如此。
         （据卡尔维诺《为什么要读经典》）

英文：
Why Read the Classics
The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, \"I am rereading . . . \" and never \"I am reading . . . \"
We use the words \"classics\" for books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them; but they are treasured no less by those who have the luck to read them for the first time in the best conditions to enjoy them
The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.
Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading.
Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

The classics are the books that come down to us bearing the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through (or, more simply, on language and customs).
A classic does not necessarily teach us anything we did not know before. In a classic we sometimes discover something we have always known (or thought we knew), but without knowing that this author said it first, or at least is associated with it in a special way. And this, too, is a surprise that gives much pleasure, such as we always gain from the discovery of an origin, a relationship, an affinity.
The classics are books which, upon reading, we find even fresher, more unexpected, and more marvelous than we had thought from hearing about them.
We use the word \"classic\" of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the \"total book,\" as Mallarmé conceived of it.
Your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.
A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others first, and then reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree.
A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.
A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation.