Viewed
diachronically,
classic refers to the
literature,
sculpture, and
architecture of
Athens of the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, and of
Rome of the late
republic and early
Empire. Viewed
synchronically, classic implies values of form,
restraint, and
order. It is aware of intertextuality. One may dispute the Vergilian view, in which the classic work glorifies values unaffected by time or place, and consider a Barthian view, in which the classic appeals to us in terms of its elasticity - an art of the
signifier and not of the
signified.
It is characterized by qualities of
Heiterkeit (serenity) and
Allgemeinheit (universality) -
Winkelmann