What is a mark of great literature?

That you can grasp and learn something from it/take something from it and keep it with you for the rest of your life.

@King_Pariah : Yes, keeping it for the rest of your life. Grasping. Thank you.

Good literature has a certain heft about it. It satisfies, like a good meal on an empty stomach.

Punctuation and spelling.

I think a great book tells you little observations you never quite made yourself.

Passages of dialogue as well as the whole plot setting that draws one in. Literature at its best sets up a conundrum where the players characters are put to the test and it is the reader’s reward when he/she truly understands the ways that the whole mix shook out and how each character was affected, got better or bitter etc. In essence we get to mull over and preserve the learnings.

It takes three times as much time to read a single page compared to a book written for entertainment.

Transcendence. I think it was Gadamer who wrote that classics must be transcendent… I could be wrong.

Anyway, what I mean is that I think that great literature maintains its relevance across time so it is always fresh. Take Frankenstein, for example. When it was written, it was a pioneering work of science fiction. Today, it is still relevant because of all the ethical implications in the story which are still fresh and engaging. In that sense, the novel has transcended time. Tons of other books have done or will do the same, and I’d call them “great.”

It has to have a boy with a magic wand and made billions in print and movie sales. Lol.

Seriously, I agree with that already mentioned. It has to stand the test of time. In addition, it must be ever capable of presenting to us a mirror upon which to see the real best and the real worst in all of us, then inspiring us to become the “better angels” within ourselves and not that “dark passenger” that most of us seem to be traveling with. That is great literature to me.

It is usually read only under coercion, typically by students in school.

Great literature jumps from the page into your mind.

Family Guy

@jenesiaspas : I was unaware “Family Guy” was a work of literature.

@Hawaii_Jake I’m sure Stewie could easily explain that one. : )

I don’t have a universal yardstick for greatness in literature, but certain pieces of writing provoke this gut reaction. It’s kind of a lightening bolt feeling where the writing is strange and familiar at the same time. It gives you a startling insight into a deeper truth you may have felt all along.

Moby-Dick, The Odyssey, Paradise Lost

A universal theme is what separates great literature from run-of-the mill fiction. So, naturally, it stands the test of time.