Why study literature?

Nutrition scholars often say you are what you eat.

WHY STUDY LITERATURE
Literary scholars: You are what you read.

Compiled by Belachew Weldegebriel

Jimma University
 1.3 Why do we Study Literature?

When there are so many things to study today, why do we study

literature?
Entertainment
Instruction
Traditionally, at least two answers have been given to this
question. One is that literature is fun. It's delightful. One of the
basic purposes of literature has always been to entertain, and
anything that is genuinely entertaining has value.
The other answer is that literature teaches us many things. It not
only delights, it instructs. Those two answers are as old, or older
than the Roman poet Horace who stressed that literature should be
dulce et utile (delightful and instructive). To identify the other
purposes
Why should we study literature and what benefit
do we gain from studying literature?

Most of my students are not Humanities majors and

want to be scientists of some sort, and so they very
reasonably wonder why they should be studying
literature.
So here is my top five list of why to study of
literature: Representativeness, to experience it, etc
Truth and Representation

I think Socrates is right that truth is not the most

important aspect of literature, in the sense that it can
make truth claims about the world or mirror
reality in some way.
Certainly there are elements of reality in a work of
literature but they are not always present as direct
representation, rather, interesting literature
normally uses formal qualities such as narration and
plot structure to make indirect comments about the
truth of the world.
The classical Rejection
In Platos Republic, Socrates famously kicks out all of the
poets from the perfect state that he is imagining.
The big problem with poetry is that it sets a bad
example: it values emotion over reason, and it shows
the emotions overtaking reason for dramatic effect.
Its also just too far from expressing the truth of the
world. Poets are mere imitators while philosophers
(and I think we would say now scientists) are able to
make solid truth claims about the world.
Reading literary works
Reading broadens our horizon of knowledge
Improves our imagination skill
Helps us to be creative
To study literature you need to engage in the
activity of reading, you need the aesthetic
experience.
Art gives us pleasure, entertainment, spiritual
nourishment, and space to contemplate human life
and ethics.
 A close reading of a work of literature can serve as
an excavation of, and a meditation on, the
pervasive sociocultural ideas of the social worlds, as
well as the worlds of sense, within which both
authors and readers live.
 A work of literature never represents society as it
really is, but rather filters through a literary form
the hopes, dreams, illusions, and (sometimes
faulty or partial) knowledge of the author about
that social world. And because authors are cultural
beings, their hopes, dreams, illusions, and bodies of
knowledge are not unique to themselves. Instead,
those hopes and dreams engagesometimes
positively, sometimes negativelythe pervasive
sociocultural ideas of the society within which an
author lives.
 Literature does not just take up space on our bedside table;
rather, it drags us down or lifts us up, altering our moods,
pulling on our attention, and exciting our feelings.
It orients readers in new directions and enriches their
schemas for interpreting both the fictional social worlds they
enter temporarily and the real everyday social worlds in
which they live.
Occasionally, the work of literature changes our lives,
motivating readers to the kinds of concrete actions that
bring profound changes in their life possibilities. Unless
literary critics attend to the way works of literature can both
figuratively and literally move us, they miss something
essential about the thing itself.
 As artifacts of the imagination, literary works are
by their very nature engaged in imagining ways of
being in the world.
Sometimes they do it by depicting social worlds that
look very similar to our own, with characters that
are similar to people we know; sometimes they do it
by depicting worlds and characters that are wholly
alien to us.
 Whether a work of literature is realistic or
fantastical, despairing or hopeful, it is almost
always an ethical engagement with some past,
future, familiar, or foreign social world.
However convoluted and mediated the referential
relationships among authors, texts, worlds, and
readers may be, a good close reading of a literary
work can help us understand something important
about the way we humans make meaning about
ourselves and the worlds in which we live.
 it makes you a better writer to be exposed to
adept writing,
it develops empathy by placing you in the shoes of
a variety of kinds of characters,
it spurs your imagination by giving you just enough
information without overwhelming the senses (and
countless other reasons have appeared over the
years).
 to experience literature is to experience human
culture, and to engage in the centuries old
dialogue of human culture.
Everyone needs to engage human culture, not just
consume it, because it is the expression of who
we are as a species, it is everyones
responsibility.
Reading and Studying literature is very
important for various reasons

Literature
improves your command of language
teaches you about the life, cultures and experiences of
people in other parts of the world
Entertains you and provides useful occupation in your free
time
Makes you a wiser and more experienced person by
forcing you to judge, sympathize with or criticize characters
you read about
Gives you information or knowledge which may be useful in
other subjects (Shimmer Chinodya 1992, 36)
Recapitulation
Reading/studying literature
entertains you
broadens you knowledge
develops your reading and writing
skills (Language proficiency)
Nourishes your spirit
develops your empathy for others
Makes you humane
etc