Why Is It Important To Study Literature?

26.04.2023 Grady A. Lowry 0 Comments

5. Literature enhances a person’s writing skills – Reading more will help an individual improve their writing. In order to improve, most successful authors praise reading. In addition to fueling imagination and expanding vocabulary, literature provides insight into different literary styles, ideas organization, character development, and more.
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Contents

1 Why is studying literature so important?
2 Do we really need to study literature?
- - 2.0.1 What can we learn from literature?
3 How does literature change your life?
4 Why is literature so powerful?
- 4.1 What is the importance of literature to your future career?
- 4.2 How is literature related to society?
5 Why is literature better than science?
6 Why is it so hard to study literature?
7 Why is literature so powerful?

Why is studying literature so important?

Literature within history – History is not only a gateway to the past, it’s also suggestive of our present and the future. Within every time period lies different people and within them, different stages in our ever-growing culture. Each individual before was a product of their own time.

As a species we evolve every day and without that timestamp that literature gives us, we would know nothing about the past. Literature allows a person to step back in time and learn about life on Earth from the ones who walked before us. We can gather a better understanding of culture and have a greater appreciation of them.

We learn through the ways history is recorded, in the forms of manuscripts and through speech itself. In periods from ancient Egypt, we can gather their history through hieroglyphics and paintings. The symbols Egyptians left behind are what we now use to understand their culture.
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Do we really need to study literature?

Posted on: October 7, 2022 By Richard Jacobs Studying English Literature opens on to the world of creative imagination. Not only does it develop skills that are essential for today’s global environment, but it also inspires change and innovation. English Literature studies help us understand our world in all its social, political, economic and cultural aspects through stories, novels, poems, and plays.

In his book Literature in our Lives, award-winning teacher and author Richard Jacobs shows that reading, thinking about, and writing or talking about English Literature involves us all personally: texts talk to us intimately and urgently, inviting us to talk back, intervening in and changing our lives.

Those who assume that English Literature is less significant than STEM subjects have failed to understand Literature’s potential to enlarge and enhance our own minds. Jacobs has shared his dozen reasons why studying literature matters, despite what the government says.

Literature can help us make better sense of our world, our lives and ourselves. Literature has the power to give us an enriched understanding of other worlds, lives and times, of the way things have been and how they might be. Reading, thinking, writing and talking about literature is both a personal and collegiate experience – a model of how society operates or should operate. Literature embodies the values of imagination, identification and empathy. These matter in an increasingly divisive world. Characters in literature are very often transformed by the plot and this process models the way literature intervenes in our own lives and can transform them. The shared experience of studying literature in class gives us the ability and the need to read the world and its texts on our own. Studying literature recognises that the making of meaning is a dynamic and volatile process and that meanings are socially and culturally produced, as various and multiple as readers. Studying literature explores the text in its many contexts, how the text finds and makes a place in the world, how it is enabled to speak and to make a difference. Studying literature and critical reading are an opening out that returns us to the text in an adventure that never finishes. The study and criticism of literature is the asking of questions that generate more and better questions. The study and criticism of literature is not just a social act but an inherently political act. Authoritarian governments are for that reason suspicious and antagonistic towards advanced literary study. Studying literary texts with my own teachers, and later with my own students, has very often changed my life. Take every opportunity to have your lives changed by the reading and studying of literature. Because it matters.

There are many more reasons why students should study English Literature. For further inspiration, check out the timely and absorbing selection of extracts in Literature and the Critics, This volume includes over two hundred leading literary critics, writing on many of English’s most widely studied literary texts—from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison.
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What can we learn from literature?

No matter your feelings toward literature and reading, everyone at some point in their life has picked up a book and felt at least something, That’s because literature has the power to teach us countless lessons and information. Here are just a few things literature can teach us:

About ourselves. Books and the characters within them often hold a mirror up to the reader’s face, begging you to make comparisons and see part of yourself within some character. Relating to characters, questioning their motives, finding yourself angry at certain actions or any range of emotions you feel as you read teach you more about yourself. You are able to see parts of yourself, both the good and bad, in different characters and evaluate why you may have reactions to certain things, teaching you more about your behavior and likes or dislikes as a person. About the human experience. Arguably the most important and prevalent lesson you can learn from literature has to do with the human experience. Reading a quote from a character and having found yourself thinking or saying those very words before, recognizing a fictional plot as a parallel to a point in history, or feeling a character’s same feelings based on similar experiences all deepen our understanding of the human experience. Even when exploring fictional, historical, or far off worlds that exist in literature, the ability to empathize or understand even a fraction of what the characters go through pulls us closer together as humans. Literature grants an equal playing field and allows people to project themselves into worlds they may never experience in real life; but at least they can know their feelings and experiences are not singular. About other cultures and worlds. Books are great tools to use to learn about customs and ways of life completely different than your own. Considering the amount of research an author does and their ability to delve into a particular world, time, or place with rich description, one can learn a lot about other cultures. Historical fiction obviously works best for this, but even completely made-up stories take inspiration from reality on some level. How to write. Any good writer will often cite books as their primary teacher. Reading literature will help you learn style, punctuation, grammar, plot, description, and everything else. Absorbing as much good literature as possible helps you find your place as a writer and offers endless sources of inspiration for how to craft sentences, characters, and whole entire worlds to play in.

-Hannah Kotler Photo Credit: Maggi_94 Bibliothek am Steintor-Campus via photopin (license)
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How does literature change your life?

How Literature can Change your Life? The modern age has been chastised to a great degree for the distance it has put between itself and the consumption of literature. As a Cultural Centre in Pune we can say with confidence that the readership of books and the number of people who actually take an active interest in reading books, periodicals, newspapers, magazines or journals has gone down.

With the advent of the internet, the proliferation of visual media and entertainment in general being so widespread, people have almost forgotten the joy of reading. But let us take one small step back and try to realize the root of this phenomenon. And to do that we must approach it by the concept which is at its core.

Literature! What is literature? For the highbrow intellectual literature is indulgence in a higher art form. Just putting words onto paper does not constitute or qualify the work as literature. It needs to be canonical or representative of an entire generation in regards to poetry, prose or drama.

But simply put, literature is a representation of the culture and tradition of human languages and how people use them to communicate. By virtue of it being a concept that evolves and changes with time, the people using it and its context, it is difficult to explain. So in layman terms, literature is a body of written works.

Specifically it is writing that is considered to be an art form deemed to have artistic or intellectual value. Literature, in regards to written works is often books that deploy language in ways that differ from the ordinary usage of language. Now for the main topic of our discussion, which is the importance of literature and how does it touch our lives? 1.

Our World View First and foremost, literature opens our eyes and makes us see more than just the obvious. It helps us realize the wide world outside, surrounding us. It changes our perspective about things, people and events. It broadens the horizon of our minds and shapes our world view. With this, we begin to learn, ask questions, and build our intuitions and instincts.

We expand our minds.2. Critical Thinking Many of us learn what critical thinking is in our language classes. When we read, we learn to look between the lines. We are taught to find symbols, make connections, find themes and learn about characters. Consuming literature expands these skills, and we begin to look at texts with a larger sense of detail and depth and realize the importance of hidden meanings.3.

History Then there is the aspect of the relationship with the past.
This is perhaps the most critical functions of literature.
History and literature are entwined with each other.
History is not just about power struggles, wars, names, and dates.
It is about people who are products of their time, with their own lives.

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Today the world is nothing like it was in the last century or the one before that; people have changed largely. We ourselves are an arts and literature space and we conduct regular monthly, That in itself is a way to stay connected with our past because literature also encompasses storytelling.

Without literature, we would not know about our past, the people who came before and walked on the same ground as us.
Literature preserves this link, this bond between us and the past.
Without it, we would be lost.4.
Acceptance and Empathy Reading about history, anthropology, or religious studies provides a method of learning about cultures and beliefs other than our own.

It allows you to understand experience and empathize with people, cultures and places that are different than our own. One could get a closer look at the lives of others without even being present physically in said situation. We get a view of the inside looking out, a personal view and insight into the minds and reasoning of someone else.

We can learn, understand, and appreciate it.5. Better writing skills How can one expect to become a better writer without being a voracious reader? If writing is the end product then reading must be the raw material. It is fodder for the mind. When you open a book, when your eyes read the words and you take in its contents, do you ask yourself: How did this person imagine and write this? Well, many of those authors, poets, or playwrights used literature to expand their writing.

Critical theory is a field of literature where one dissects works of classical and contemporary literature in a bid to improve one selves understanding about the art and skill of writing well.6. The Human Condition All literature, whether those are poems, essays, novels, or short stories, helps us address human nature.

The human condition is a constant need for growth, our doubts and fears of success and failure, the need for company be it friends or family, our trials and tribulations, the goodness of compassion and empathy, the need to be loved and to love back in return, wanting to trust people around us, or the realization of imperfection.

Human beings are capable of so much emotion and all of that reflects in our literature. Literature is that outlet. Literature is humankind expressing itself in the most honest way. It addresses our undeniable pathological need to share. We need literature in order to connect with our own humanity.

There’s much more to literature than one could possibly hope to contain within a blog post. It is hundreds and hundreds of years of human knowledge, craftsmanship and pure unbridled creativity. Having said all that, if you are reading this; it only goes to say that there is still hope. But what is more important is to support spaces that encourage reading.

Spaces like RAAH. We house a completely equipped and well stocked library that boasts of a variety of titles and seminal works across all genres. Look us up online to check out any other that you might be interested in. : How Literature can Change your Life?
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Why is literature so powerful?

Literature Is Powerful. Literature Defines Humanity. Long before human civilization started in this world, stories are found among the constellations, beneath the depths of the oceans, and within the woodland realm. Long before language was invented, stories were told and engraved upon stone tablets and wall carvings.

Long before humans began to know how to read and write with the words that our ancestors created, literature already existed. Literature is the foundation of humanity’s cultures, beliefs, and traditions. It serves as a reflection of reality, a product of art, and a window to an ideology. Everything that happens within a society can be written, recorded in, and learned from a piece of literature.

Whether it be poetry or prose, literature provides insight, knowledge or wisdom, and emotion towards the person who partakes it entirely. Life is manifested in the form of literature. Without literature, life ceases to exist. It is an embodiment of words based on human tragedies, desires, and feelings.
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What is the importance of literature to your future career?

The subtle power and genius of words – It is not uncommon to think that literature is all about reading poetry, short stories and delving into the magical world of fantasy, mystery, thrillers and historical romance. Of course, this perception is not totally wrong as many people do love a good read.
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How is literature related to society?

Literature expresses social sympathies; naturally it is bound to exercise some positive influence on our mind and attitude. Society reacts to literature in a living way. An inspiring poem creates general influence on society. It rouses our feelings and enthusiasm for welfare.
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Why is literature better than science?

The Importance of Literature vs. Science If we lived in a world without literature, learning only the sciences, would we be the same people? Does the human race need literature at all, does it have any worth whatsoever except as entertainment? Do people actually learn from literature? These are all questions that divide the human race into two separate sections, those who believe in the power of literature, and those who see it as impoverished compared to the social sciences in its ability to teach us about ourselves.

However we need not be so divided on this issue. Literature is as rich a teacher as science, but merely differs in technique. Literature offers knowledge to those that seek it, gives experience to those who understand it, and pleasure to those that love it. Science on the other hand imparts knowledge, leads to experience, and gives pleasure to the few who love it.

Literature is just as varied and expansive as Science is. There are hundreds of styles, millions of authors, and thousands of languages which make up literature. Instead of different fields, as in science, there are different genres. Literature is often backed up by research or first hand information, but can also be fanciful flights of the imagination.

They are similar to the research, observation, and hypothesis found in science.
Experiments can be performed in both.
A scientist could ask what if, and logically and scientifically follow his what if through.
A writer could ask the same and use his imagination, knowledge, and perhaps a little research, to guide his imagination.

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Literature and Science are similar. However they differ in some important respects. Science is an exact realm of numbers and averages and measurements. The last time you read a romance novel, were there charts showing the Freudian prediction of the average persons love life? Literature does not have the same kind of exactitude that is offered by Science.

But it does offer precision in another way.
Literature often is the description of one or a few peoples lives in detail.
It is from these detailed “case studies” as a scientist would call them, that we can learn.
It is the argument of science that people are similar and thus scientific averages do have some relevance to humans.

Yes people often do share similar characteristics, and behave similarly if coming from the same society. And thus, a detailed insight into one persons’ life could give you an insight on the lives of others. In a way Literature allows you to live thousands of lives in a short time, and gain a little experience from each of them.
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Why is it so hard to study literature?

Why Reading Literature Is Often Difficult and Why We Should Embrace It | by Kunko Kanko | Books Are Our Superpower Photo by on There are many ways in which literary texts can be difficult to read: from linguistic features such as complex syntax or vocabulary to problems of interpretation. Most of the difficulties arise from the fact that literature generally differs from everyday speech, which is aimed at conveying information as quickly as possible.

This difference may surprise, confuse, and even irritate the reader. Rightly so, because violent obscurantism is more often than not a sign of poor writing. The literary text often has no intention of informing us as quickly and easily as possible and leaves us confused by various ambiguities. But, the information is sometimes contained in the very difference between the ordinary and literary ways of speaking.

Literature deals with things that are rarely talked about in everyday life. Things that in themselves are not as clear as the stuff we convey in pragmatic speech. These are often experiences that are fundamentally human and thus complex. Literature is always inevitably tied to human experience, even though Roland Barthes 50 years ago famously proclaimed “The Death of the Author”.

Barthes was right in that we don’t need to care whose experiences we are reading about. The only thing that matters is what we get out of them. Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.

— Roland Barthes One might say that people do use everyday speech to talk about even the most complex human experiences. While this is true, literature has proven to be much more successful in doing it. Thus, the difficulty of literature can be a consequence of communicating complex experiences,

The short answer is self-knowledge,
Trough literature we encounter various human experiences and thus get to know ourselves better.
Good writers know how to communicate such experiences incredibly well, but the reader’s patience and effort are always needed.
Croatian literary scholar Milivoj Solar summed it up well (translation by me): “Literature demands nothing from us except patience, because how can we know what we actually want if in our imagination we do not see all that could happen to us, how can we know who we really are if there are no characters and destinies to compare ourselves to, how can we know what the real-life should be for us if we cannot live hundreds of possible ones in our imagination?” — Milivoj Solar Every reader strives to establish coherence, and difficulties often arise from the disintegration of a clear image.

Wolfgang Iser, a German scholar, argued that reading is a dynamic game between “illusion building” and changing of expectations after they have been unfulfilled. If any of these processes prevail, the reader will give up. In the first case due to boredom, and the second due to the impossibility to find any consistency.

Although it is possible to achieve pleasure by getting answers to all the questions, the real experience comes with investing the effort.
Estonian neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp claimed that humans are characterized by a so-called “mammalian brain” that contains a “seeking” system.
The psychic energy of this system is related to research, expectation, and the desire for knowledge.

These emotions are not the same as the pleasure we feel when consuming a reward. “Seeking” system provides a powerful motivating force that pushes us forward. People don’t just want an answer to a question, they often want to make an effort and enjoy the process of exploration and discovery,

Meeting the unknown and facing difficulties is necessary for people.
We evolve through the constant questioning of our preconceptions,
Good literature will always shake us, make us think more about things we think we have a clear picture of.
Digging into one’s own beliefs is always hard work because openness to new ideas and experiences implies vulnerability.

It is not easy to be open to other people’s ideas and at the same time be confident about your own. Not everyone has to enjoy “difficult” literature nor is it the only literature that should be appreciated. I wanted to point out that difficulties are an integral, often substantial part of the experience.

Not getting answers to all the questions is sometimes the reason why the book continues to live in the reader even after he finishes it.
Encountering obstacles is always tiring in a way, but with courage and openness, they can be seen as pleasant surprises.
After the effort, the reader can rightfully judge whether these difficulties were justified or not.

Sources: Solar, M. (2011). Kritika relativizma ukusa: Predavanja o ukusu, moralu i poetici, Zagreb: Matica hrvatska. Barthes, R., Heath, S., & Dove, M. (1977). The death of the author, Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions,
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Why does literature matter today?

‘Literature matters because it allows for experiences important to the living out of a sophisticated and satisfying human life ; because other arenas of culture cannot provide them to the same degree; and because a relatively small number of texts carry out these functions in so exceptional a manner that we owe it to
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Why do people enjoy literature?

To start with, let’s consider why we enjoy reading fiction in the first place. – The main reasons considered by Oatley include:

Fiction is the natural transition from childhood play, Both play and fiction are activities that we can engage with and express wishes through.
Exploration is in our genes, and fiction is a superb way to use these detective skills of ours.
Our genes make play, and therefore reading fiction, enjoyable because they help us be interactive and manage our emotions.
We do what we’re good at, and we’re naturally good at considering the perspectives of others and getting inside a new role.

Let’s delve into these a little deeper
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What happens to humanity if there is no literature?

What is the purpose of literature in our society? In order to answer this question, let’s define our terms. What is literature and, specifically, what is English literature? Literature as defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica is quite simply a ‘body of written works.’ This includes works defined in the table below.

Novel	A narrative in prose
Novella	A narrative in prose that is shorter than a novel
Play	A piece of dramatic literature, which is performed
Short Story	A narrative in prose that is shorter than a novella
Poem	Uses figurative language and sometimes has a rhyme

English literature is still literature – however, it is any work specific to the British Isles that was written anywhere between the 7th century and the present day. So, when you take any English literature courses, keep in mind that you will be narrowing your study to English literature books. Take a look at the timeline below to see some notable works! As you might have guessed, English literature is considered as different from literature in the English language. The table below holds some other types of literature in the English language.

American literature	Literature from the US
Canadian literature	Literature from Canada (non-French)
Australian literature	Literature from Australia, including Aboriginal English
New Zealand literature	Literature form New Zealand

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So now, what is the purpose of literature? Specifically, English literature? Without literature, there is no history. Not only did early works of literature provide first-hand accounts of historical events, but they also capture entire eras: popular culture, societal norms, and more.
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What is the main point of literature?

The literary purpose is used to entertain and to give aesthetic pleasure. The focus of the literary purpose is on the words themselves and on a conscious and deliberate arrangement of the words to produce a pleasing or enriching effect.
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Why is literature so powerful?

Long before humans began to know how to read and write with the words that our ancestors created, literature already existed.
Literature is the foundation of humanity’s cultures, beliefs, and traditions.
It serves as a reflection of reality, a product of art, and a window to an ideology.
Everything that happens within a society can be written, recorded in, and learned from a piece of literature.

Why does literature matter today?

How does literature change your life?

With the advent of the internet, the proliferation of visual media and entertainment in general being so widespread, people have almost forgotten the joy of reading.
But let us take one small step back and try to realize the root of this phenomenon.
And to do that we must approach it by the concept which is at its core.

But simply put, literature is a representation of the culture and tradition of human languages and how people use them to communicate. By virtue of it being a concept that evolves and changes with time, the people using it and its context, it is difficult to explain. So in layman terms, literature is a body of written works.

Our World View First and foremost, literature opens our eyes and makes us see more than just the obvious.
It helps us realize the wide world outside, surrounding us.
It changes our perspective about things, people and events.
It broadens the horizon of our minds and shapes our world view.
With this, we begin to learn, ask questions, and build our intuitions and instincts.

History Then there is the aspect of the relationship with the past. This is perhaps the most critical functions of literature. History and literature are entwined with each other. History is not just about power struggles, wars, names, and dates. It is about people who are products of their time, with their own lives.

Without literature, we would not know about our past, the people who came before and walked on the same ground as us.
Literature preserves this link, this bond between us and the past.
Without it, we would be lost.4.
Acceptance and Empathy Reading about history, anthropology, or religious studies provides a method of learning about cultures and beliefs other than our own.

There’s much more to literature than one could possibly hope to contain within a blog post. It is hundreds and hundreds of years of human knowledge, craftsmanship and pure unbridled creativity. Having said all that, if you are reading this; it only goes to say that there is still hope. But what is more important is to support spaces that encourage reading.

What does literature teach us about life?

Literature opens us up to a wider range of emotions. We learn to shift our perspective by putting ourselves in the shoes of others. We learn about who we are and who we want to be. And we experience the second-order consequences of choices without having to live them ourselves.
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Grady A. Lowry