Excerpt:
"But what is the use of literature? Does it make us happier, more ethical, more articulate? Better citizens, better companions and lovers? Better businesspersons, better doctors and lawyers? More well-rounded individuals? Does it make us more human? Or simply human? Is what is being sought a kind of literary Rolodex, a personal Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations of apt literary references (“To be or not to be?” “Only connect”; “Do I dare to eat a peach?”) — phrases that can be trotted out on suitable occasions, at the dinner table, or on the golf course? Such literary taglines or touchstones were once a kind of cultural code of mutual recognition among educated people — but their place has long been taken by references from fi lm, video, TV, rock music, advertising, or other modes of popular culture. Is literature something that everyone should study in the same way that we should study other basic cultural facts about the world we live in, like the history of art or the history of music, studying them all in one fell swoop, in survey courses or general introductions or appreciations?
Why read literature? Why listen to it on audiotapes or at poetry slams or at the theater? Why buy it? And even if you enjoy reading literature, why study it?"