1. The function of literatureThe function of literature
Does it really have a function?Does it really have a function?

2. What is reading literature for?What is reading literature for?
• A exact teacher in high school:
what is reading literature for?
• It is imaginative writing: not really
true
• Life is too short to read such writings?
• In short, literary book is a “BIG ZERO”
• Let’s read books on religion,
philosophy or engineering, which
are more useful.

3. The function of literature:The function of literature:
a long historya long history
• Plato: “many contend that
literature’s primary function is moral,
its chief value being its usefulness for
hidden or undisclosed purposes”
• Aristotle: “Literary work is a “work of
art” that can be analyzed and
broken down into various parts, with
each part contributing to the overall
enjoyment of the work itself”

4. The basic debateThe basic debate
• Is literary function is to teach? Or to
entertain?
• Can we read a text for ‘merely”
pleasure? Or do we have to learn
and think about what we read?
• Such questions might have some
possible answers (this belongs to
literary theory)
• Theory answers: ontology and
epistemology

5. Read the text!Read the text!
• This is the only way to understand
whether we read for pleasure or to
learn something
• Two methods:
– Academic
– Non-academic
• Same epistemology but different

6. Understanding a textUnderstanding a text
1.Join the class, read the text,
appreciate the text, criticize it
using particular perspectives to
come the an interpretation on the
text.
2.Stay up late, read the text, page
by page, get involved with the
plot, the characters, get drowned
in the secondary world (or finally
find the murderer in a mystery

7. Understanding a text is notUnderstanding a text is not
a simple questiona simple question
• . ‘underlying our private and public
relations and our scholarly critiques and
analyses is our literary theory, the
fountained of our most intimate and our
most public declarations’
• ‘the formal study of literary theory
therefore enables us to explain our
responses to any text and allows us to
articulate the function of literature in an
academic and personal way.’

8. Some tentative ideas onSome tentative ideas on
the function of literaturethe function of literature
• Educative
function
• Entertaining
function
• Experience of life
• Language
function
• Cultural function
• Ideological
• Add other
functions:
• _______
• _______
• _______
• _______