Literature And Literature: The Importance Of Literature

Literature is rolling hills and fields of daisies. It is black smoke billowing from narrow streets. It is twinkling lights and rivers of gold-- and the dark secrets hiding behind them. Literature encompasses both the hopes and dreams of humanity. It is the purest form of human existence and those who pursue it are the messengers of times past to our future selves. The quote by Amy Lowell, “All books are either dreams or swords, / You can cut, or you can drug, with words” (“Sword Blades and Poppy Seed”), exemplifies the idea that literature has a profound effect on human emotions by reflecting all aspects of the human experience.

Throughout this course, I have discovered that literature is more than just words being brought together by an author to form an emotionally charged story. Literature provides an engaging outlet into an imaginary realm to its audience. As the reader is captivated by the story, poem or play, a, emotional connection is established.

They read because they live in an often terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestations of certain adults, that books-especially the dark and dangerous ones-will save them” (Alexie). Readers use literature as an escape, they use it to get away from their life. Reading literature can distract the

Throughout all of time, literature has played an important role in people’s lives. Books are more than just stories to laugh at, cry with, or fall asleep to, but books can teach. Books can teach a person a simple task such as baking cookies or an extremely complex one such as solving for the derivative of a trigonometric path and its parabolic motion. Whatever the subject, whomever the reader, books can teach people many lessons. One of the most important lessons that a book can teach a reader is a lesson about himself, about the difficulties of life, and about living a good life. As time has passed, so has literature itself. Older books focused on historical events, fictional poetry, and important figures; however, books now have evolved to

As a young girl, I remember my grandma used to read me a story every night before bed. Now that I’m older I find writing as an escape, a way to let my feelings out. However, in the persuasive essay, “Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia, it is brought to light that literature is a dying subject. The author informs the reader of this tragedy by providing a solid, well built argument, and backing it up with factual evidence.

Before we divulge into the topic of this essay, let me begin by stating that neither the author of the main source, Steven Johnson, nor I intend to devalue books or look down upon them. In his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, he starts off talking about the importance of books. He says, “We should all encourage our kids to read more, to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading” (Johnson 21). Reading provides many different benefits, some including “concentration, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on pages” (Johnson 23). As an avid reader myself, I have always had an interest in books.

Some topics are more interesting to read than others. In an article called ‘Why Literature Matters’ written by Dana Gioia, this article can be viewed as highly persuasive because of the techniques he uses to get his points across to the audience .Gioia is able to build arguments though his use of evidence and different literary techniques.

In an age where the printed novel has been somewhat on the decline, and the necessity of readable fiction has almost faded into obscurity. I believe that literature still harbours a crucial part within our society; from the very foundations of most theatrical adaptations, to preserving the culture and encapsulating the feelings of generations past. In this case literature cements itself as one of the most decisive elements of our civilisation, and combining it with history makes it become a testament to who we are as people, as well as the conservation of both our progression and degradation. I have always enjoyed reading literature, from reading J.R.R Tolkien’s classic ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy within my childhood, to perhaps more sophisticated,

Though many people nowadays disregard the usefulness of literature in modern society I belong to the opposite sect of folk. Reading and literature is more than just words and writeing, its ways for the dead to speak and advise those to come through understanding of common feelings. Whether the author meant to mean something through metaphor or more literally is not important, what is important is that us as the readers are able to communicate and interpret needed information from the subject and author. Something that I sometimes think is lacking in todays society is not just this communictation but understanding. Furthermore reading it gives us a way to understand and invest in lives other than ourselves. Secondly reading and understanding what we read allows us to feel empathetic towards the subject thus allowing us to share our own story of feeling and ideas. This is

Literature is a work of art that is constructed with the fundamental purpose of conveying meaning and messages to readers. Although the idea that is expressed is decided by the author, its underlying messages can be interpreted in various ways by different readers. Literature often explores the gap between reality and imagination. Such an examination can easily lead to a false sense of reality, which promotes the oversimplification of life at a great cost. By oversimplifying reality, people may turn a blind eye to issues that need to be addressed for the sake of social justice. Often times, facing reality is despised because it may create problems that individuals are unable to solve. This is important to note because literature has the

“Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia is a brilliantly written essay highlighting the exact reason as to why literature really matters. The introduction to the essay is pulling and interesting, but has a stronger powerful feeling than actual facts. The second paragraph is, on the other hand, mainly factual. Gioia uses a survey to legitimize his claims, and describes the organization that distributes said survey. This provides the reader with a deeper sense of understanding, and builds a trust for the author.

Quality literature is important to society’s functionality. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 society’s right to have quality literature is taken away. In Joe Fassler’s “How Literature Inspires Empathy” spoken by Alaa Al Aswany, the positive impact of quality literature is displayed. Literature, or the lack thereof, has the ability to drastically change the way a reader views the world.

The decline of literature has a negative impact on society and Dana Gioia emphasizes this in his New York Times article “Why Literature Matters” using the views from various sides. Using facts from reports and studies, Gioia strengthens his view on the importance of reading and literature and forewarning the risk of what could occur if numbers of literate civilians continues to dwindle. He looks at the social, personal and economical roles of literature and how it impacts an individual. Dana Gioia starts off mentioning the young adult audience and how they were the most worrisome out of all the other age groups when it came to the decline of literature and reading. One method that he used was the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the

Throughout my childhood I enjoyed reading a variety of books as a method of escaping my troubles and delving into someone else’s world for a short time. But it is my belief that being an avid reader also helped me become

Since the mid 20th century literature has been a prominent aspect of life in American culture, beginning how to read it in our childhood to benefiting by it throughout adulthood. Throughout the texts of “Heels over Hemingway”, “Why Literature Matters” , and “Good-bad books” all similarly argue the idea that Literature has changed over the years, due to the fact that American has changed as well effecting literature. For this reason Dowd, Orwell, and Gioia assert to their audience the importance of literature, and that it should have a place in society by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as analogy, ethos, pathos, logos, and diction.