Why literature? The value of literary reading and its implications for pedagogy.

摘要

The question Why literature?, which motivates this study, emerged as I sought to work out an approach to post-secondary literature instruction and found the broad objective of a literary education to be difficult to determine. To say simply that literature courses should enable students to read literary texts leaves unanswered the crucial question of the value of such "reading." What should a literature course seek to make possible for students and for what good? The lack of a widely accepted conception of the value of literary reading is a well-acknowledged gap in the profession as a whole, a need which may undermine the effectiveness of literary education. I sought, then, in this theoretical inquiry to construct a conception of the value of literature capable of shaping instruction and to propose pedagogical recommendations conducive to students' realization of that value.; To that end, this project consists, first, of a gathering of statements from literary theorists on the value of literature. The conception of literary value that emerges from these statements I then extend and develop by drawing from the object relations branch of psychoanalytic theory to identify the psychological means by which reading literary texts can affect readers. Specifically, the reading of literary texts facilitates the formation and reworking of conceptions of self and other and of patterns of relating, an often-unconscious outcome that has both individual and cultural importance.; In order to translate this conception of the value of reading literature into a guide for instruction, I use hermeneutic theory, informed by a study of developing readers, to determine the reading practices that make possible this transformational effect. I then review recent texts on literature instruction for the potential impact of the instructional approaches they advocate on students' experience of this valuable effect of literary reading, before proposing recommendations of my own toward the development of a pedagogical approach conducive to the conception of literary value I have identified.