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What Is Literature For?
- New Literary History
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 38, Number 1, Winter 2007
- pp. 13-32
- 10.1353/nlh.2007.0024
- Article
- Additional Information
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This article begins with a critical analysis of the way literature is taught in French high schools today and attributes the shortcomings of this method to the predominant conception of literature as a self-sufficient object without any relevant relationship to the surrounding world. This conception is also widespread outside of school among critics and even writers. This is an unnecessarily restricted view; in fact literature helps us to better understand the world and lead more meaningful lives.