What is the 'value' of fiction

[TheFifthElement]

There's been lots of discussion about 'good' literature, 'bad' literature and so on causing a bit of, what Mrs Merton would call, a heated debate on the forum. But before answering the question: 'is this good literature or bad literature', I think we first need to understand what the value of literature is (meaning fiction as opposed to non-fiction). Does literature have an intrinsic value or merit in itself? What is that value? How might that value be measured?

So, for example, asking the same question about the study of physics you might say that the study of physics gives us a greater understanding of our physical environment which enables us to make reliable predictions about what will/won't happen given a certain set of circumstances which in turn helps us to more effectively manipulate our environment to improve quality of life and maximise the chances of human survival. You might measure the value of the study of physics based on the positive and negative impacts of those scientific advancements: the atom bomb vs the microwave, for example ;)

What does the study of literature teach which can not be learned by any other non-fictional means?

[JCamilo]

Well, cultural tolls for domination...
Anyways, the language was used as control. Remember how important and the changes that caused the edition of the bible in national idioms.
Also, fiction can teacher better if we believe in Wittengstein... and If we believe in Borges, philosophical systems are pretty much fiction...

[PeterL]

It depends on what it is. There is some literature that has value only to the recyclers, while other literature transmits cultural or universal values. As a general matter, one should regard literature as teaching something, if one wishes to consider reading as something worth doing.

[JBI]

The value of fiction lies in its ability to manipulate truth - that does mean its ability to replicate truth, but its ability, through devices like metaphor, to in a way that entertains, convey something truthful, by the means of lies.

For instance, the device favored by Jane Austen is irony - her books, without irony, would be completely useless, but through the use of irony, we see the scrutinization of the characters achieved, which in turn reflects on society as a whole, and breaks the wall between diegesis and extradiegesis, in order to scrutinize the reader and the reader's society as well. The uncontrollable power of the irony, its inability to really be pinned down, and the fact that the irony runs so thickly, so that one doesn't know where it starts or begins, or what is ironic or what is not is what gives the books a way, through telling a seemingly fake story, to pass truthful judgments.

Other authors, such as Marquez, work better with metaphor - his whole text, arguably, is one long metaphor, using other devices to construct what he called "A metaphor for a history". Through the use of the devices, in a playful, fun way, we are able to break through the barriers of mundane language and "truth" to get to something more truthful, or more accurate, or perhaps simply more important. The fact that it delights is tide to this, as, if anyone has tried, reading histories rarely generate that sort of amusement and power.

Zola, though mixing in a lot of irony, uses the concept of realism (or naturalism) to sort of cheat at commenting on reality. Realism itself is basically simulating reality, so that one can poke in, and comment, rather than need to rely on the real and back it up - by keeping the details there, the commentary is able to pretend to be real, and therefore comment almost directly on events. I think though, Zola wasn't as realistic as he claimed, and was much fonder of symbols than his theoretical work would admit, but that is another argument.

[LitNetIsGreat]

To understand literature is to understand what it means to be human. That's not exactly what you asked but it sounds good.;)

Trying to put a value on literature for me is a bad idea. It's like what Wilde was saying about people knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Trying to measure this value for me works opposite to literature's aim. You can't, or shouldn’t, attempt to put a price on literature and art, it simply doesn't work that way. It exists outside of the world which can quantify it.

[Drkshadow03]

Literature can teach us about the world, human beings, the larger struggles we face, but does so through an entertaining medium. Entertainment, in my opinion, cannot be removed from the equation. Literature is mimesis, a reflection. It is a mirror of words that reflects life and experience itself so we don't only hear the argument (like in most philosophy), but we SEE the argument and its implications on the lives of people who are imitations of ourselves.

[Manchegan]

I think it's fair to judge literature as either good or bad. It's just like any other art. For fiction to be good, it must be aestheticly pleasing and communicate a true moral.

By "aestheticly pleasing" I mean that it creates a vivid picture, tells an entertaining story, and uses appropriate diction. The only part of that requirement that could be considered subjective is whether the story is entertaining.

[Manchegan]

oops, posted too soon. sorry, i'm new.

By communicating a true moral, I mean that the work introduces and tests a real idea in a fictional world. The discerning reader ought to come away convinced that the novel's theme is true, because it has been tested before his eyes. If the reader is still unsure, the author failed, or at least could have done better. If the writing was too obscure or convoluded to convey properly convey the theme, the author failed.

[islandclimber]

Literature can teach us about the world, human beings, the larger struggles we face, but does so through an entertaining medium. Entertainment, in my opinion, cannot be removed from the equation. Literature is mimesis, a reflection. It is a mirror of words that reflects life and experience itself so we don't only hear the argument (like in most philosophy), but we SEE the argument and its implications on the lives of people who are imitations of ourselves.

well this is odd, but I quite like this and agree with it... ;)

I might add, that the value of literature, is also to be found in it's ability to give us pause and to shake the very basis of our beliefs, our own values, our biases, our dreams, through this imperfect reflection of the world, through the cracked mirror that (as JBI put it) can often so astutely manipulate the truth...

Literature is careful use of language and is intended to be read aesthetically.. literature should be open to interpretation and full of weak implicature... it should not and cannot be identified solely on the basis of written form, nor on aesthetics and entertainment alone.. but as a combination of these things...

Literature is organized violence on ordinary words -- Roman Jakobson

I should say, then, that literature is a canon which consists of those works in language by which a community defines itself through the course of its history. It includes works primarily artistic and also those whose aesthetic qualities are only secondary. The self-defining activity of the community is conducted in the light of the works, as its members have come to read them (or concretize them) George McFadden

[Drkshadow03]

I might add, that the value of literature, is also to be found in it's ability to give us pause and to shake the very basis of our beliefs, our own values, our biases, our dreams, through this imperfect reflection of the world, through the cracked mirror that (as JBI put it) can often so astutely manipulate the truth...

Yeah, I saw you throw out that definition in the Harry Potter thread a couple of times and I thought it odd, but interesting. Does ALL literature really unsettle or shake our beliefs, values, and biases? Does it ever confirm our beliefs and have value in doing so?

How did Beowulf for example shake your beliefs and values? Or The Odyssey for that matter? What about the poem "I Died for Beauty (http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/I_DiedForBeauty.htm)" by Emily Dickinson?

[stlukesguild]

I can only answer such a question with the quoted thoughts of a few writers better than I:

Books are the means to immortality: Plato lives forever, as do Dickens, and Dr. Seuss, Soames Forsyte, Jo March, Scrooge, Anna Karenina, and Vronsky. Over and over again Heathcliffe wanders the moor searching for his Cathy. Over and over again Ahab fights the whale.Through them we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

-Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed my Life


Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us—for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of impulses only is given us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greater number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike. While all melts at our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colors, and curious odors, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendor of our experience and its awful brevity, gathering all we are in one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy of Comte, or of Hegel, or of our own...

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of the Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. An undefinable taint of death had clung always about him, and now in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biased by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! We are all condamnes as Victor Hugo says: we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve—les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort avec des sursis indefinis: we have an interval, and then our place knows us know more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among "the children of this world," in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure that it is passion, that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire for beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you promising frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments' sake.

-Walter Pater, Conclusion to The Renaissance

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

-William Faulkner, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

[Drkshadow03]

Books are the means to immortality: Plato lives forever, as do Dickens, and Dr. Seuss, Soames Forsyte, Jo March, Scrooge, Anna Karenina, and Vronsky. Over and over again Heathcliffe wanders the moor searching for his Cathy. Over and over again Ahab fights the whale.Through them we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

-Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed my Life

[/I]

I really like this quote! Thanks for sharing, Stluke

[Madame X]

You can't, or shouldn’t, attempt to put a price on literature and art, it simply doesn't work that way. It exists outside of the world which can quantify it.

How so, if you don’t mind my asking?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Me:

You can't, or shouldn’t, attempt to put a price on literature and art, it simply doesn't work that way. It exists outside of the world which can quantify it.


How so, if you don’t mind my asking?

No not at all. What I meant was that to try to value art in a financial sense or by some other means of quantifying it, is to surely belittle the experience completely. So for example if we ask the question what is Shakespeare worth? We could answer by saying about £3.99, because that is how much a cheap edition of the complete works costs to buy. Clearly art doesn't operate at that level in that way.

In terms of science like the original poster argued, we can attempt to calculate the pros and cons of a particular invention or funding towards a particular project in some way. But you can't do that with literature on a personal level. How much does you favourite book mean to you? How much do you value the experience of when you first read it? You can't put a figure on such a thing, because it exists outside of the world in which you can quantify it in all practical sense.

You could argue that you invest time in reading in order to get a return on the aesthetic pleasure it gives you I suppose, or that you study in order to have a career in teaching or writing, but really literature goes much deeper than that. I would argue that for the serious student of the arts it is more of a way of life, or a way of approaching life, of seeing the world, rather than a simple mathematical equation of value. Literature is not mathematics or science, we read because we want to read and because, in some way, it is a part of who we are as individuals, and you can't put a value on that.

[spotty]

Not too sound trite or dumbed down, but literature is valuable to me, because I gain pleasure from reading.

[TheFifthElement]

OK, lots of interesting answers so far, but as yet no one has answered this question:


What does the study of literature teach which can not be learned by any other non-fictional means?

In terms of value, I was thinking less financial and more merit/significance/importance. Is the study of fictional literature critical to intellectual, spiritual, or social development in a way which cannot be developed by other means?

For example, it has been mentioned that literature can teach us about the world and what it means to be human. However, study of sociology, biology, psychology, geography, geology, ecology and/or history more specifically address our learning about the world and what it means to be human. It could be said that literature is a useful tool in understanding those things and can be used to good effect as part of those studies but the ultimate aim is not the literature but the the subject of the study in itself i.e. learning about the world and what it means to be human.

Mention has been made of the use of metaphor, which makes some sense, but metaphor is a tool of language which is not specific to literature. If a scientific study includes metaphor in order to elucidate a point it does not then become literature. Philosophy, as has been mentioned, makes common use of metaphor or allegory, take for example Plato's famous allegory of the cave, but this does not make philosophy literature. Of course some philosophers, notably the existentialists, have used fictional literature as a vehicle for their philisophy but in this scenario the literature is still a tool or device and not an aim in itself. Sartre's Nausea is a good example of this, whereas Being and Nothingness is clearly a non-fictional philosophical work. That being said, the aim of both works is the development of philosophy.

So, what I'm trying to get to is whether fictional literature has merit in itself without it being possible to argue that the literature is a tool of X or a device of Y with the ultimate aim being the further understanding of X or Y? What knowledge does fictional literature develop?

To be honest, I haven't fully digested every comment so if I've missed something or misunderstood please accept my apologies.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

For more practical purposes, we learn things from fiction. Some people like to say, "When I read, I read non-fiction so I at least learn something." Well, I know I have learned A LOT from reading fiction. While most stories are just that; stories, most fiction is set in an existing world. Novels about World War 2, or any historical novel for that matter, has much to teach us. Books like The Da Vinci Code taught me a ton about the history of Chrsitianity. Now, this can be tricky, separating the facts from fiction, but in my experience it is not too difficult, though books like The Da Vinci code can be deceiving as to where the separation between fact and fiction lies. I'm just using The Da Vinci Code as an example, though I did enjoy it.

Even fantasy novels can teach us a lot, even if it is set in an alternate world. I learned more about medieval weaponry, armor, and the vocabulary that goes along with that than in any classroom.

[catatonic]

Fiction is an exercise in imagination. Its value is the degree with which the imagined world is plausible, compelling and something entirely new.

If skillfully conceived and executed, fiction is a holiday of sorts, a holiday from the humdrum day to day grind of work and drudgery.

As to its comparison to non-fiction, I don't think the gap is as wide as we might suppose. A poorly written book is a poorly written book and though its author's integrity and reputation might be unimpeachable, wisdom and knowledge haphazardly imparted won't register.

[mono]

[. . .] before answering the question: 'is this good literature or bad literature', I think we first need to understand what the value of literature is (meaning fiction as opposed to non-fiction). Does literature have an intrinsic value or merit in itself? What is that value? How might that value be measured?
Interesting questions, and good to see so many fine responses, too.
Personally, I try to avoid terms like "intrinsic" and "inherent," for we humans have no ability to doff the inevitable bias of judgment and subjective perception; even if something appears "intrinsic" or "inherent," one's The Divine Comedy will seem another's comic book, but that seems more of a philosophical discussion than literary - intrinsic value or merit in itself? No. Whatever value I get from it, as well as others, has no unit of measurement, especially in terms of price (and I say this confidently, even as a rare book collector); the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, the O. Henry award, the Man Booker Prize, the PEN award, and the Newbery Medal all offer very worthy names, and give heed to writers deserving their honor, but readers' opinions will always differ as to "the better award/prize winner," "who shoulda/coulda/woulda have won," and "who shouldn't/couldn't/wouldn't have won." Literary merit functions closer to culinary preference than the objective measurements of physics, interpreting the world around us with a meter-long stick, depending upon taste; a Ph.D. in literature and a highschool student could equally prefer D.H. Lawrence over Thomas Hardy, but for entirely different and even opposing reasons, just as well as someone on the Pulitzer committee and a literature student could agree who seemed more worthy of such-and-such prize for similar reasons.
As to what literature ends up, years, decades, centuries, millenia later, considered a "classic" and what inevitably ends up on the 50¢ shelf of your local used bookstore, I have always thought of a classic as a book representing the common morals, values, tendencies, and occurrences of the time, place, and culture written. Not quite like the winners of revered prizes, awards, and medals, readers discern this (or in the case of Homer's time, listeners), as to what get passed down person-to-person, generation-to-generation, medium-by-media. Again, it seems nearly impossible to place a judgment upon the value of literature, but its value certainly appears through generations.

You might measure the value of the study of physics based on the positive and negative impacts of those scientific advancements: the atom bomb vs the microwave, for example ;)
Good analogy, and different individuals could place different values upon the atomic bomb or the common microwave. I hate it when people attack my analogies, finding it useless against an argument, and I do not intend upon attacking yours, TheFifthElement, but even within one generation of the mid-1940's, during the invention of the kitchen microwave - an American WWII soldier fighting in the Pacific could have considered the atom bomb a blessing, while the common American housewife placed a high value upon the microwave.

What does the study of literature teach which can not be learned by any other non-fictional means?
The majority of religious texts consists of tales, which I think an important fact to state; whether fictional or not seems another discussion. Other forumers have mentioned the important allegories, metaphors, and similes of philosophical works, such as Plato's oft-abused "Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic. I consider the literal word "fiction" synonymous to "fabrication," and importantly so, since some fiction appears more realistic than others (i.e. comparing Heinlein or Tolkein to Maugham or Dickens), but nonfiction, except in cases of Sophism, utilizes no fabrications, only facts and opinions. Fiction takes the elements of nonfiction, all of the things taken for granted with which we toy on a daily basis, our morals, our values, interpersonal and intrapersonal, and places all in a story-form for entertainment, observation, emphasis, learning, and sentiment; for Plato to use all of these fictional elements in his Symposium would sound like quite an accomplishment, yet outside his interests, but that seems a lot like saying that even Euripides could have written Phaedrus.
The characters, regardless, end up as good as immortal, just as Rousseau's confessions likely will, too.

[Paulclem]

I've always considered the media asect of the GCSE in the UK - the standard language qualificaion for a 16 year old - to be the most important aspect in terms of life skills reading. This is because it could potentially empower young people to critically read and carefully evaluate newspapers. Of course it doesn't complete the job - it needs following up, and this is where reading good literatue can help. Journalists routinely mix fact and opinion to promote their political views. They load text in favour of, or against their targets. They become the unreliable narrator of events. They quote unreliably, employ metaphors, or heark back to historical class distinctions. They employ historical references, and utilise stereotypes. All these examples, and many more are used by journalists, and can be found, studied and insight gained through books. I think these are commonly better employed in fiction. By studying literaure, one can gain a better awareness of how opinions in society are formed, and how the uninformed can be manipulated. Literary knowledge may not lead to power, but it might give an insight into it

[islandclimber]

Yeah, I saw you throw out that definition in the Harry Potter thread a couple of times and I thought it odd, but interesting. Does ALL literature really unsettle or shake our beliefs, values, and biases? Does it ever confirm our beliefs and have value in doing so?

How did Beowulf for example shake your beliefs and values? Or The Odyssey for that matter? What about the poem "I Died for Beauty (http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/I_DiedForBeauty.htm)" by Emily Dickinson?

oh no, I agree with you here.. all literature does not have to, nor should it have to shake our beliefs, values, biases, etc... I think I said it has the ability to do so, although I may have worded it a little more strongly.. But I would say I think it should (most of the time) have the ability to do so, but hand in hand with this comes confirming our beliefs, as sometimes you will find literature that does confirm what we believe, what we place value on... and this has the same value.. I think in modern fiction, well post 1800 fiction, generally (besides works written primarily for aesthetics which have debateable value- though I do quite enjoy some... and works written purely to entertain which is a much more controverisal issue) these works must have that ability to unsettle us in some way, or maybe to confirm to us what we have been thinking, through powerful allegory and argument, but always in a manner that is somewhat open to interpretation, so called weak implicature... so maybe we see it as confirming our belief, and someone else sees it as cutting our belief down... I don't know.. I just think good writing must have that ability to move us, to make us reconsider, to make us deeply think, to dream, to allow us to get excited over reading new and interesting variations on and arguments for what we may already believe... not all good writing but the majority of it...

[mortalterror]

What about the poem "I Died for Beauty (http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/I_DiedForBeauty.htm)" by Emily Dickinson?
Interesting poem. Do you think she was consciously echoing Keats' sentiments from Ode on a Grecian Urn (http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html), "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

[JBI]

Interesting poem. Do you think she was consciously echoing Keats' sentiments from Ode on a Grecian Urn (http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html), "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

Or perhaps, echoing Keats who was echoing Shakespeare's Sonnet 54:
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

[stlukesguild]

OK, lots of interesting answers so far, but as yet no one has answered this question: What does the study of literature teach which can not be learned by any other non-fictional means?

Your question assumes that the purpose of literature... or any work of art... is to pragmatically teach us something. To briefly quote Walter Pater again: Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. Literature... art... isn't a means to an end, but rather an end in itself. Not unlike music... art... love... perhaps life itself... the "goal" of literature isn't some ending... some agreed upon "meaning"... but rather it is the experience itself that is the "goal".

[L.M. The Third]

I think that in fiction we have more freedom to speak the truth as we see it. (Sounds wierd, I know. Here's what I mean.) When we tell another person's story, we seldom know their very deepest thoughts and feelings. When we tell our own story we have certain deterents from telling everything. For example, Charlotte Bronte, the curate's (was he just curate?) couldn't write a biography about her love for a married prophessor. But Currer Bell the enigmatic author could tell the essentials of, or a play on, the story. (Even if in one book the hero's wife is mad.)
Of course, this isn't always the case, I know. And perhaps our inhibitions are greatly lessened today.

I guess what I'm saying is we may learn more of human nature from a well-written fiction than from an unrounded biography. But, again, that's not a rule.

I'm jumping into the middle and I'm sorry if everyone's gotten off the original question and I'm disturbing.

[JCamilo]

Interesting poem. Do you think she was consciously echoing Keats' sentiments from Ode on a Grecian Urn (http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html), "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

Interesting idea, I was about to use both as evidence of what is true and what is not...
Anyways, not because
of this topic, Mortal could you give your opinion on Emily Dickinson? She never wrote any poem with more than 40 lines (not factual, I just cannt remember any)...

[mortalterror]

Interesting idea, I was about to use both as evidence of what is true and what is not...
Anyways, not because
of this topic, Mortal could you give your opinion on Emily Dickinson? She never wrote any poem with more than 40 lines (not factual, I just cannt remember any)...
I find her brief poems beautiful and touching, as much as short poems ever are; but I do not think she achieved the kind of effects which T.S. Eliot, Coleridge, Milton, and many others have with longer works. Therefore, I do not put her in a class with the first rank of writers.

[Paulclem]

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

Great poem MortalTerror. The thing that struck me was the "kinsman" in failure. The sombre ending - the fleeting nature of beauty and truth? Does it question the worth of beauty and truth given the effects of time in opposition to the Ode to a Grecian Urn?

[TheFifthElement]

Your question assumes that the purpose of literature... or any work of art... is to pragmatically teach us something. To briefly quote Walter Pater again: Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. Literature... art... isn't a means to an end, but rather an end in itself. Not unlike music... art... love... perhaps life itself... the "goal" of literature isn't some ending... some agreed upon "meaning"... but rather it is the experience itself that is the "goal".

Well, your thinking is not entirely that far apart from my own, but the question was initially prompted by this statement by JBI in another thread:

The act of actually reading doesn't justify reading - the justification for reading is that there is something worth getting from what you are reading
which as a statement (which I'm not attacking by the way before anyone types down my throat) raises the idea that reading in itself is not worthwhile but there must be something worth getting from it. So, I'm trying to get to the bottom of what that 'worth' is, as 'worth' has been proposed as a requirement for 'good' literature. Now it is very easy to see the worth of non-fictional literature, but I am still unclear on the proposed 'worth' of fiction.

Plus it seems to me that for literature to have a value system: 'good' literature and 'bad' literature, by definition it must have some 'worth' against which the good or bad 'value' is measured, but apart from aesthetics, entertainment, indulgence ( as proposed by Jamesian in this statement which I particularly like, thanks Jamesian :) )


‘Literature’ represents a broad, diffuse, amusing, upsetting, frustrating, rewarding, sensuous, secular, heterogeneous garden in which to indulge the mind and senses, intriguingly foreign in spite of its necessary, perfunctory, familiarity – ineffably enriching.

I'm not finding this 'worth' which has been spoken of. But all these points: aesthetics, entertainment, indulgence are subjective and therefore their 'worth' or otherwise is likely to be in the mind of the reader.

But it may be that literature does have this measurable system of 'worth', and I'm just not seeing it. Hence the thread :D

[The Comedian]

I'll say that literature has no value. None. Zip. It's just plots of ink on hardened tree pulp. Value, if there is such a thing, comes from us. We give it value. It doesn't give us value.

Literature is an object, like the hammer on my work bench. If I use it to hammer in a nail to hang a picture or to squash an ant, it has value. But the value was not inherent in the hammer; it was in my use of the hammer. I made it valuable. Likewise if I never use it; if I deem it worthless, well, then it is worthless.

Or another metaphor: Literature is the pitcher, we're the beer.

Cheers!

[Drkshadow03]

Would anyone mind if I quoted their definitions here on my blog?

[JCamilo]

I find her brief poems beautiful and touching, as much as short poems ever are; but I do not think she achieved the kind of effects which T.S. Eliot, Coleridge, Milton, and many others have with longer works. Therefore, I do not put her in a class with the first rank of writers.

Well, the original question, I think Keats, Emily Dickinson (and if you seek a Dostoievisky thread you will see something similar being asked about the idea of beauty) are echoing the romantic studies about aesthetics, the idea of ethics mixed in the german philosophy...

Anyways, this thread is dangerously moving to Art have any vallue line, when we are transforming the texts as something that must have pratical use and not something necessary to individual development.

[kelby_lake]

I'll say that literature has no value. None. Zip. It's just plots of ink on hardened tree pulp. Value, if there is such a thing, comes from us. We give it value. It doesn't give us value.

Literature is an object, like the hammer on my work bench. If I use it to hammer in a nail to hang a picture or to squash an ant, it has value. But the value was not inherent in the hammer; it was in my use of the hammer. I made it valuable. Likewise if I never use it; if I deem it worthless, well, then it is worthless.

I agree entirely. At the end of the day, the writer can write whatever they want because if I interpret it as being X, it will be X, for me. If a critic, enough critics, interpret it as Y, it will be Y- even if the writer intended it to be Z

[JCamilo]

It is dangerous because those debates lead to demanding that art must have a pratical function of other objects, such as science or religion or a hammer. And the function that art have are all dismissed.

[kelby_lake]

But art is entirely subjective

[JCamilo]

Appreciation of Art is subjective. Several aspects of art are very objective, you can say when a certain technique was misused for example. You can objetivelly show the effects of art in the history, etc. You can not obviously create a mathematical table showing exactly why Hamlet is better (or not) than Don Quixote. You can accept they belong to a certain higher place in the literature, and a specialist can say why Da Vince Code does not belong to that place. It should be enough.
We are going to end in Oscar Wilde cynism about how useless a book is. But Wilde was a cynical person, so his words must be considered under a different light.

[LMK]

I suppose I could respond that value like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in reality that may be true or trivial.

However, I would like to suggest that fiction is a study of places, situations, behaviors, attitudes, conversations that allow us to explore humanity in a realm that may not exist (outside reality Television). Its intrinsic value is then no less than the laws of physics or the chemical discoveries that made up the periodic table. We can compare and contrast people, life, real and fictional just as we can compare and contrast a scientific experiment with its hypothesis. A plumber on Mars in the year 3721 who falls in love with a vampire that has been time warped from Earth last seen in the year 1702, might not seem to shed light on “the issues that plague us today” but then again there might be that one exchange of dialogue in the middle of Chapter 12, that is profoundly applicable.

Plus it's a way for us to decompress without going postal!

~L

[kelby_lake]

Appreciation of Art is subjective.
We are going to end in Oscar Wilde cynism about how useless a book is. But Wilde was a cynical person, so his words must be considered under a different light.

Wilde can be a bit annoying at times.

Even appreciation of art is essentially objective. There are the subjective bits, like misunderstanding of a concept, but a sincere belief in the book will override that. The Da Vinci Code is not meant to be on a par with Hamlet- it is very popular trash and has succeeded in that field. That field is of less interest to more academic people but it does not make it worthless.

If no one gets a certain novel, that novel, though it might be technically great, is only a success to the author. Yeah, he can secretly get off on the fact that it was well-written but it had no relevance outside of himself. If it were a play, it would have been a failure.


'Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.' (Antonin Artaud)

Of course the dead poets are good and should be studied, but how are we ever going to advance if we just keep offering the same opinions on the same literature? They may be valid opinions and the work may be very good but you can't keep spouting feminism and marxism and every other 'ism' to the point where they don't enlighten anyone at all.

[JCamilo]

Obviously Artaud was opening a way for himself. Anyways, I do not mind if Dan Brown didnt meant to be paired with Hamlet or not (utimatelly, Shakespeare was working with the commercial view too, so it can be said anything), that is not even the nature of the argument...
I doubt there is a single novel, even Finnegans, that was not a sucess with others. I doubt the opinions remain the same even about the great old writers. And appreciation is subjective, after the effects are basead on my emotions,my liking, etc. Something about art is subjective, it allows us to approach that way, without the technical objective analyse.

[kelby_lake]

Obviously Artaud was opening a way for himself.

Well, yeah, but he had a point. He did quite a bit for theatre and it was allowed to evolve. Sure you have the classic theatre but there are theatrical pieces that might even be better, although in a different way.

They are the same opinions really- either that, or dubious ones.

[TheFifthElement]

Anyways, this thread is dangerously moving to Art have any vallue line, when we are transforming the texts as something that must have pratical use and not something necessary to individual development.

Well, I'm not overly concerned whether the answer is that art has no value or that it has a value. I'm just trying to work out which it is. See you say:


something necessary to individual development.
which by implication means art, literature whatever has a value because it is necessary for individual development. So, can you elaborate? What is it about literature which is necessary to individual development that you can only get from literature?

[JCamilo]

Well, Art often is a form of training, a way we can explore the possibilities caused by changes of perspective and dynamics of social interation. That is why it cannot be compared to physics or any scientific approach. Science is the narrowing of those posibilities, it is the specialization. Art may not do anything for hundred years because it showed the possibilities but the societies prefered not to go.
Obviously, this is for all art, but the specific vallue of literature is the work with language. You could just imagine if our newspapers are not written but oral or written like Homer? It was the dynamics of literature that explored the language field and took it beyond the simple "Hello, uh, ugauga"...

[Paulclem]

It was the dynamics of literature that explored the language field and took it beyond the simple "Hello, uh, ugauga"...

Surely a rich oral tradition did this. Literature comes after.

[JCamilo]

Yes, I usually refuse to use the oral literature expression, but it was about that I was talking .

[mono]

I find her brief poems beautiful and touching, as much as short poems ever are; but I do not think she achieved the kind of effects which T.S. Eliot, Coleridge, Milton, and many others have with longer works. Therefore, I do not put her in a class with the first rank of writers.
Initially, I felt Dickinson got quite shunned by your irreverence, especially in using "beautiful" and "touching" elementary terms, but that seems another discussion for another thread; I say "shunned" because she actually never intended her poetry for anyone's eyes, except for the poetry she addressed to others (family, friends) and the few poems she published in her lifetime, which equalled to less than 10 out of the over 1500 written - what we have of hers, we have robbed, hence her alleged "lack of achievement," in your opinion, makes me question the value of her poetry as opposed to others, like Coleridge or Eliot, whose works received great inspiration and acclaim from writing/literary groups, while Dickinson composed her work entirely alone without intention of fame or even the least attention. I would place a high value on her poetry not only for its uniquity, attention to detail by the most acute senses, featuring the deepest introspection, but also as a posthumous work, much like how many place a high value on The Diary of Anne Frank (which the teenager Frank never attempted to publish, especially considering the circumstances), A Moveable Feast, among many other Hemingway novels published posthumously (which I see quoted in your signature, too), The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld (posthumous Nobel Peace Prize winner). The "value" of literature may seem what we get from it, which seems the general opinion of most of the forumers, but the circumstances under their compositions, I believe, ought to affect their value from the moment the first splash of ink touches the paper, explaining, among many other reasons, why so many revere poets like Homer and the anonymous writer of the Epic of Gilgamesh - scant documented literature existed prior to them.
Perhaps Dickinson does not deserve a seat in the "class with the first rank of writers," but her introversion, emotional instability, and sensitivity, the woman behind the poet, impeded her possibly successful life as a published poet in her time; instead, we have her rawest emotion, as unbiased and unhindered as a diary, bound in twine, in quantitatively more than most poets write in a lifetime. Personally, I would place the utmost value upon such a beautiful and touching thing.

I'll say that literature has no value. None. Zip. It's just plots of ink on hardened tree pulp. Value, if there is such a thing, comes from us. We give it value. It doesn't give us value.

Literature is an object, like the hammer on my work bench. If I use it to hammer in a nail to hang a picture or to squash an ant, it has value. But the value was not inherent in the hammer; it was in my use of the hammer. I made it valuable. Likewise if I never use it; if I deem it worthless, well, then it is worthless.

Or another metaphor: Literature is the pitcher, we're the beer.

Cheers!
I love the metaphors, Comedian, and, to follow it with another metaphor, this implies that architects construct bridges only for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists - a priori, yes, but it can also serve others as a fishing spot, birds a multitude of nesting places, cover and shade for homeless travelers, moisture along the base for fungi and algae, and, before one knows it, this monstrous object intended for transportation from one area to another, has created its own ecosystem.

Of course the dead poets are good and should be studied, but how are we ever going to advance if we just keep offering the same opinions on the same literature? They may be valid opinions and the work may be very good but you can't keep spouting feminism and marxism and every other 'ism' to the point where they don't enlighten anyone at all.
As you wisely mentioned a few posts previous, "art is subjective." Spout out feminism, Marxism, and every other "ism" to a Rowling and another spout to Goethe, one seems bound to come out with something enlightening; my money would bet upon the latter, but a discovering and rediscovering of old texts can certainly bring about some amazing literature. To me, one way of valuing literature seems in never forgetting what some have popularly labeled as valuable; all has its value, one way or another, at least to someone, but let us give heed to those old "isms" as well as the new. ;)

[jinjang]

In terms of value, I was thinking less financial and more merit/significance/importance. Is the study of fictional literature critical to intellectual, spiritual, or social development in a way which cannot be developed by other means?

I can only answer in personal level as a mostly-fiction-reader, although I read magazines to catch up current affairs. As some mentioned, fiction provides indirect experiences, immeasurable personal growth, understanding of various people’s psychology in different circumstances, social behaviors and values and customs of people in the past and present, a sense of shared feelings with others, and amusements as well a corner to shun out the world if needed and if beneficial.

Immeasurable personal growth may be related to, in my case, emotional stability with a fantastical world to hide from reality, which can be done by other means but I choose to read fiction.

It does appear to me that value or merit of fiction varies person to person.


Ultimately, for me, ‘Literature’ represents a broad, diffuse, amusing, upsetting, frustrating, rewarding, sensuous, secular, heterogeneous garden in which to indulge the mind and senses, intriguingly foreign in spite of its necessary, perfunctory, familiarity – ineffably enriching. But it is a garden in need of constant tending: a ‘to-read’ list that doubles with every book read, and scarcely a day off.

I agree with TheFifthElement that you expressed it so well what literature means to you. It has energy and vitality my statement above lacks! It must be my training so universally known boring.

[kelby_lake]

Calls to mind the last line of The Great Gatsby :):
'And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past'

From memory :)

[kasie]

....In terms of value, I was thinking less financial and more merit/significance/importance. Is the study of fictional literature critical to intellectual, spiritual, or social development in a way which cannot be developed by other means?

For example, it has been mentioned that literature can teach us about the world and what it means to be human. However, study of sociology, biology, psychology, geography, geology, ecology and/or history more specifically address our learning about the world and what it means to be human. It could be said that literature is a useful tool in understanding those things and can be used to good effect as part of those studies but the ultimate aim is not the literature but the the subject of the study in itself i.e. learning about the world and what it means to be human....

I recently watched a fascinating programme on tv about how the brain functions - using modern means to scan the brain, the researchers had measured brain activity while reading and discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that reading about an event produces the same activity in the brain as the event itself: the programme illustrated this with the example of reading about being chased by a ferocious animal and being shown a film in which a fierce dog suddenly leaped at the camera, if I remember correctly.

They deduced from their (extensive) research that reading developed the notion of 'empathy', their research giving a measure of proof to the long-held theory that this is one of the by-products of reading. They held that reading helped to prepare us for life, not just in terms of practical knowledge, but in imaginative experience, fiction in particular giving us the opportunity to live many lives, the brain storing responses in readiness for use in real situations.

[TheFifthElement]

You could just imagine if our newspapers are not written but oral or written like Homer?

hehehe, if the newspapers gave me news and facts and not hyperbole and conjecture I don't care what style they're written in ;)



They deduced from their (extensive) research that reading developed the notion of 'empathy', their research giving a measure of proof to the long-held theory that this is one of the by-products of reading. They held that reading helped to prepare us for life, not just in terms of practical knowledge, but in imaginative experience, fiction in particular giving us the opportunity to live many lives, the brain storing responses in readiness for use in real situations.
Kasie, I think that's a good point. My husband said something similar in that fictional literature enables us to explore possibilities in a 'safe' environment, without having to go out and experience them ourselves. He raised the example of, say, examining the mind of a murderer, or the outcome of a plague without having to directly experience it ourselves. So we imagine how it might be, and by so imagining prepare ourselves to some degree for what the reality might be. Of course you could get the same thing by reading real life accounts - like Underground by Haruki Murakami which is a non-fiction work exploring the Tokyo sarin gas attacks from a number of perspectives, or The Diary of Ann Frank being a true life account of the persecution of Jews during the Nazi rule of Germany. I expect that builds empathy, but then perhaps a fictional account would do so without the 'danger' of someone having to experience it first.

He also said that fiction prompts imagination and the development of imagination is what enables us to then go forth and further develop our understanding of the world we live in. He raised the example of Arthur C Clarke who, in one story, put forward a theory for how one might communicate from one side of the planet to the other. His 'imagination' then sparked scientists to explore this possibility and now we have satellites in geostationary orbit courtesy of a work of fiction. Would the scientists have developed this without that first spark from Clarke? Maybe they would but maybe not so soon. It's also likely that the three laws of robotics, as proposed by Isaac Asimov, will be built into any advanced robotics developed because of their apparent inviolability. All human endeavours seem to require some leap of imagination.

Hey, it occurs to me that science fiction as a genre doesn't get half so much respect as it deserves!

Anyways, from the value point of view I think the 'prompting imagination' is probably the one that sits more clearly in the remit of being prompted by fictional literature only, especially as the purpose of fiction is to explore our imaginative environment. Empathy, on the other hand could be developed just as easily, if not more so, by true life accounts - taking it into the non-fiction arena. Of course fictional literature appears to prompt both and may, by combination, develop a more powerful result. Perhaps, then, the measure of literature is in how authentically it creates both imagination and empathy without the use of the tools of literature getting in the way or creating a 'false' or 'unsympathetic' result?

[JCamilo]

hehehe, if the newspapers gave me news and facts and not hyperbole and conjecture I don't care what style they're written in ;)

Not without surprise that the raise of journalism occured alongside the raise of short stories and romances - the prose style. Not just a matter of technology, but the exploration of possibilities. Poe aesthetics have a lot to do with exploring the space of a newspaper.




Hey, it occurs to me that science fiction as a genre doesn't get half so much respect as it deserves!

Anyways, from the value point of view I think the 'prompting imagination' is probably the one that sits more clearly in the remit of being prompted by fictional literature only, especially as the purpose of fiction is to explore our imaginative environment. Empathy, on the other hand could be developed just as easily, if not more so, by true life accounts - taking it into the non-fiction arena. Of course fictional literature appears to prompt both and may, by combination, develop a more powerful result. Perhaps, then, the measure of literature is in how authentically it creates both imagination and empathy without the use of the tools of literature getting in the way or creating a 'false' or 'unsympathetic' result?

Do you think so? The oldest systems of transmitions of knowledge, the myths, are poetic in their nature. Most linguistics will frown before the possibility of transmition of information in a logical sentence, but not many will dismiss the capacity of music to provoke empathy. You can
have other ways, but do you have any more powerful, efficient or well structured? Plato teaches using stories. Jesus teaches using stories. Because of the level of understanding a story can be both empathic to atract attention and pass out knowledge.

[TheFifthElement]

You can have other ways, but do you have any more powerful, efficient or well structured? Plato teaches using stories. Jesus teaches using stories. Because of the level of understanding a story can be both empathic to atract attention and pass out knowledge.

True life accounts - I mentioned that above. Like The Diary of Ann Frank. The metaphor or allegory isn't solely a product of fictional literature - as you commented Plato used it as a tool to elucidate his philisophy. In this respect it is just a tool rather than an end in itself. I don't disagree that fiction is a powerful tool for creating empathy, but it doesn't need fiction to create it.

[JCamilo]

True life does not happens to everyone. I never got persecuted but I understand the vallue of freedom and ethics, so I can learn from Anne Frank. Plus, the diary of Anne Frank may be based one something called true life, but it is a fiction. PLus, philosophy will always consider that the difference between fiction and realiaty is fictional.
Anyways, I do not mean the use of allegory, it is a artistic toll. I mean telling a story - such as the Cave - to teach. Not being the end on itself is forgetting my daily life experience is not an end on itself. It happens, that is all.

[TheFifthElement]

True life does not happens to everyone. I never got persecuted but I understand the vallue of freedom and ethics, so I can learn from Anne Frank. Plus, the diary of Anne Frank may be based one something called true life, but it is a fiction.

Where do you see the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction then? Or are you saying that Ann Frank's diary was not her diary but written by someone else?

I would consider true life accounts to be non-fiction, however engagingly written. What is it about true life accounts that you deem to be 'fictional'?

[JCamilo]

There is not boundaries at all, when we use language it is fiction. Real life does not turn the story and having lived what happened does not make the author more real than not. Anne Frank Diary could have been written by a blondie swedish nurse named Helga, and it would be less real? Or how to deal with Garcia Marquez who says all his stories are real? Because he uses a sophisticated language?
Very realistic writers can pull out stories as real - I would say even more real- than true life accounts. And some true life accounts are absolutelly fantastic.
I would use the example of Marco Polo: according to Umberto Eco his stories are taken as fantastic, but not because he described some fantastic things (which was expected) but because he described real things unknow to europeans.
Saying something is real or not is a matter of perspective. Do you think the bible is real? Many people do. You may say that moderm historiography is with those who think otherwise, but moderm historiography in XVIII century was not. Today Herodotus, the father of History, is not considered less fantastic than many fantasy writers, in Policrates Ring story there is the plot and basic structure that we can find in several folk tales, included those collected by Grimms. (Fact is several folk tales are just daily occurances)...
I would end with Borges (a weekness of mine when this subject come on, but since he just was the ultimate argument), in an interview in the early 70's the reporter asked him something like : Your stories are now more realistics unlike the fantastic stories early in your life. It is because you believe more in reality than fantasy now?
Borges: Hold on, I have not decided which one is more true yet.
(Forgive me those who may have read this interview with another words. I am not worried in being real, but truthful).

[TheFifthElement]

There is not boundaries at all, when we use language it is fiction.

So, Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time is fiction?

[Paulclem]

So, Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time is fiction?

The problem with Physics is that it might be, such as when they discover the next step/ particle/ theory - the old one becomes fiction, albeit useful.

I'm with you on this though FithElement. Although I can broadly see where Jcamillo is coming from, I don't think it is useful, or helps to answer the question posted.

[JCamilo]

In the case of Hawkins... :D
Anyways, Fifth argued that the experience (real) such as Anne Frank Diary have advantages over fictional experiences. I just countered because there is not even such different from Anne Frank or a fictional narrative, then It obviously help to answer the original question or at least the one Fifth really wants to know.

[The Comedian]

I love the metaphors, Comedian, and, to follow it with another metaphor, this implies that architects construct bridges only for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists - a priori, yes, but it can also serve others as a fishing spot, birds a multitude of nesting places, cover and shade for homeless travelers, moisture along the base for fungi and algae, and, before one knows it, this monstrous object intended for transportation from one area to another, has created its own ecosystem.

Hey mono -- I enjoyed your post and your own metaphor. But to speak to the topic, I will offer a retort: that while bridges do serve the purposes that you list here, in their capacities as fishin' spots and ecosystems, they're not functioning as "bridges". They're just piles of rock and steel.

Sort of like this: as bridge is to book, so literature is to transportation. The latter grouping are examples of concepts that occur only in the human mind. The former, bridges and books, are objects that can serve a variety of purposes.

My contention that the "value" of literature is not inherent in the "book", but in the mind of the reader, just as the utility of the hammer or bridge, is not in the object but in the mind of the user (be that user a multi-celled organism like ourselves, or a single-celled bacteria [if these (both we and the bacteria) can be said to have a mind, that is]). :lol:

I must admit to being sensitive to this issue: I too often see students say that this or that is "meaningless" that they'll "never use it [writing skills, literature]". They often expect meaning to be handed to them, the books give meaning or value to the reader, when, the value of literature is that of a mirror, it offers us a reflection of ourselves. If we don't see it, then we need to either open our eyes or stand a little closer.

Anyway. . . I don't want to go on and on and on and on. Very good conversation!

:)

[Paulclem]

My contention that the "value" of literature is not inherent in the "book", but in the mind of the reader

Yes. So ths means that people get different things, or nothing from particular books.

But it is also true that readers may get the same types of things from certain books - something like sympathy for Tess and the feeling that she is hard done by. So is it solely the readers response, or are there shared values within/ expressed in the book?

[JCamilo]

You people are exagerating and misinterpretating the theories about the reader.
He do go where he wants after he reads a book, but the book must exists in first place, written by a human who is well aware of the possibilities and tries to control which possibilities will exists.
The possibilities that Lolita offers are not the same that Don Quixote Offers. It is a dialogue, not a monologue made by lonely readers.

[Paulclem]

You people are exagerating and misinterpretating the theories about the reader.
He do go where he wants after he reads a book, but the book must exists in first place, written by a human who is well aware of the possibilities and tries to control which possibilities will exists.
The possibilities that Lolita offers are not the same that Don Quixote Offers. It is a dialogue, not a monologue made by lonely readers.

So how is this different from the post above? He goes where he wants - people might interpret the book differently.

The possibilitiesthat Lolia offers are not the same as Don Quixote - there is something in the book that might be shaed values.

I also have a name.

[kelby_lake]

You people are exagerating and misinterpretating the theories about the reader.
He do go where he wants after he reads a book, but the book must exists in first place, written by a human who is well aware of the possibilities and tries to control which possibilities will exists.
The possibilities that Lolita offers are not the same that Don Quixote Offers. It is a dialogue, not a monologue made by lonely readers.

You'd think so, but people can give the most lucid fervent opinions on a book despite not having read much of it, if they even read it properly at all. Some weird person suggested that Tom had incestuous feelings for Laura in The Glass Menagerie... as a writer, you cannot control a reader. It becomes even more apparant when you write for the stage and have to relinquish it to actors and directors. Writers who think they can, or struggle desperately to, are not very good writers.

:cold:what an adorable smiley :)

[JCamilo]

This the exageration. Several great writers thought they could manipulate the reader, even because this notion of readers influence is nowhere as old as literature. But even a modern writer like Joyce considered he could - because the careful option of language, figures, etc is a form of manipulation.
And the possibilities open by a book is limited to that book. It is not just one person or poster - it is suggest even that the book have no vallue other than we give to them and that the only "we" are the readers.

[ktm5124]

Literature best teaches us about life and ourselves, because it is the only medium that replicates them.

[TheFifthElement]

I just countered because there is not even such different from Anne Frank or a fictional narrative, then It obviously help to answer the original question or at least the one Fifth really wants to know.

Ah, I see. I don't dispute that fictional narrative can promote the development of empathy, my counter was that this was not solely the domain of fictional literature. I wondered if there was something exclusive to fiction alone. I'm not sure if there is, being such an overlap between disciplines because of the common tools of language, but development of an 'imaginary' environment seems a good one because fiction encourages development of authentic imaginary scenarios. Of course imagination is used elsewhere as a tool, but in fictional literature it seems to be critical, without that 'imaginary' environment then we're dealing in 'fact' (insofar as it is possible to deal in 'fact' :D).

Hmm, not sure I'm making much sense!

[JCamilo]

insofar or not? :D
Just disreggard the difference, in portuguese there is even a different word for story and history (both are História), so swimm like a duck, think like a portuguese ;)

[Paulclem]

Of course imagination is used elsewhere as a tool, but in fictional literature it seems to be critical, without that 'imaginary' environment then we're dealing in 'fact' (insofar as it is possible to deal in 'fact' ).

Is it the trialling of imaginary scenarios through story that helps with personal development? I don't mean that a person would use a script, but would perhaps generate a more developed sense of values beyond their own personal circumstances.

[TheFifthElement]

insofar or not? :D
Just disreggard the difference, in portuguese there is even a different word for story and history (both are História), so swimm like a duck, think like a portuguese ;)

If only!

Actually, it occurred to me this morning that empathy and imagination are probably intrisically interlinked. I think for empathy to develop you must 'imagine' yourself in the other person's position so without imagination there is little empathy. Actually that seems to stack up a lot against people I've encountered who try to force their views on other people, in those cases I'd say those people lacked the ability to imagine themselves on the receiving end of their own behaviour. Maybe next time that happens I'll advise them to read a good book :D

[mono]

Hey mono -- I enjoyed your post and your own metaphor. But to speak to the topic, I will offer a retort: that while bridges do serve the purposes that you list here, in their capacities as fishin' spots and ecosystems, they're not functioning as "bridges". They're just piles of rock and steel.

Sort of like this: as bridge is to book, so literature is to transportation. The latter grouping are examples of concepts that occur only in the human mind. The former, bridges and books, are objects that can serve a variety of purposes.

My contention that the "value" of literature is not inherent in the "book", but in the mind of the reader, just as the utility of the hammer or bridge, is not in the object but in the mind of the user (be that user a multi-celled organism like ourselves, or a single-celled bacteria [if these (both we and the bacteria) can be said to have a mind, that is]). :lol:

I must admit to being sensitive to this issue: I too often see students say that this or that is "meaningless" that they'll "never use it [writing skills, literature]". They often expect meaning to be handed to them, the books give meaning or value to the reader, when, the value of literature is that of a mirror, it offers us a reflection of ourselves. If we don't see it, then we need to either open our eyes or stand a little closer.

Anyway. . . I don't want to go on and on and on and on. Very good conversation!

:)
Hmmm, point taken. :nod:
In my reply to your first post, I did not mean to sound that I believed literature had an inherent value; I try to stray far, as distant as possible in fact, from such terms as "inherent" and "intrinsic," in a Berkeleyan philosophical sense. I strongly agree with you that literature, not only fiction, but also nonfiction, has no inherent value, especially as an inanimate thing (barely a tangible thing, at that!), and an individual makes what s/he can out of it, much in the same way as the multiple uses of bridges (fishing spot, nest, etc.) or hammer (nail remover, paperweight :lol:) - total subjectivity - but not to the point of uselessness (for example, even though I took trigonometry in school, hated it, and never use it today, does not make it entirely useless). Fiction only bears inherent value in the human faculties of judgment and empathy; it requires cognition in the same sense as nonfiction (philosophy, religious texts, etc.), but there exists an almost interpersonal quality to fiction that relates more to the imagination than cognition.