What is Literature Good For?

Carol Jago, in her recent book With Rigor For All (Heineman), cites six contributions that the study of literature makes to student development:

1. intellectual curiosity as the content of great works of literature offers them teh ways and means of delving into stories, and through these stories, of having a vicarious experience of the human condition far greater than any of them could ever acquire on the basis of luck and firsthand encounters
2. cognitive skills through the study of literature that supports the critical reading of all texts, the precise use of language, and the creation of sound arguments
3. aesthetic sensitivity that helps them recognize and respond to art
4. an intra- and intercultural awareness by reading texts from both their own and other cultures
5. an ethical sensitivity that includes the ability to regulate conduct according to principles and the ability to deliberate about issues both in their own heads and in dialogue with others
6. an existential maturity that allows them to behave as civilized human beings in a world where others are not always so inclined.

Jago draws this list from Shaped by Stories: The Ethical Power of Narratives by Marshall Gregory (2009). According to Gregory, existential maturity “is more easily defined by what it is not than by what it is. It is not self-centeredness; it is not unkindness; it is not pettiness; it is not petulance; it is not callousness to the suffering of others; it is not back-biting or violent competitiveness; it is not mean-spiritedness; it is not dogmatism or fanaticism; it is not a lack of self-control; it is not the inability ever to be detached or ironic; it is not the refusal to engage in give-and-take learning from others; it is not the assumption that what we personally desire and value is what everyone else desires and values” (57)