How literature is used

A handbook on how to read, perceive and use literary texts

Literary theorist Rita Felski offers a refreshing new perspective on how to approach literature. Her book advocates reading as an irreplaceable instance, and Felski attempts to bridge the gap between literary theory and a common sense approach to reading; explores individual frictional surfaces and points of contact in the search for answers to the questions of why and how we read. Any attempt to explain the value of literature, she argues, must be based on an examination of the motives for reading, and in the spectrum of their diversity. The author assumes that these motives are not mutually exclusive. It presents four different ways of thinking about and reading literature. In literature we can (1) recognize ourselves; literature can also (2) enchant, (3) convey knowledge, or (4) shock. He notes that the terms of literary science and the terms of the subjective experience of reading have drifted apart and that there is a need to find a way to bridge this gap.

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An exceptionally well-written, intellectually wide-ranging book that draws on a diverse range of canonical and popular literature and film to illustrate the author's compelling thinking about the value of literature. Individual chapters are packed with inspiration for teaching as they focus on the important diversity of reading experiences.
— Janet Lyon, Pennsylvania State University