originally published 7/1/2001

In this Archive Feature from Volume 50 of the Journal, literature professor Glenn Arbery examines how literature has the power to “approach the form of life in its felt reality.” Arbery uses the analogies of sports fandom and ritual to explain how a “long habituation” in learning about form in literature enables one to enter into a greater depth of experience of reality through literature. In good literature, form cannot be separated from content; it is a whole work of art that satisfies the imagination, reveals what is permanent, and leads one to a deeper and truer apprehension of reality. Arbery is the author of Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation (2001).

26 minutes

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In a 2001 article, “The Necessity of the Classics,” Louise Cowan argued that until very recently, the body of texts known as “classics” “has stood guard over the march of Western civilization, preserving its ideals of truth and justice, whatever its lapses may have been.” Ken Myers talked with Cowan in 1998 about why the classics still matter.

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