Instruction
Why study literature in college?
Here is a story, one of the shortest ever written and one of the most difficult to forget:
A woman is sitting in her old, shuttered house. She knows that she is alone in the whole world;
every other thig is dead.
The doorbell rings.
In a brief space this small tale of terror, credited to Thomas Baily Aldrich, makes itself memorable. It sets a promising scene—is this a haunted house?—introduces a character, and places her in a strange and intriguing situation. Although in reading a story that is over so quickly we don’t come to know the character well, for a moment we enter her thoughts and begin to share her feelings. The something amazing happens. The story leaves us to wonder: who or what rang that bell?
Like many richer, longer, more complicated stories, this one, in its few words, engages the imagination. Evidently, how much a story contains and suggests doesn’t depend on its size.
--an excerpt from Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, 13th edition.
This semester our readings will, hopefully, be equally engaging, albeit significantly longer. Edgar Allan Poe defined a short story as that which could be read in one sitting.
Yet time and time again university administrators, non-English colleagues, argue that literature should not be a required course. Elective at best they’d argue. What do you think? Consider your reaction to the above? Consider previous experiences with literature. And then, yes, I’m being devilish, tell me why literature should be required in college? 500 word minimum.