Importance Of Studying Literature

is also a
form of time travel that helps put today in context. All those apocalyptic lamentations about
how "things used to be so much better" are controverted in literature of the last
generation, the last century, all the way back to Shakespeare and beyond. Conversely, reading
about how people lived in the past can really make you appreciate what humanity is able to
accomplish and endure. In the classics, you may read about political battles, domestic abuse,
prejudice and civil rights, unwanted pregnancy, binge drinking on college campuses, gangs and
juvenile crime, homelessness, nationwide economic crises caused by speculation--as Solomon wrote
thousands of years ago, there is nothing new under the sun. History tells us what people did;
literature tells us what they were thinking.