The Importance On Literature : The Influence Of Literature

In Why Literature Matters Author Dana Gioia expresses and supports his opinion on why schools should support and teach arts and literature. Gioia shows the rapid decline in Americans not reading literature anymore, he shows the consequences you will face in the real world, like when you try to get a job. Gioia uses facts and statistics throughout the essay, as well as appealing to your patriotism.

In this passage Why Literature Matters by Dana Gioia, he argues the reading is an important thing to be doing.After he collected data which shows that “the declines have been most severe among younger adults”, which explains the reasoning for the lack of creativity and knowledge.Throughout this passage Gioia started it off with a survey that happened then was followed by why the study was important and was explaining the importance of it.

Author Dana Gioia argues that Literature is important to civic, personal, and economic health. Gioia uses heavily packed evidence throughout her article in order to support her claim. The main purpose presented in her work “Why Literature Matters”, is to motivate readers to become more informed, active, and independent Americans. Thus why her belief is that literature is important to your health.

The style and features an author use can help persuade the audience if clearly used. Dana Gioia in the essay “Why Literature Matters” uses factual data, superb word choice, and numbers to build her argument. In doing this, Gioia successfully persuades his audience into believing reading is a personal right.

Some topics are more interesting to read than others. In an article called ‘Why Literature Matters’ written by Dana Gioia, this article can be viewed as highly persuasive because of the techniques he uses to get his points across to the audience .Gioia is able to build arguments though his use of evidence and different literary techniques.

Reading can open one’s mind to the imagination of anything to be dreamt of. Poems, short stories, novels, plays, and dramas are all different types of literature that exist today. All of the different types of literature have their own ways and formats that they are written in. Literature has many ways of speaking to us as we read them, it can strike up emotions or memories that we have or it can make us rethink a situation that we are going through. I believe that literature can help a person open up through his or her stories.

“Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia is a persuasive text on how literary interests have fallen. Gioia starts this claim by giving very promising information. The information has a great accomplishments but, Gioia also tells of how our literary interests as Americans have fallen drastically. A 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts shows that eight of nine major forms of literature show decreased participation by many Americans. The “2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” gives staggering results according to Gioia about many young Americans neglecting enjoying reading literature.

“Why literature matters” by Dana Gionia is an intreging essay about how a decline in reading will have a negative effect on society. “Literaty readers…(are more likely to) perform charity work, visit a museum, or attend a sporting event” Dana wrote, proving to the readers that nonreaders can have a negative effect on society. Dana is using logic to prove how reading will allow people to have a positive effect on society, compared to nonreaders. In the essay many facts are written about nonreaders, like “in the 2002 study, however, is the declining precentage of Americans, especially young adults, reading literature”. Dana is trying to incourge young adults to read so they can put a positive effect on society, instead of a negative one, like

“That individuals at a time of crucial intellectual and emotional development bypass the joys and challenges of literature is a troubling trend.” This is a quote by Dana Gioia from his article “Why Literature Matters”. Although income, college attendance and access to information all increased dramatically, young Americans showed diminished interest in literature and arts. Dana established his claim that if this condition continues to worsen, it will eventually cause negative effects in the long run. He builds his argument effectively by using plenty of statistics, the rhetorical device of irony, and call to action.

The New York Times reports that Hitler’s infamous manifesto, Mein Kampf, containing his anti-semitic and discriminatory propaganda towards Jews in the Holocaust during WWII has become one of the best-selling books presently in Germany, boasting a great number of 85,000 copies already sold. Notorious for his systematic genocide of the Jews, Hitler’s Mein Kampf outlines his political philosophies and ideologies and also his future plans of eradicating the Jewish population from Germany, which he considered the reason for Germany’s impending loss of the war and its deteriorating economic state.

Society today reflects and is shaped by literature in many ways. By reading different works, readers can be influenced by different ideas. When a person is exposed to a variety of different ideas and concepts, they often times change the way that they think or go about daily life. For example, books like The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass gave people insight to what it was like to live a life of oppression, thus making people feel sympathetic for him. Society also reflects literature in that we see a lot of patterns repeated from books to everyday life.

“A piece of writing may start off life as history or philosophy and then come to be ranked as literature; or it may start off as literature and then come to be valued for its archaeological significance” (Eagleton 7). As British philosopher, Terry Eagleton, eloquently explains, literature and history are deeply intertwined. Literature is heavily influenced by the history it is surrounded by; this sphere of influence includes prominent leaders, religions, wars, revolutions, and much more. Many classics show the influence of well-known historical events of their time period such as: 1984 by George Orwell which was influenced by the spread of communism and totalitarian governments, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald influenced by the roaring 1920s, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird influenced by the racial inequalities prevalent in America. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can be added to this list as well. Frankenstein was influenced by the search for knowledge, loss of innocence, and romantic heroes both in history and literature of the Romantic period of 1798 through 1832; these same topics that influenced Shelley and other Romantic writers, influence the contemporary society and literature.

Literature has influenced society since its creation but history has also influenced literature since its creation. In America, literature started with the Native Indians with their oral stories passed down one generation at a time. The colonization of America from Europeans brought writing and new styles of literature. But as literature evolved the purpose for it never changed. People wrote literature in response to history to remember what they experienced and pass on how they grew from it.

Since the mid 20th century literature has been a prominent aspect of life in American culture, beginning how to read it in our childhood to benefiting by it throughout adulthood. Throughout the texts of “Heels over Hemingway”, “Why Literature Matters” , and “Good-bad books” all similarly argue the idea that Literature has changed over the years, due to the fact that American has changed as well effecting literature. For this reason Dowd, Orwell, and Gioia assert to their audience the importance of literature, and that it should have a place in society by utilizing rhetorical strategies such as analogy, ethos, pathos, logos, and diction.

The definition of literature has been discussed and argued over time and there is no precise answer to be given. Any reader or author can define literature as whatever they wish it to be defined as. This is more of an opinion of how one views certain pieces of work or writings and whether or not they feel that is actually literature or not. Literature is any type of creative writing such as fiction or poetry, for example. Literature is also any form of body of written works of language, which could be from the English era or even as far back as the Shakespearean or Elizabethan era. It is also work from a specific period or culture defining key elements or somehow relating to and/or expressing how it is exactly from that time. The