The Value of Literature

In The Value of Literature, Rafe McGregor employs a unique approach – the combination of philosophical work on value theory and critical work on the relationship between form and content – to present a new argument for, and defence of, literary humanism. He argues that literature has value for art, for culture, and for humanity – in short, that it matters. Unlike most contemporary defenders of literary value, the author's strategy does not involve arguing that literature is good as a means to one of the various ends that matter to human beings. It is not that literature necessarily makes us cleverer, more sensitive, more virtuous, more creative, or just generally better people. Nor is it true that there is a necessary relation between literature and edification, clarification, cultural critique, catharsis, or therapy. Rather than offer an argument that forges a tenuous link between literature and truth, or literature and virtue, or literature and the sacred, this book analyses the non-derivative, sui generic value characteristic of literature and demonstrates why that matters as an end in itself.

Rafe McGregor is Lecturer in Criminology at Leeds Trinity University and Associate Lecturer in the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York. His publications include papers in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, British Journal of Aesthetics, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and Orbis Litterarum.