Why is literature worth studying? What is the point? If a play was written by a glove-makers son in Stratford back in the late 16th century, what makes it worth reading today? These are questions tend to get a lot of focus at the beginning of an English degree, and which are frequently vocalised in derisory tones in any discussions about the future of Higher Education. Those of you who have done an English degree might be able to cast your minds back all the way to your first year(oh, the good old days of youth and innocence!), and may find niggling away in some cognitive corner a recollection of the critic F. R. Leavis, whose view on this issue was dominant for some time. He, together with the new wave of critics re-vitalising the study of literature in the early twentieth century, set out a clear set of values which students of literature should be interested in: Its importance in human society for the sustenance of civilisation Th...