The Case for Studying Literature

By Jamie Keegan

In 1585, Sir Phillip Sidney wrote his “Apology for Poesy” which defended the value of literature and poetry as having intrinsic value in guiding morality and societal developments. Over two hundred years later, the Romanticist Percy Bysshe Shelley composed his own “Defence of Poetry” with an even more dramatic argument: that the powers of poetry and literature were so far that they were what societies’ foundations were built upon. “Poets,” he proclaims in classic Shelleyan flair, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” [1] Another two hundred years on and it seems that the need to “defend” literature and the Arts in general is something of a timeless issue.  

In 2026, it seems to matter on an existential level. Compounding the decades-long progression of neoliberalism taking hold of both universities and the job market with the more recent explosion in AI, the Arts are being seen more and more as something, unfortunately, redundant in today’s age. Just two years ago, the University of Kent in Canterbury announced its slashing of several courses in the humanities departments including Philosophy, Art-History and Anthropology due to financial constraints, while other courses like English Literature and Modern Languages will be ominously “aligned more closely with other areas”, whatever that means. [2]Across the pond, the Trump administration has been waging war against higher-level institutions for perceived “woke” ideology indoctrinating students, to the point where their propaganda machine Turning Point USA containsa “Professor Watchlist” with the intent of naming and shaming left-wing academics. [3] With or without outright nefarious ideological actors, however, there is an increasing sentiment that the arts, and literature especially, are something of a frivolous pastime rather than a meaningful area of study. 

I will not attempt to do as Sidney and Shelley have and elevate the powers of literature for rhetorical effect. It is undeniable that literature has the capability to influence and change culture and politics on a radical level, from George Orwell to Ayn Rand to Albert Camus. And the classic argument/joke of “arts degrees don’t get you good jobs” is clearly outdated in this post-truth era wherein employers are valuing skills like critical and creative thinking and empathetic understanding. [4] Still though, it seems wholly unsatisfying to have to claim that studying literature and the Arts has some greater utilitarian purpose to be considered worthwhile. While better than totally undervaluing it, it unfortunately plays into more neoliberal corporate mindsets of having to “get to the point”; skipping the journey to get to the destination. 

The act of storytelling is one that has been within societies since our inception, and it spreads to so many areas of our daily lives. In particular, the developments of social media and pre-dating sites like Letterboxd and Goodreads have in a sense democratised media criticism – now everyone can have an opinion to a wide audience. Everyone has that one book or film they’re obsessed with, the one poem that sticks out to them whether they heard it in school or being read by Michael Caine in a YouTube video. So why should this not transfer to a greater appreciation of the study of literature? One of the biggest online buzzwords is “media literacy” or the lack thereof, the issue that people seem to be lacking in the tools to properly interrogate and engage with what they read and watch. So too are we seeing people rage against any whiff of AI “slop” interfering with the creative process. Criticisms of everything from BookTok to the MCU to every dreary and cynical self-help book that dictates you fix your life by becoming the worst person imaginable indicate in my eyes that people may be implicitly understanding the necessity for giving the arts their due. After all, literature is the heart of all the humanities – it marks the intersection of the political, the philosophical, the historical and the sociological. It invites both personal response and wider social discussion. It can (and indeed has) changed the state of society, but it also acts in its simplest ways of enriching our daily lives. Far from “ruining” or corrupting the universities, the Arts and Humanities departments allow us to study what we really value in life. At its core, literature is the expression of feeling and the exchange of ideas, a pivotal mark of what makes us human. 

A university is by its nature varied and diverse in the fields of study it offers. STEM, business and law are rightly emboldened in our culture, but we would be remiss in neglecting the arts and humanities. We can try to arbitrarily squash them into the neoliberal model or trip over ourselves justifying the skills they provide to help us in the job market, but all these approaches still treat them as if they are something in need of reform, something that needs to be apologised for. Studying the Humanities, whether it be Literature, Philosophy, Theatre or Film is valuable in and of itself. The acquisition and development of knowledge in any respect is intrinsically beneficial to a person’s character; in the immortal words of Robin Williams’s Mr. John Keating, they are “what we stay alive for.” [5]  

Sources: 

[1] Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry.” The Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry.  

[2] Walker, Amy. “University of Kent confirms six courses to be axed.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpek98q4l7qo.  

[3] https://www.professorwatchlist.org/. 

[4] “New research shows how studying the humanities benefits young people’s future careers and wider society.” University of Oxford, Humanities Division. https://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/article/new-research-shows-how-studying-the-humanities-benefits-young-peoples-future-careers-and-wid.  

[5] Weir, Peter. Dead Poets’ Society. Touchstone Pictures. 1989.