Date:         Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:12:52 EDT
From: silence in the peanut gallery <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      EXERCISE: What is Literature?

Sometime agone, as I pondered red-eyed and weary over dusty reference
works, I found this:

literature (the broad version) has at least four major functions:
        1. entertainment
        2. escape from an oppressive or dull environment
        3. inculcation of moral and spiritual values
        4. acquainting us with the forces which motivate men and the
           place of man in society and in the universe

"In the final analysis, it provides a reader with intense and unique
experiences ordered to give him the aesthetic pleasure that
accompanies his apprehension of the work."

[There's something about three and four syllable words, isn't there?
The way they just kind of clunk down and block the mental
flow...rhetorical excellence at its beast, eh?]

Anyway, your assignment, should you choose to participate, is to SHOW
us what this academic abstraction was trying to communicate (i.e.,
what did they want to tell us?)  Make the four pillars of fun, escape,
learning right from wrong, and knowing ourselves in our cosmos into
wordy magic, suitable for enjoying and remembering at our leisure.
Make us feel the pinch and rub of 'aesthetic pleasure', the torture of
'apprehension', and even the vivid little bursts of fireworks that
might be found in 'intense and unique experiences.'

tink