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Disregard of Literature as a Luxury, a Pastime, or Indulgence 
Plato banned poetry from his ideal republic because it was to him no more than beautiful lies that "feed and water our passions" rather than our reason.  Jeremy Bentham also thought the "magic art" of literature as doing a good deal of "mischief" by "stimulating our passions" and "exciting our prejudices." Moralists sometimes blamed "novel" for the rise of immorality, irreligion, and even prostitution. -Traditional Defenses of Literature 
Providing "instruction and delight": "Teach and delight" from Philip Sydney, the author of "An Apology for Poetry" Offering escape of a different and potentially more instructive sort, liberating us from the confines of our own time, place, and social milieu, as well as our habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and looking at the world, satisfying our desire for broader experience--including the sorts of experience we might be unable or unwilling to endure in real life. Shelley, the author of "A Defence of Poetry" defended Poetry because it nurtures our ability to sympathise with other people, to accurately imagine and to truly feel the human consequences of our actions, which make us more morally "good." 
More pragmatically, Literary education can raises intellectual flexibility, adaptability, and ingenuity, which is more required in this ever globalizing world. Awakening us to the richness and complexity of language which is our primary tool for engaging with, understanding, and shiping the world around us.
 
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