Assignment 4 Meagan Hale

Literature is so very broad. I believe that literature is like history in the sense that it teaches lessons that we would other wise have to learn ourselves and many times still do. We learn to beware of Greeks bearing gifts and that not all that glitters is gold. We study the means by which empires rise and the failures that cause them to fall. Literature holds all aspects of life, the struggles, the victories, history, science, magic, love, envy, power. Characters teach us to be wary of villians and to keep our genuine friends close. We can read about the Victorian Era and experience the Trojan War through written word. The lessons we learn from literature can be carried with us through life and should be taken with a grain of salt. The expression, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it," is true and because literature documents history the same can be said for books. Forgetting the content of timeless classics as well as modern additions can be equally as detrimental as ignoring a history textbook. Literature can shape our lives in that they are written examples of thousands of scenarios for us to look back on when we need them. If we were to forget anything, literature should not be it.