Literature as study and resource: the purposes of English literature teaching at university level

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the two main purposes of the teaching of English literature at university level in an EFL situation. The first, literature as study, is divided into two options. One is the type of teaching that considers literature as a cultural product for whose interpretation aspects outside the literary work (historical, social, critical, biographical data) must be accounted for. The other is the stylistics option, dealing with the analysis of literary texts by examining their language. The second general purpose is the recent widespread use of literature as a resource for the teaching of the English language. In our opinion, it is the EFL environment which allows the implementation of the two aims, whose goals and methods are closely interlinked, providing as well a connection between the teaching of language and literature. Some suggestions for this implementation are offered in the specific case of Spanish universities.