Why Do We Study Literature

Banquet Speech

John Steinbeck’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1962

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Literature was not promulgated by a pale and emasculated critical priesthood singing their litanies in empty churches – nor is it a game for the cloistered elect, the tinhorn mendicants of low calorie despair.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-speech_en.html