THE FUNCTION OF STUDYING LITERATURE

(Arranged to fulfill group assignments of

introduction to literature course)

Supporting lecturer : Septa Aryanika M.Pd

Arranged by :

Group 2

Muhammad Rifki H.K 2111040281

Farhah Kamilatunnuha 2111040040

Sania Azzahra Putri 2111040217

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHER
TRAINING
RADEN INTAN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY LAMPUNG
2022/2023
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 PREFACE

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of the help of Allah, writer finished writing the
paper entitled "The Function of Studying Literature" right in the calculated time.

The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by Ms. Septa
Aryanika M.Pd as lecturer in introduction to literature.

In arranging this paper, the writer trully get lots challenges and obstructions but with help of
individuals and sources, those obstructions could passed. Because of that, the writer says
thank you to all individuals who helps in the process of writing this paper.

Writer also realized there are still many mistakes in process of writing this paper. The writer
realized that this paper still imperfect in arrangment and the content. Then the writer hope the
criticism from the readers can help the writer in perfecting the next paper.

Last but not the least, hopefully this paper can helps the readers to gain more knowledge
about The Function of Studying Literature.

Bandar Lampung, 6 September 2022

The Writer

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE.................................................................................................................................2
TABLE OF CONTENT...........................................................................................................3
CHAPTER I..............................................................................................................................4
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................4
A. Background......................................................................................................................4
B. Question of The Problems...............................................................................................4
1. What is The Function of Studying Literature ?...........................................................4
2. What are Three Main Things to Understand The Literature ?....................................4
3. What are The Challenges of Studying Literature ?.....................................................4
C. Objectives.........................................................................................................................4
1. To Know The Function of Studying Literature...........................................................4
2. To Get Better Understanding in Studying Literature..................................................4
3. To Know The Challenges of Studying Literature.......................................................4
CHAPTER II............................................................................................................................5
THEORETICAL STUDY.......................................................................................................5
A. The Function of Studying Literature.............................................................................5
B. Three Main Things in Understanding Literature.........................................................6
a. Experience.......................................................................................................................6
b. Interpretation...................................................................................................................6
c. Evaluation.......................................................................................................................7
C. The Challenges of Studying Literature.........................................................................7
CHAPTER III...........................................................................................................................8
CLOSING.................................................................................................................................8
A. Conclusion........................................................................................................................8
BIBLIOGRHAPY....................................................................................................................9

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background

Literature is about the human experience. The literature of great writers allows readers
to transcend the boundaries of space and time and to construct iconic worlds within their
minds. This guided imagination is the basis of the entertaining and transformative functions
of literature. At the heart of literature are the building blocks that help us realize the most
important aspects of our human experiences.
Before talking about the function of studying literature, it is necessary to know what
the literature itself. There are many opinions about the definition of literature from the
experts. Based on David, “Literature is an art form, like painting, sculpture, music, drama,
and the dance. Literature is distinguished from other arts form by the medium in which it
works (language). Literature has not always been in the written form; literature was pictorial.
The earliest forms of storytelling are 70,000 year old drawings on rocks and cave walls from
the Paleolithic Era. The marriage between art and literature is fortified by some of the earliest
clay tablets known to exist. They were found in Mesopotamia, inscribed with numeral and
word- signs, and date back to the fourth millennium B.C.
Literature is that the merit of a piece of writing lies in its combination of literary art
and human interest. A work of high art which lacks human interest dies. For its human
interest to last, the language of a work has to have life, and its form has to please. Admittedly,
such qualities of language and form are easier to recognize than to define. Recognition
develops with reading and with the strengthening of the historical imagination and of
aesthetic and critical judgement.
In this paper, we discuss about the function of studying literature; three items in
understanding literature; and the challenges of studying literature. We hope that this paper
from our group could add insight to all the readers.

B. Question of The Problems

1. What is The Function of Studying Literature ?

2. What are Three Main Things to Understand The Literature ?
3. What are The Challenges of Studying Literature ?

C. Objectives

1. To Know The Function of Studying Literature.

2. To Get Better Understanding in Studying Literature.
3. To Know The Challenges of Studying Literature.

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 CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL

STUDY

A. The Function of Studying Literature

The function of literature is to entertain, to educate, to memorialize actual or fictional

events. To leave records of people, places and things and to keep the language intact.

More than two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Horace claimed that literature is
"sweet" and "useful." Since then, literature has been traditionally understood, at least in
Western cultures, as having the dual purpose of entertaining and educating its audience.
Literary texts are constructed in effect as objects of beauty, sources of pleasure and as
conveyors of messages and information. While authors often claim no practical purpose for
their works, all literature constitutes an attempt at persuasively conveying certain values and
ideas. The entertaining and beautiful aspect of literary works acts in reality as part of the
appeal and attractiveness which the work tries to attach to the ideas which it seeks to convey.
The beauty of literature is therefore a part of its rhetoric, a device intended to strengthen the
overall persuasiveness and influence of the work on its audience. While the entertaining
aspect of literature may be rather obvious, understanding the ideas or values which a text
advances is not always a simple task. Part of the problem is the fact that the ideas of a literary
text are almost always presented in indirect or "symbolic" form.

Here are some function of studying the literature commonly known in the society :
 Educational function, literature teaches people on existing social, political and
economic systems. It teaches us of many things about the human experience.
Literature is used to portray the faces of life that we see, and those that we would
never dream of seeing. Literature, therefore, is a conduit for the chance to experience
and feel things where we can learn things about life.

 Entertainment Function, known as “pleasure reading”. In this function, literature is

used to entertain its readers. Literary works are consumed for the sake of one’s
enjoyment.

 Social and Political Function, literature shows how society works around them.
Literature helps the reader “see” the social and political constructs around him/her
and shows the state of the people and the world around him/her. For example : The
Social Poetry “Human Being” written by Vince Suzadail Jr.

 Ideological Function, literature shapes our way of thinking based on the ideas of other
people. Literature also displays a person’s ideology placed in the text consciously and
unconsciously. For example : The book is written by Jacqueline Wilson “The Worst
Thing About My Sister”, The premise behind this pink cover is that you should love
your family and sister. This is accepted throughout the world. But actually lots of
people don’t love their own family members.

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 Moral Function, literature may impart moral values to its readers. The morals
contained in a literary text, whether good or bad, are absorbed by whoever reads it,
thus helps in

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 shaping their personality. For example : the moral we can find in book or movie like
“Beauty and The Beast” in this book we can find the moral that beauty is not
everything, we must not to be arrogant, and also we have to be kind to someone else.

 Linguistic Function, literature preserves the language of every civilization from where
it originated. They are also evidences that a certain civilization has existed by
recording the language and preserving it through wide spans of time. For example :
the Beowulf poet is used the old English language and Blas de Otero wrote his poem
used the Spanish language because he is from Bilbao, Spanyol.

 Cultural Function, literature orients us to the traditions, folklore and the arts of our
ethnic group’s heritage. Literature preserves entire cultures and creates an imprint of
the people’s way of living for others to read, hear, and learn. For example : in
Indonesia there is a folklore about the “Tangkuban Perahu” and in England there is
folklore with the title “The Three Little Pigs”.

 Historical Function, ancient texts, illuminated scripts, stone tablets etc. keep a record
of events that happened in the place where they originate. Thus they serve as time
capsules of letters that is studied by scholars and researchers of today. For example :
The Dunhuang Manuscripts.

Thus, from this several description and example we can conclude that the main functions
of Literature are to entertain and give pleasure to the reader, and to heighten his awareness of
certain aspects of life.

B. Three Main Things in Understanding Literature

a. Experience
When we read literary work, something happens to us. A poem, for example, may
provoke our thinking, evoke our memory, elicit a strong emotional response; a short story
may arouse our curiosity what will happen, engage our feelings for its characters, and
stimulate our thought about why things happen as they do.
In responding to literary works in these and other ways, we bring our personal and
shared human experience to our reading of them.

b. Interpretation
Our understanding of literary works results from our effort to interpret them, to make
sense of their implied meanings. Our interpretation of literature provides an intellectual
counterpart to our emotional experience. When we interpret literary works we concern
ourselves less with how they affect us and more with what they mean. Interpretation, in short,
aims at understanding
How do we come to understand works of literature? How do we develop an ability to
interpret literature with competence and confidence? One way is to become familiar with its
basic elements or characteristic. In reading fiction, for example, we rely on analysis of such
elements as plot, character, setting, and point of view.

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c. Evaluation
Our evaluation of literary works involves two kinds of judgments, they
are: (1). Our assessment of their quality and value
(2). Our assessment of the cultural, social, and moral value display.
Evaluation of literary work, which is a complex process, is closely related to our
experience and interpretation of it. Evaluation is also linked to our emotional response and
subjective reactions regarding aspects of the work that please or shock us, that stimulate,
frighten, repulse, amuse or amaze us.

C. The Challenges of Studying Literature

The study of literature is the place where in the chief matters of concern are particular
of humaness, individual human feeling, human response, and human time as these can be
known through the written expression (at many literary levels) of men living and dead, and as
they can be discovered by student writers seeking through words to name and compose and
grasp their own experience.

The study of literature is therefore an eminently interdisciplinary endeavor through

which we attempt to make sense of the human experience throughout history and of the ways
in which human beings represent that experience and come to an understanding of themselves
and of the world around them.

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 CHAPTER III

CLOSING

A. Conclusion

Based on all materials of this paper we conclude some important point, We have to
know first, what literature means before we want to know more what functions and
challenges of studying literature. Understanding literature includes three items, they are:
Experience, interpretation, evaluation. The function of literature is to entertain, to educate, to
memorialize actual or fictional events. To leave records of people, places and things and to
keep the language intact.

By learning the function of literature, we can know that our world not just like a giant
ball without nothing happen in the inside, but by studying literature and exactly the function
of literature we can know what happen in our world, for what the literature was made, and to
learn a bit more about the world and the culture of any place in this earth.

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 BIBLIOGRHAPY

Hake, S. (2001). Why Study Literature? Why, 1-11.

Alexander, Michael, A History of English Literature, London: Macmillan Faoundations, 2000.

https://mrsademaulinafazrin.blogspot.com/2021/03/functions-and-challenges-of-studying-
literature-makalah.html

Klarer, Mario, An Introduction to Literary Studies, New York: Routledge, 2005.

A S Hornby, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, (New York: University Press, 2000), p.
1344.

https://izha-serbaserbi.blogspot.com/2019/04/makalah-funtion-of-literature-fungsi.html

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