Uses of Literature

Question 1

Francis Bacon

Answer 1

Suggests that ‘the use’ of his ‘feigned history’ is to give ‘satisfaction’ to the mind of man which nature cannot, ‘because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical’
Therefore, ‘poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. ‘

Question 2

What does Mervyn James argue that the increase of literacy and especially access to classical literature produced?

Answer 2

‘the urge to understand one’s place in space and time’