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In reply to #1:

To answer this question, one needs to relive all the beautiful moments he/she experienced when reading a work of art. How the human experience expressed in such work helps to enhance his/her perception of the world around him/her. Reading literature helps one to contemplate how the accumulation of human experience reinforces a sense of sharing of all the felicity, misery, anger, betrayal, chivalry…etc. We are not alone in this world. When going through a happy or sad moment, remember someone has experienced the same feelings throughout the history of human being. This makes you cherish the experience you go through. Life without literature means living without treasured reminiscences.

To answer this question, one needs to relive all the beautiful moments he/she experienced when reading a work of art. How the human experience expressed in such work helps to enhance his/her perception of the world around him/her. Reading literature helps one to contemplate how the accumulation of human experience reinforces a sense of sharing of all the felicity, misery, anger, betrayal, chivalry…etc. We are not alone in this world. When going through a happy or sad moment, remember someone has experienced the same feelings throughout the history of human being. This makes you cherish the experience you go through. Life without literature means living without treasured reminiscences.

If there were no literature, society would have no link with the past, in fact, literature of any historical period contains evidence and valuable information about how people really lived in various times in history.

Literature is so vital to the development of individuals in society that without it, I believe that young people would be ill prepared for their future lives as working individuals.

School, reading, especially works of literature, history, help develop the mind.  It is not so important that a student remember every word that he or she has read, but develop and grow from the process.  Learning, reading, analyzing literature, writing, develop an individuals ability to think, rationalize, strategize and problem solve.

When my students tell me that college is a waste of time that they don't want to go to school anymore, I remind them that learning never stops, in school or out.  Learning is a continuous process that must be engaged in so that an individual, young or old, can remain relevant to his time period, to his life.

Life without literature would be a barren existence, if you like to think in dystopian terms, a good book to read is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  It offers a unique and chilling perspective on life.

If there were no literature? I think humanity would survive, albeit things would be radically different. I imagine oral tradition would be the norm. History, stories, news, and the like, would all be passed down through the ages and by word of mouth. This would lead to many things. Oddly enough, this does remind me of Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury. With no books, things would be very different indeed.  

Through literature, we can see that the people are more alike than different through the ages.  It gives us a way to experience other worlds, and other people's lives; whether we are doing that because we wish to escape our own world, or because we simply wish to explore another world makes no difference.  One of the most interesting aspects of literature is to look at world mythology, where the same human conflicts have shown up time after time in ancient cultures that couldn't have possibly had any contact with each other.  Joseph Campbell explores this intriguing idea in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," and discusses these ideas further in the Bill Moyers documentary, "The Power of Myth."  Whether the genre in question is a novel, a short story, a screenplay, a poem or a myth, these are all vehicles in which an author has tried to reach a reader to share an idea or experience.  The same might even be said of song lyrics, many of which are extremely expressive and poetic.