My favorite from this article, an interview with M.H. Abrams (founding editor) and Stephen Greenblatt (general editor) of the Norton Anthology:
For a prospective undergraduate reading this Q. and A., how would you answer the question, Why study literature?
Abrams: Ha — Why live? Life without literature is a
life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what
you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It
enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens
you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable. There’s no end
to the response you can make to that question, but Stephen has a few
things to add.
Greenblatt: Literature is the most astonishing
technological means that humans have created, and now practiced for
thousands of years, to capture experience. For me the thrill of
literature involves entering into the life worlds of others. I’m from a
particular, constricted place in time, and I suddenly am part of a huge
world — other times, other places, other inner lives that I otherwise
would have no access to.
