Literature and foreign languages learning: a conflict assumed as harmony

Abstract

Throughout the history of foreign language teaching, the relationship between literature and foreign language teaching has been assumed as pertinent. This paper questions that assumption and explains its consensual bases as supported more by the imagination and by the tradition than by the contributions that literature can bring to foreign language teaching. Considering the priorities at the foundations of the several theories that organize the didactic work, the own generic concepts of literature with which those theories work are not consistent with the pedagogic practice needs. This paper discusses a way of approach to literature having in view to meet those needs.