Quote:
Originally Posted by dmaul1114
I don't think fiction plays a large role in building intellect or knowledge. It may build vocabulary and verbal IQ, but that's only worth something if you use it to build your knowledge and intellect in other areas with factual information, science, theory etc. etc. etc.
As such I just think it silly for people like Hazlitt to be snooty about what fictional reading a person does. I care MUCH more about how their building their factual knowledge and developing their intellect.
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I can't agree. I find fiction can contain both factual knowledge as well as intellectual ideas - and may even be superiour in how it conveys all this information to the reader. Factual knowledge is certainly not limited to non-fiction, and ideas even less.
Actually, I think that sometimes the fiction author may convey the meaning of an idea, of some factual knowledge, a great deal better than the non-ficition writer. Sometimes, perhaps only the fiction-writer, the author, can truly relate the ideas.
Recently, I was very moved by the ideas in the short story "The machine stops" by E. M. Forster. These were ideas I've seen expressed before, but not quite this way. Forster "managed" to make me think quite differently about some things. Not through relation of fact, but through relation of ideas via an engaging narrative - a story. Fiction, not fact, made me think twice about reality.
I may have to go 'back' to fact to build upon that idea, but without fiction it would never had taken root in me.