Almost all literature aims, at least in part, to please the reader. From popular romance novels to highbrow poetry, readers delight in suspenseful plots, absorbing characters, titillating descriptions and nuanced phrases. Literature also reveals beauty in the world around the reader, as Wilde would agree. Not only does literature show readers things they've never seen before, but it also reveals to them things that are there that they haven't noticed. Literature can also show readers beauty in the midst of suffering, such as in Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."
Literature has much to teach readers. Sometimes referred to as "heuristic value," literature reveals to readers information about the world that they otherwise might not have access to. Novels about other countries, cultures or religions expand the reader's knowledge of the world. Literature can also instruct readers morally, such as in parables.
Literature allows readers to conceive of things they have never seen or conceived of. Fantasy novels such as "The Lord of the Rings" or the "Narnia Chronicles" introduce new worlds to the reader that defy the laws of physics. Sometimes fantasy literature is called "escapist" because it diverts the reader from real life. But sometimes imaginative literature can serve as a grim warning of alternative ways of life or admonitions about where the future of society is heading, such as in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
When a reader becomes involved in a character, he not only begins to care about him, but he begins to see the world from the character's perspective. In this way, literature enlarges a reader's sympathy and compassion for other human beings. It enables readers to recognize human struggles in different places and times in history. It is one thing to read about World War I in a textbook and another entirely to read a story about it such as "All Quiet on the Western Front."
Although humans believe themselves to be independent or "free" thinkers, no values and beliefs develop in a vacuum. Experiences, including literary ones, influence people's values. Religious texts such as the Bible, the Koran and the Torah have influenced lives, institutions, countries --- even the course of history and humans' understanding of the universe and the meaning of life.