What Is Literature For?

Animated video from The School of Life YouTube channel: “What is Literature For?” (4 minutes 51 seconds)

Task 1 – Overview

Watch the video and complete the answers to the titular question ‘What is literature for?’

1. It saves you {{{time}}}.

2. It makes you {{{nicer}}}.

3. It’s a cure for {{{loneliness}}}.

4. It prepares you for {{{failure}}}.

Task 2 – Detailed listening

Watch the video again, and choose the correct option for completing each sentence. Then, listen and check.

1. Literature lets you speed up time, to follow the arc of a life, from {{{childhood to old age. | childhood to teenagehood. | birth to death.}}}

2. Literature performs the basic magic of {{{showing us what things look like from another point of view. | show us what things look like from another point of view. | to show us what things look like from another point of view.}}}