The course will examine critically the arguments for and against the use of literature in foreign language teaching. It will consider what is distinctive about literary uses of language by close analysis of texts from drama, prose and poetry, and contrast these with quasi-literary uses of language in advertising, pop music, and tv drama. It will propose a stylistic approach to literary analysis, and seek to demonstrate that such an approach can show that there is something in the very character of literature as verbal art which provides pedagogic potential for the teaching of language.