Critically examine the link between the teaching of English and Literary Texts.

How should we teach English literature in India? This question, argues Mukherjee, I is inextricably linked with our perception regarding the nature of literature itself. If we look at literature as embodying transcendental truths, as a repository of universal, 1 eternal, immutable truths and values, then we could teach literature purely from the point of view of its aesthetic merits. Our enterprise in such a case would limit itself to the aesthetic pleasure produced by a literary text and focus on its technical perfections or imperfections. New critical readings of a literary text were such exercises that totally disregarded the pressures of history, culture and material forces on a literary text.