We live in a time of unparalleled confusion about the role and importance of literary texts. Deconstructionist literary theory has undermined the notion that there is any genuine, lasting meaning to be found in poems and novels, and an increasingly politicized academy seeks to reduce such texts to the implicit ideologies they purportedly mask.<BR>In the wake of the academic triumph of reductive theory and identity politics, the student and the lover of literature naturally ask: Does literature, as a distinct mode of the imagination, really matter? In fresh and engaging prose, experienced teacher, poet, and critic Glenn C. Arbery here provides a defense of literature's unique cultural and personal importance.