Emergenza educativa ed esperienza della lett(erat)ura

What is the role of the experience of literature lato sensu in the context of contemporary educational emergency? In the heroic and intense years after Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the Restoration of the Hierarchy del 1850, John Henry Newman was aware of an analogous problem when he wrote that “Catholics are not a reading set”, underlining the fact that they showed little inclination to reading literature and even less capacity to “read” everyday life. Nowadays Catholics and non-Catholics, believers and non believers often suffer from the same lack of “reading comprehension”: literature can be of great help, its nature of “living synthesis of human experience” can be a humane antidote to contemporary anthropological temptations and dangers.