ABSTRACT
A significant link in the chain of argumentation is the question whether literature does indeed make people “happy.” The position of literature in human society is not a self-evident one, in spite of its ubiquitous presence. As is well-known, at the very dawn of literary studies in the Western world, an opposition against literature was already in place. Conceptual analysis is the predominant mode in analytic philosophy nowadays. One of the most direct routes to arrive at such happiness is the state of “flow,” defined as an autotelic activity, demanding considerable investment of mental energy, but bringing little or no conventional reward; instead, the activity is its own gratification. Csikszentmihalyi names religion, sports, and the arts as roads often taken to the experience of flow. An important question is whether such flow experience also contributes to some kind of happiness on the part of the reader.
