Debates on the value of literature have been recurrent in the long history of literary cultures. The centrality of literature as a cultural phenomenon has provoked discussions about its value as such as well as about the values it promotes and the uses it can be put to serve. Even the very attempts that were made to disengage aesthetic from ethical values ultimately served to accentuate the debate. But the issues debated and the answers given are subject to change and we may well ask how the matter should be seen today. Particpated with a paper and as session chair.