Teaching foreign literature in the Arab world: the moral dimension

Abstract

The paper addresses the relation of foreign literature, especially English and American, to the Arab student's moral values. It raises, and attempts to answer, a number of questions pertaining to the existence or nonexistence of the influence of literature (native or foreign) on morality, the conditions required for the influence to occur, the exact nature of the influence, the "foreignness" of foreign litera-ture, and the precise benefit derived from the student's exposure to alien or opposed values.