Is there a purpose of fiction beyond entertainment?

Is there a purpose of fiction beyond entertainment?

Experience through proxy

No. Have a nice day and a merry Christmas.

OP, purpose defined is the object toward which you strive. If you want to be entertained, then entertainment is the purpose toward which you strive, but there are other goals. Here are a few examples:

Fiction is often discussed among people and referred to in subsequent works. One's purpose in engaging with fiction could be to gain common cultural currency and to recognize the references to a text in other works.

Let's get more "practical." If you want to write well, you have to learn how others have written. Reading fiction could supplement your own artistic endeavors by giving you ideas for plots, structures, and rhetoric.

Another purpose relates to life itself. You are an animal incapable of being satisfied with your own consciousness, and therefore you need to consume as much bullshit as possible to deflect thoughts about suffering and death. The purpose of fiction, then, could be distraction.

Hell, all those purposes could work together.

Learning how to tell stories, which can help get you laid.

No, fiction isn't inherently escapism and can impart good morals on the reader.

society's mirror

...

Apart from giving you pleasure, reading fiction broadens your horizons, lets you understand people and their different viewpoints and motivation, gives you inspiration.

I've met people who claim they only read non-fiction books (and rarely venture into consuming any other art-form) and they're autistic fucks.

fiction is training for empathy.

These. I find it has helped me with my personal relationships.

>broadens your horizons

A meme answer, ladies and gentlemen.

of fiction? No. But of literary works? Yes. Transformation. The property of all quality art.

>impart good morals

Much as HH's deep study of poetry ingrained in him a powerful aesthetic sensibility and, thus, enlightened morality.

t. sociopathic vampire

Nice. I like to think of T.S. Eliot. Remarkable, visionary work charged with intensity. Fucker hated Jews.

leave this board immideately

why

Correct me if I need it, but didn't Plato argue that certain types of poetry were conditional? They formatted you into a certain type of virtuous rhythm.
You don't have to agree but that's another argument.

No, The Brothers Karamazov is utterly pointless beyond its entertainment value.

Honestly, would it kill you to fucking intuit something? To read a book, and decide for yourself whether it had value for you beyond its ability to occupy time in a pleasing way?

The obvious answer is that fiction has many purposes beyond entertainment and that those purposes can stem from authorial intent, reader response, or both.

Think about propaganda, or philosophical fiction, or educative fiction, or artistic fiction. Do you think Plato's Symposium functions purely as entertainment, or that it should?

>Dostoevsky in charge of fiction

Oh my.

kek