Motivation in Reading Literary Work

People read literary with different motivations. Some people, for example, read a novel or short story because they have nothing to do at that time. The people who are waiting for a bus or train, or people who are waiting for the turn to have consultation with a doctor may read a novel or short story just to kill the time. In relation to the study of literature, this kind of reading is not a good one.

Some other people read a literary work because they are forced by an external factor such as the father, the teacher, the lecturer, or the instructor. these people read a literary work with instrumental motivation, that is, only to fulfill immediate goals like completing the task of the father, the teacher, the lecturer, or the instructor, avoiding punishment from the teacher or the lecturer, or seeking reward or praise from other people. Although this kind of motivation is not as strong as the internal motivation, the activity of reading a literary work with the instrumental motivation may sometimes produce a good mark (as far as the student is serious enough).

Some other people read a literary work to enrich their life. These people understand that life is short and they have to be careful in facing their life. By Reading literary works (literature) one can enrich his life because there are many kinds of literary experience in literary (in prose, poetry, and drama). Thus reading literary with this kind of motivation (internal and integrative motivation) will bring advantages such as wisdom, knowledge, cross-cultural understanding and new experience.

There are some other people who read literary works seriously. They do not read literary works once, but many times with the hope that they can comprehend the content of the literary works well. Even, the readers use other recourses to give enlightenment to their reading. After that they want to make a critical analysis on the works. We can call the activity of reading done by the people as reading with the academic purposes.

Admin 03 January 2016 Literary