
'Facts alone are wanted in life, ' exclaims Mr Gradgrind at the beginning of Dickens' Hard Times. Literature is not about facts alone, and - despite two and a half thousand years of arguments - no one can agree on what it is, or how to study it. But, argues Robert Eaglestone,...

'Now, what I want is Facts ... Facts alone are wanted in life, ' exclaims Mr Gradgrind at the beginning of Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times. Literature is not about facts alone, and - despite two and a half thousand years of arguments - no one can agree what it is, or...