The value of work with literature has been argued for extensively in the applied linguistics literature. The author builds on this by investigating the FL learner's perspective on work of this nature. This empirical research sheds light both on how students deal with the challenge of making sense of literature in a foreign language and how they evaluate the experience of doing this. The book highlights the role of metaphor in this experience and concludes with two pedagogy-related chapters.

Theory in reader-response and stylistics traditions supports L2 work with literature as it is valued by students and helps develop communicative and critical language skills. The author uses insights from empirical research to evaluate current teaching practices against this background, highlighting readers' responses to metaphor as a test case.