Who Will Write the Next Frankenstein?: Why Literature Is as Important as Ever in the Age of AI
In 1932, T.S. Eliot wrote: “The people which ceases to care for its literary inheritance becomes barbaric; the people which ceases to produce literature ceases to move in thought and sensibility.” If he were still alive in April 2026, the 30th official National Poetry Month, he would certainly be dismayed to find his nation sliding ever closer to the very barbarism he warned against. In the 21st century, poetry, Eliot’s beloved art form, is fading fast from its once-revered place in popular culture. Literary culture as a whole is dying, with falling reading numbers and an even greater decline in the formal study of literature. STEM fields are increasingly being portrayed as more practical than the humanities, which are often painted as frivolous or insubstantial.