Why do educators teach literature? The author thinks they can hear the answer in the voice of Huckleberry Finn and David Copperfield and Holden Caulfield and the omniscient narrator in "Beloved." It's the wonderful sound of those words, the gorgeous flow of those well-crafted sentences, and the marvelous way Twain and Dickens and Morrison and Shakespeare and Salinger choose just the right words. And for some odd reason, educators want students to see the aesthetic beauty in those words and sentences. That's one of the major reasons that they teach literature. What's wrong with teaching plot, character, and theme? Nothing, really, as long as teachers work with students to look closely at the text and the writer's style and word choice. What worries the author is that sometimes, in teaching all the elements of a literary work and the author's life, educators end up teaching about the novel instead of teaching the novel itself. In addition, the author has noticed a disturbing trend that more and more well-meaning teachers are substituting "modern translations" for the real stuff. (Contains 1 figure.)