Literary works have long been used in English language education in Japan. It has been taken for granted that they have diverse merits as well as demerits, while recently more attention has been paid to their demerits, and consequently fewer literary materials have been in English textbooks. It is only in recent years, however, that their significance in English language education has been discussed more or less analytically. The aim of this paper is to examine them as materials for culture teaching and to discuss their merits and demerits and how to make effective use of them.