This paper describes two prospective English teachers' beliefs and understandings regarding literature and the teaching of literature. Through extensive interviews that included context-specific tasks, the study explored the subjects' prior experiences with literature, their conceptions regarding the nature of literature, and their perceptions of effective literature instruction. Products of the same English and teacher education departments, they offer contrasting views both of why students should read literature and of how teachers should approach literature. The subjects' views of literature influenced their teaching decisions; however, both had experienced limited opportunities to articulate and debate these views in their English and teacher education courses. A question for teacher educators is how to elicit these views and make them the focus of instruction, exploration, and debate, so as to develop more effective teachers. The two prospective teachers were entering teaching without a view of reading literature, and the reasons for so doing, that had been refined and sharpened, questioned and challenged. Such a view is seen as animating the holder's appreciation for other views and providing confidence and clarity of purpose for teaching. Appendixes provide task-related materials. (Contains 26 references.) (Author/JDD)