In this paperthe following key words will be clarified and estimated on theoretical perspective; the concept literary ability-distinguished from literary competence, the educational significance literary ability, and the direction of performance in `literary doing`. Literature may abstractly be defined as a linguistic conformation of valuable experience of human being. Along with the definition, criticism, literary scholarship, historiography, some philosophical writings can be resided in the area of literature. In this point, the genre system of literature, for example novel, poetry, drama and the essay, must be re-conceptualized in a new direction, especially in literary education. The works of the authors will be enumerated, literary criticism of Kwak Kwang Soo, literary scholarship of Kim Youn Shik, historiography os Sa Ma Cheon, Martin Heidegger`s art theory etc. Here, it must be point out that the literary ability is not the practical ability to explicate any literary text but it is the ability of human values and ability available for human self formation. In literature, we can find out various aspects human life and human faculties, and it is caused by the polyphonic and complex nature of literary conformation that all the literary values must be convergent to the value system of the audiences of literature. Through the process of literary education, the students will learn how to overcome the monologic meanings and attain the dialogic or polylogic imagination which is unique in literature. This is the genuine meaning of literary ability.