Merriam Webster has a fantastic entry on the use of the word “literally.” Here is the introduction; there is much more of interest at the link.

Is it ever okay to use literally to mean “figuratively”?

F. Scott Fitzgerald did it (“He literally glowed”). So did James Joyce (“Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet”), W. M. Thackeray (“I literally blazed with wit”), Charlotte Brontë (“she took me to herself, and proceeded literally to suffocate me with her unrestrained spirits”) and others of their ilk.