In the early 1900s, the focus shifted from what a story said to how it was built .
By the 1960s and 70s, the "Theory Wars" broke out as scholars began to interrogation the very foundations of meaning. Literary Theory - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
: Thinkers began treating literature like a machine with functioning parts. They practiced "close reading," arguing that the only thing that mattered was the text itself—not the author's biography or the historical context.
The story begins in Ancient Greece, where Aristotle's Poetics established the first rules for drama and tragedy. For centuries, the focus was on (imitation)—the idea that literature should reflect nature and provide moral instruction. Critics like John Dryden later expanded these ideas, but the primary goal remained evaluating a work’s beauty and its "universal" truths. The 20th Century Shift: The Text is a Machine
: In the mid-20th century, theorists like those discussed in Jonathan Culler's introduction began seeing literature as a system of signs and codes, much like language itself. The "Theory Wars": Questioning Everything
