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Literary Theory
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Before Literary Theory, Western civilization had literary criticism going all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Here is a smattering of significant public domain texts about literary criticism on the Web.
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It appears to many that Literary Theory attacks the fundamental value of literature and of literary study. If everything is a text, literature is just another text, with no particular privilege aside from its persuasive power. If there are no certain meanings or truths, and if human beings are cultural constructs not grounded in any universal 'humanness' and not sustained by any transhistorical truths, not only the role of literature as the privileged articulator of universal value but the existence of value itself is threatened. If interpretation is local and contingent, then the stability and surety of meaning is threatened and the role of literature as a communication of wisdom and as a cultural force is diminished. If interpretation is dependent upon the interpreter, then one must discount the intention of the author. The stability of meaning becomes problematic when one suspects the nature of the forces driving it or the goals it may attempt to attain.
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Part of Project MUSE, a database of scholarly journals online, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism can only be accessed if you are associated with an academic institution that subscribes. Check with your college or university to see if you can access the guide.
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General program information about Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at Penn can be found on the Comp Lit website, including course listings, faculty profiles, and application information [soon!]. Let's instead think of the ÉCLAT! site as the virtual grad lounge.
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The PhiloLogic implementation of Literary Theory is based on automatic conversion of the SGML-encoded documents provided by Chadwyck-Healey. The database has 15 million words, 277,000 unique forms, in 1,088 works, listed in the online Bibliography.
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One interesting thing about Aristotle's literary theory is that it is not culture-bound. Although the Aristotelian standard of unity (for instance) is exemplified in certan works of the Greeks, it is not applicable merely to Greek or even Western Art. The Aztec lyric is governed by different intentions from those of Greek tragedy, but it can be rationally assessed in regard to its consistency and efficiency in fulfulling those intentions.
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