ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -However, the modern sense of “literary theory” only dates to approximately the 1950s when the structuralist linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure began to strongly influence English language literary criticism.

Detailed explanation-2: -Modern literary theory gradually emerges in Europe during the nineteenth century. In one of the earliest developments of literary theory, German “higher criticism” subjected biblical texts to a radical historicizing that broke with traditional scriptural interpretation.

Detailed explanation-3: -From this period until the later part of the 18th century Aristotle was once again the most imposing presence behind literary theory.

Detailed explanation-4: -A literary movement that started in the late 1920s and 1930s and originated in reaction to traditional criticism that new critics saw as largely concerned with matters extraneous to the text, e.g., with the biography or psychology of the author or the work’s relationship to literary history.

Detailed explanation-5: -In literary theory, structuralism challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of linguistic conventions and situated among other texts.