The "story" of literary theory is the history of how human beings have moved from simply asking what a story means to asking how language, power, and identity shape that meaning. It is a journey from the classical search for "truth" to a modern understanding of literature as a complex system of cultural forces. The Classical Roots: Art as Mirror
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.
