Is there an honourable, thoughtful alternative to literary theory? Literary theory at present dishonourably pretends that there is not. So the case against literary theory begins with its overbearing insistence that there is no genuine case for anything else. The advocates of theory often declare that we are all theorists whether we realise it and acknowledge it or not. This stratagem is an easy extension of the announcement that we all have an ideology whether we realise it or not - an announcement which has had too easy a ride, since the choice of the word 'ideology' is itself the reflection of an ideology. To choose another word - 'faith', for instance - and to announce that everyone has a faith whether realising it or not, would be to tilt the implications away from the political incitement to which the word 'ideology' ministers.

LRB 16 April 1981 | PDF Download