Editing Literary theory (section)

==History<!--'Theory wars' redirects here-->==
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The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that run as far back as ancient Greece ([[Aristotle]]'s ''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'' is an often cited early example), ancient India ([[Bharata Muni]]'s ''[[Natya Shastra]]''), and ancient Rome ([[Longinus (literature)|Longinus]]'s ''On the Sublime''). In medieval times, scholars in the Middle East ([[Al-Jahiz]]'s ''al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin'' and ''al-Hayawan'', and [[Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz|ibn al-Mu'tazz]]'s ''Kitab al-Badi'')<ref>{{citation|title=Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem|first=G. J. H.|last=van Gelder|publisher=[[Brill Publishers]]|year=1982|isbn=90-04-06854-6|pages=1–2}}</ref> and Europe<ref>{{cite book|title=Practicing Literary Theory in the Middle Ages: Ethics and the Mixed Form in Chaucer, Gower, Usk, and Hoccleve|last=Johnson|first=Eleanor|year=2013|isbn=9780226015989|publisher=University of Chicago Press|pages=1–15}}</ref> continued to produce works based on literary studies. The [[aesthetic]] theories of [[philosopher]]s from [[ancient philosophy]] through the 18th and 19th centuries are important influences on current literary study. The theory and [[literary criticism|criticism]] of literature are tied to the [[history of literature]].

Some scholars, both theoretical and anti-theoretical, refer to the 1980s and 1990s debates on the academic merits of theory as "the '''theory wars'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->".<ref>Mark Bevir, Jill Hargis, Sara Rushing, "Introduction", in: Mark Bevir, Jill Hargis, Sara Rushing (eds.), ''Histories of Postmodernism'', Routledge, 2020.</ref> Proponents and critics of the turn to theory take different (and often conflicting) positions about what counts as a theory or what it means to theorize within/about/alongside literature or other cultural creations.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://iep.utm.edu/literary/ | title=Literary Theory &#124; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy }}</ref>