Library

"Literary Theory" was published in the late 1940s. The authors Wellek and Warren not only clarified the boundaries between literature and non-literary, but also proposed the distinction between "external research" and "internal research" of literature. They classified the study of the relationship between literature and other disciplines as "external research" and the study of literature's own factors as "external research". Focusing on "internal research", it transcended traditional literary theory's theoretical approach to literature from the outside and placed the focus of research on literature itself. It not only described methods of analyzing individual works of art, but also discussed issues such as literary types, literary evaluation, and literary history. This had a significant impact on literary research around the world in the following decades. Since its publication, "Literary Theory" has been welcomed as the most classic literary theory textbook by critics, writers, professors and students from all over the world. Domestically, it is one of the 100 must-read books recommended by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education for Chinese majoring college students, and has been designated by many universities as a required reading reference book for the entrance examination for graduate students majoring in Chinese.