In literary and cultural studies these days there is a lot of talk about theory not theory of literature, mind you: just plain 'theory. To anyone outside the field, this usage must seem very odd. Theory of what? you want to ask. It's surprisingly hard to say. It is not the theory of anything in particular, nora comprehensive theory of things in general. Sometimes theory seems less an account of anything than an activity-something you do or don't do. You can be involved with theory; you can teach or study theory, you can hate theory or be afraid of it. None of this, though, helps much to understand what theory is. Theory, we are told, has radically changed the nature of literary studies, but people who say this do not mean literary theory, the systematic account of the nature of literature and of the methods for analysingEWhen people complain that there is too much theory in these days, they don't mean too much systematic eflection on the nature of literature or debate about the distinctive ualities of literary language, for example. Far from it. They have omething else in view. hat they have in mind may be precisely that there is too much iscussion of non-literary matters, too much debate about general