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, nor a 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 itera eo the systematic account of the nature of literature and of the methods for analysing it when people compla hat there is too much theory in iterary studies these days they dont mean too much matc reflection on the nature of literatureor debate about the distinctive qualities of literary language, for example. Far from it. They have something else in view. What they have in mind may be precisely that there is too much discussion of non-literary matters, too much debate about general questions whose relation to literature is scarcely evident, too much reading of difficult psychoanalytical. political, and philosophical texts.