Both Charlotte Street and Word Munger have posted recently on the same topic that Chad Orzel recently touched upon… the place of literary theory in the study of literature. Much has been made of Salman Rushdie’s disdain for literary theories and those who formulate them. Though it’s slightly hidden behind some of her langauge, I think Charlotte Street makes the most important point: What passes as spontaneous insight and theory-free close reading is shot through with the reified or shrivelled remains of earlier theories, which have now become mere second nature and therefore invisible/unconscious. The first task of Theory would …