Why Do Anti-Theorists Pretend Their Reading Is Natural ?
What genuinely annoys me about some anti-theorists is the way they talk about literature as if it exists in some pure, sacred state that should never be “contaminated” by interpretation, theory, or critical frameworks. They’ll say things like “just read the book for what it is” or dismiss theoretical readings as pretentious overanalysis, but that position itself already assumes a very specific idea of what literature is supposed to be and how it should be read.
I’ve been reading The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, and the introduction puts this problem perfectly:
“Some literary scholars and writers deplore the shift toward ‘theory,’ regarding it as a turn away from literature and its central concerns. These ‘antitheorists,’ as they are called, advocate a return to studying literature for itself—yet however sensible this position may at first appear, it has problems: it itself presupposes a definition of literature, and it promotes a certain way of scrutinizing literature (‘for itself’). In other words, the antitheory position turns out to rely on unexamined—and debatable—theories of literature and criticism. What theory demonstrates, in this case and in others, is that there is no position free of theory, not even the one called ‘common sense.’”
That’s exactly why I find anti-theory arguments frustrating. People who reject theory often act as if their reading is just common sense while everyone else is forcing meanings onto texts. But even saying things like “literature should just be enjoyed emotionally” or “symbolism is overthinking” already comes from a theoretical position about what literature should do.
And anti-theorists always reduce literature into a kind of holy text that must not be questioned too deeply. The moment someone brings in politics, psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, linguistics, or even formal analysis, they react as if the text is being violated instead of examined. But literature has always been tied to ideology, history, language, culture, and power structures.
What made me think about this even more is something I wrote around 4–5 years ago, long before I knew anything about literary theory. I wrote a short story about a boy and a girl preparing to commit suicide while standing on a terrace having their first real conversation. The entire story was focalized through the boy’s perspective his dialogue, his inner monologues, his emotional processing. The girl barely spoke. She mostly zoned out with a poker face, and the only significant thing she said was a monologue about a supernova because she loved astronomy.
At the time, I had absolutely no awareness of feminist theory, gaze theory, or discussions about narrative voice and representation. But when I look back at the story now, a feminist reading almost naturally emerges from it. The girl is emotionally opaque while the boy controls the narrative space she becomes partially constructed through his perception of her rather than through her own subjectivity. Whether intentional or not, the imbalance in voice and focalization creates gendered implications that can absolutely be analyzed through a feminist lens.
That’s exactly why I hate like hateee the idea that theory is just forced interpretation. I didn’t consciously put feminist theory into the story, yet those dynamics still existed in the text. Meaning often exceeds authorial intention, which is basically what ideas like “the death of the author” try to point out. A text can contain tensions, biases, structures, and implications that even the writer is not fully aware of while writing it.
At the same time tho, I also think theory itself has problems sometimes, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. There are readers who force interpretations onto texts just to make them fit a particular framework. There are analyses where theory becomes a checklist rather than an actual engagement with the work itself. Sometimes literary analysis stops being literary analysis altogether and just turns into a political or ideological essay that barely discusses the text’s form, language, narration, structure, rhythm, or aesthetics.
And honestly, I think part of that problem comes from the overemphasis on ideological/social lenses alone while neglecting structural lenses like formalism, narratology, stylistics, rhetoric, or close reading. Theory becomes shallow when people only use texts to repeat predetermined conclusions instead of analyzing how the text actually produces meaning. A feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, or postcolonial reading can be incredibly insightful, but if the text itself disappears under theory, then the analysis do starts feeling disconnected from literature as literature.