Timeline of Literary Theory

 

1920            1930           1940             1950              1960             1970               1980              1990             2000

 

                                                

                    New Criticism 

                               Ransom, Eliot, Winters, Brooks, Warren, Wimsatt, Hirsch (?)                            

 

                    Marxism                                                                                                                                                                       

 

 

                                                                              Structuralism                                                                                              

                                                                                        Todorov

 

                                                                                                             Deconstruction                                                                 

                                                                                                                   De Man, Bloom, Hartmann, Johnson

 

African American Criticism            

 

DuBois, Hughes, Hurston, Wright                                            Black Arts                   Baker, Christian, Gates, Smith