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The idea that theory, text and literariness have a triangular interrelationship or the thesis that the three have, or should have, autonomous existence - have been the subject of debate among philosophers and literary critics ever since the traditional liberal humanist approach to English studies was challenged by a plethora of theories and perspectives during the post war years, particularly 1970 onwards. It appears that theoretical positions about literature were never explicitly formulated by liberal humanists, at least in Britain, and that everything remained implicit, yet a widely current body of theoretical work existed from the beginning within literacy studies the world war. Aristotle's Poetics, which is perhaps the earliest work of theory, is about the nature of literature itself, in spite of its title. Aristotle developed for the first time a 'reader-centered' approach to literature since his concept of tragedy sought to describe how it affected the audience by arousing in them sympathy for and empathy with the plight of the protagonist, resulting into what he calls 'catharsis'. Without going back to the history of literary theoretisation in detail, suffice it would be to say that Sir Philip Sidney's is the first prominent name in English writing about literature, who wrote his Apology for Poetry (1580). Expanding Ovid's credo of 'decere delictendo' - to teach by delighting - Sidney espouses the Horatian dictum, that a poem is 'a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight'. This revolutionary idea of literature or literary text having as its primary aim the giving of pleasure to the reader, as advocated by Sidney was about literature in general, and not about individual works or writers. Critical theory, in fact, long pre-dates the literary criticism of individual works.