This book is an attempt to make modern literary theory intelligible and attractive to as wide a readership as possible. Since it first appeared in 1983, I am gratified to report that it has been studied by lawyers as well as literary critics, anthropologists as well as cultural theorists. In one sense, perhaps, this isn't all that surprising. As the book itself tries to demonstrate, there is in fact no 'literary theory', in the sense of a body of theory which prings from, or is applicable to, literature alone.