Literature is an accepted cultural value. As a consequence of this, people are not only interested in literature itself and what it can offer. Philosophers, rhetoricians, and literary critics of all times have also been interested in how the reader thinks about literature and why he values it highly. Explanations of this how and why have appeared as theories constituting a separate branch of aesthetics: poetics or literary theory. When a reader takes up a literary work he will make an attempt to understand and appreciate it. It has always been acknowledged by those who have cared for literature that at least a part of the reader's judgements on a work, provided he reads it as a literary work, will be concerned with its aesthetic qualities. Literary theorists have tried to set out the ‘principles’ or ‘elements’ of these aesthetically relevant judgements. They have tried to construct an ‘anatomy’ of criticism or literary understanding.

The present book is another attempt to explain the nature of the reader's response to the literary work. Its argument falls in two parts. Chs. 1 to 3 deal critically with three established theories. The views that literature is distinguished by a special type of language, that it expresses and arouses (or gives insight into) emotion, and that it provides a special type of truth are all found unacceptable for various reasons. The second part of the argument is constructive: an attempt is made to set out the ‘anatomy’ of literary judgements. Literary understanding can be seen as having two stages: judgements about the author's aesthetic intentions (interpretation) and appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of the work (evaluation).