Recent developments in world literature have radically altered our perception of the nature of literature and its function in society. The present anthology explores the necessity/desirability of theory in our literary discourse and examines whether Indian scholars should blindly imitate the norms of Western literary theory/ theories and apply them to our Indian texts or they should develop, update and contextualize their own Indian theory in the view of the emerging trends in world literature. It acknowledges the fact that in the contemporary era literary criticism cannot survive without theoretical assumptions and ideological implications. Gradual erosion of boundaries between different disciplines has clearly shown a 'paradigm shift' in literary studies. New literary movements like dalit writing, women writing, tribal writing, nativistic writing, ecocentric writing and modern folk writing can hardly be explained by the norms of traditional Indian poetics. Hence Indian poetics should develop a theoretical system which must be assimilative, comprehensive and self consistent. The anthology contains fifteen research articles contributed mostly by senior distinguished scholars and academicians of the country. It is divided into three sections- first section enters into discourse on the demise/survival/ future prospect of literary theory, the second deals with the postcolonial and poststructuralist discourses of the West and the third section takes up different theoretical issues but examines them from Indian perspectives.

R. N. Rai was Professor in the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University till june 30, 2016. He was also Head of the Department from 2010 to 2013 and worked as Coordinator, Centre for Translation Studies, Faculty of Arts for more than 2 Years. He was awarded D.Litt in 1990. His published works include W.B. Yeats: Poetic Theory and Practice. Austria: Salzburg University Press, 1983 and Theory of Drama: A Comparative Study of Aristotle and Bharta. New Delhi: Classical Publishing Company, 1992. He has also co-edited two books, published research articles, reviews and translations in various reputed journals and anthologies.