Essay titles are an attempt to say much in little, at once synoptic shorthand for the work which follows and for the whole area of intellectual enquiry to which it alludes. As such, they are susceptible to ambiguity and imprecision, and the title of the present essay is no exception. What is meant, we might ask, by “Critical Theory,” and is it synonymous with that other cognate phrase - “Literary Theory”? While the commonly made slippage between the terms demands urgent attention, it is way beyond the scope of an essay such as this. Let me clear the ground, therefore, by simply stating that I take “Literary Theory” primarily to be concerned with offering theoretical definitions of the nature of literature, and “Critical Theory” to be the articulation of theorized principles on which critical approaches to the analysis of literature are premised. The latter, at least, will be the working definition deployed in this essay. But even so, in its present formulation, the title remains ambiguous.