Something that strikes me is that, I think, a lot of pre-modern literary works weren't theory conscious in the way that modern litfic is. Like, litfic is written in large part by the sort of people who like to think about literature, and so it seems like a lot of it is written very explicitly "to the frameworks". It's written to be interpreted by other literary theorists. Now, this kind of theory awareness is characteristic of some pre-modern literature (although, of course, not with regard to the same set of frameworks that motivated modern litfic authors). A lot of historical Chinese literature, for instance, seems to have been written very consciously with Confucian historiography and Classical Chinese literary scholarship in mind. But a lot of pre-modern literature isn't like this.
I was thinking about this in the context of Beowulf, which strikes as like... well, it's not consciously "about" anything in the way that modern litfic is "about" things, and there are a lot of failed attempts to analyze Beowulf by positing that it is. I think, realistically, Beowulf is mostly just... a juicy story. It doesn't exist to be analyzed, it exists to be told and to be heard. And I think, like, that's the nature of most writing, obviously. That's the way popular works of fiction have always been. But I think when it comes to these prestigious classical works, literary scholars can sometimes fail in assigning them, like, too much agency in their own interpretation. Agency that was never really there. Does that make sense?
I don't know.
This makes me think about what Zach Weinersmith said about his kids' adaptation of Beowulf.
Like, Beowulf has a ton of literary devices in it. Meter and alliteration, if nothing else. But why were they there? And I read the point of the OP to be: in a lot of modern literary fiction, they're there to be analyzed, they're there for literary critics.
But the devices in Beowulf aren't aimed at literary critics, because there wasn't an audience of critics that mattered. They're aimed at, like, the normal listening audience. They're there because people like them.
And Zach commented that, when he was telling his daughter the story of Beowulf in the car, she liked it more when he used more of those classic poetic devices. Sentences like "no flea-flecked furball went foodless or bereft of bed" are just fun! You don't need literary theory to justify saying things in entertaining ways.
