宇文老师（Stephen Owen）为耶鲁大学比较文学系编过一本中国文学理论的读本Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Published by the Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992)，他说，文学传统的存在，其实是假定了文学的性质、作用和地位并不清楚，文学是需要解释和证明的问题领域。如果将作品与读者的关系喻为一种默认的契约关系（implicit contract），那么文学传统不是去发现那契约本身，而是要把那契约挑明从而控制它。

他举例说，《诗大序》告诉我们，《诗经》的诗能让我们“亲触”（immediate access）特定历史瞬间的人类情怀。它那么说，同时也就意味着它焦虑诗可能会骗人，也可能什么也没说（simply irrelevant）；理论就来告诉大家：诗应该是什么。

For example, if a work such as the "Great Preface" to the Book of Songs tells us that a poem offers immediate access to the cares of a human mind regarding a particular historical moment in society, the existence of such a claim is at the same moment the mark of an anxiety that the poem might be, in some way, deceptive, or perhaps simply irrelevant: the theoretical statement tells us what a poem ought to be.

Anxiety令人想起大批评家Harold Bloom的诗学批评《影响的焦虑》（The Anxiety of Influence）：文学影响的最大事实在于它令人神魂颠倒的焦虑。（The largest truth of literary influence is that it is an irresistible anxiety.）

宇文老师原书封面，背景是米芾的吴江舟中墨迹

老米的《吴江舟中诗卷》（31.3 cm*559.8 cm），现藏纽约大都会博物馆