I've figured out that the kind of literary theory I like is formalist theory, and that formalist literary theory has been dead (in the academy, anyway) for about fifty years. I guess it does feel rather limited to want to talk about a literary text exclusively in terms of things like its structure, plot, characters, register, meter, allusions and so on; but then it also seems extremely stupid to want to talk about a literary text without giving primacy to these things. Before I apply to grad schools, I'll have to find out how non-formalist, so-called "critical" literary theory deals with the actual, you know, text.