The history of literature is a science that studies the history of literary development. It belongs to the category of literature and art together with literary theory and literary criticism. They all take literature as the research object, but the focus and emphasis of the research are different. The history of literature is a science that studies the historical phenomenon of literature and its development law. According to the classification criteria of different countries, regions, nationalities, different periods and different genres, it can be divided into national history (such as the history of China literature), world or regional history (such as the history of world literature and European literature), general history or dynastic history (the history of modern literature in China), national history (such as Mongolian literature) and separatist history (such as the history of China opera).

Literary theory focuses on studying and discussing the basic principles and general laws of literature, literary criticism focuses on studying and evaluating specific literary phenomena (mainly works of contemporary writers), and literary history focuses on studying the process of literary development and summarizing the laws of literary development, including expounding the history of the emergence, development and evolution of various literary contents, literary forms, literary trends and literary schools. Seek their inheritance and evolution, and reveal the relationship between the development of literature and various factors of the times and society (politics, economy, military, philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc.). ), and the relationship between the development of national literature and the mutual exchange and influence of national literature, and comment on the historical position and role of important writers' works in the development of literature.

The study of literary history needs to be guided by certain literary theoretical viewpoints, and also needs to absorb the achievements of literary criticism in previous dynasties; At the same time, the regular knowledge obtained from the study of literary history can enrich literary theory and provide reference for literary criticism. It can be seen that the relationship between literary history, literary theory and literary criticism is very close, and they are three interrelated and relatively independent disciplines.