Poetics

Poetics is the theory of literary forms and literary discourse.
History.
The term "poetics" derives from the Ancient Greek ποιητικός "poietikos" "pertaining to poetry"; also "creative" and "productive". In the Western world, the development and evolution of poetics featured three artistic movements concerned with poetical composition: (i) the formalist, (2) the objectivist, and (iii) the Aristotelian. (see the "Poetics"). During the Romantic era, poetics tended toward expressionism and emphasized the perceiving subject. Twentieth-century poetics returned to the Aristotelian paradigm, followed by trends toward meta-criticality, and the establishment of a contemporary theory of poetics. Eastern poetics developed lyric poetry, rather than the representational mimetic poetry of the Western world.
In literary criticism.
Poetics is distinguished from hermeneutics by its focus not on the meaning of a text, but rather its understanding of how a text's different elements come together and produce certain effects on the reader. Most literary criticism combines poetics and hermeneutics in a single analysis; however, one or the other may predominate given the text and the aims of the one doing the reading.