Literary Criticism and Epistemology

For some time I have been bothered by the phenomenon of 20th C. literary criticism of all varieties: Marxist, feminist, post-colonial and the other smatterings. It just rubs me the wrong way. After remembering Rodrick Chisholm's insightful article, "The Problem of the Criterion", I realized that literary critics are analogous to what Chisholm dubs, "methodists" (which is complete unrelated to the evangelical denomination started by Wesley!).