It is a great change in textbooks of literature and art in China since the start of the new century that postmodernistic theory is applied to antiessentialist requestioning literature. However, there are some misdiagnoses and misinterpretations in the process of change. Postmodernism cannot be simplified as antiessentialism, for it means an open extension of considering probability. As one of many ways of literature questioning, antiessentialism, which explores some questions as regards literary ideology, is by no means the only proper progressive one. So the attempt to rid Chinese literary theory of the current crisis by adopting an antiessentialist questioning will lead to another misunderstanding. A careful examination of several textbooks of literature and art shows that their antiessentialist strategy actually shows thick trace of essentialism. In other words, These textbooks falls back again in the basic pattern of traditional literary study in their attempt to avoid the questioning means of traditional literature.

postmodernistic theory; Literary Theory; antiessentialism; study of literature and art