Pan Zinian’s book Literary Theory, is a series of speeches he gave at the Literature ResearchAssociation around 1923 while teaching at Baoding Yude Middle School. After being compiled intoa book, it was first published by Shanghai Beixin Book Company in November 1925. In 1929, it wasreleased in the 6th edition and distributed nearly 50000 copies. In the era when the publishing industrywas not yet booming, it can be said that this was a quite astonishing number. Since the promulgation ofthe constitution in 1904, the course of Literary Theory has been explicitly proposed, which has led to arage in the compilation and publication of literary theory and other related books. The reason why PanZinian’s Literary Theory was widely welcomed at that time is closely related to the writing backgroundand ideological sources of the book. This article mainly has two writing ideas. Firstly, it delves into thereference and transformation of Western literary theory in Pan Zinian’s Literary Theory, and analyzes itsfurther theoretical development on this basis; Secondly, as a young intellectual during the New CultureMovement, Pan Zinian’s text also tends to integrate local ideological resources and respond to the voiceof the times. Finally, it is concluded that Pan Zinian’s book shows that under a certain backgroundof the times, while accepting the diversified academic system of the West, the intellectual group hasalways maintained the spirit of skepticism, adhered to theoretical innovation, and tried to achievecommunication and dialogue on the basis of Chinese and Western intertextuality, playing a gooddemonstration role for the construction of modern Chinese literary theory.