Abstract: That the historical literary criticism in classical form was arranged into the history of literary criticism in modern form is the main contribution of the academic circle of the research on the history of literary criticism in the 20 th century. This article traces back the process of the research model of the history of the literary criticism, which is changing from emphasizing on the historical research into emphasizing on the theoretical research. It also takes The System of the Chinese Classical Literary Theory in Three volumes as an example to reveal the features of the theoretical research and the possible diretion of it in the future.