The twentieth century was marked by numerous metamorphoses in the field of humanities and beyond. The article is meant to be a foray into the history of research of the twentieth century, thereby offering enough clues to understand how the new principles of literary science have been articulated. Specifically, the theoretical study of the phenomenon of literary reception represent the sphere of interest of the given approach. The aim is to analyze metamorphoses and create a picture of the “metatheory of reading”, a heterogeneous dimension that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a self-reflective discourse in the field of reading theory. It is also intended to establish some conceptual and terminological delimitations of prime importance in the study of the literary work from the perspective of the reader. Starting with the second half of the last century, the reader becomes the most privileged instance in the process of literary communication, which has led to an increase in the number of studies on reading and the reader. In fact, the reader has always been an essential factor in the realization of the literary phenomenon; it gives meaningful content to the set of signs and codes, becoming the coauthor of the work. Literary creation can only manifest its existence through an act of reading. The theories about the reader follow the classical division: the intrinsic and the extrinsic approach. As a result, there are two ramifications of reading metatheory: theories of reading and theories of reception. First category deal with intratextual instances, especially the ideal reader, a textual strategy, and explain how the text programs reading. The second one study the intratextual instances, especially the real reader and his answer to the text, the way in which the concrete reader influences the formation of the literary message. Aiming at the conceptualization of the same instance of literary communication, these categories, however, look at the reader from different angles, inside the text or outside it, which creates difficulties in the field of reading, both theoretically and practically.