In this essay, Michel Foucault’s discourse theory will be critically evaluated, especially his concepts of epistemes and discursive formations. More specifically these concepts will be assessed to what it means for the study of literature. There will be referred to Foucault’s The Order of Things (2002) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), as well as Sara Mills’ Michel Foucault (2003) and Simon During’s Foucault and Literature (1992). In The Order of Things (2002:183), Foucault describes the term episteme or “historical a priori” as the “conditions of possibility of knowledge, as investigated by archaeology,” and Foucault also states that only one episteme can exist at one moment in time. According to Foucault there are three different epistemes in which ideas and statements were organised, which are “identities, similitudes and analogies” (Foucault 1996:22). Foucault referred to the Classical episteme (identities), the Renaissance episteme (similitudes) and the Modern episteme (analogies). In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), Foucault rejected the term “episteme” and instead refers to the phrase “discursive formation”, because discursive formation emphasizes the role of discourse in the creation of knowledge more. Mills (2003:64) states, that Foucault uses the term discursive formation “to refer to the regular associations and groupings of particular types of statements.” So, where exactly does literature fit into Foucault’s concepts of epistemes and discursive