Short answers, pulled from the story.
Aristotle wrote the Poetics in the 4th century BC to define the act of judging art. This treatise introduced the concepts of mimesis and catharsis to explain why humans create stories and feel deeply when reading them. The work established the foundation for all future criticism by arguing that literature had a specific function beyond mere entertainment.
Giorgio Valla published his Latin translation of Aristotle's Poetics in the year 1498. This publication sparked the Renaissance movement and recovered the unity of form and content lost during the Middle Ages. The event shifted the focus from religious texts to secular works and established literary neoclassicism.
Emanuele Tesauro published Il Cannocchiale aristotelico in the year 1654. This treatise developed a theory of metaphor as a universal language of images and a supreme intellectual act. The publication marked a shift from rigid classical rules to the fluid and dynamic approach of the Baroque movement.
The New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. During this period, critics emphasized close reading of texts and treated the text as an autonomous object without reference to authorial intention. The doctrine declined when departments began to witness a rise of philosophical literary theory influenced by structuralism and post-structuralism.
Roland Barthes published The Death of the Author in the year 1967. This essay challenged the author's authority over a text and argued that meaning is determined by the reader's interpretation. The publication was part of a broader movement including structuralism and post-structuralism that continued until the 1990s.