Tie cops in knots studying thematic literary works (7)
I believe the answer is:
poetics
'studying thematic literary works' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'tie cops in knots' is the wordplay.
'in knots' indicates an anagram (I've seen this in other clues).
'tie'+'cops'='tiecops'
'tiecops' anagrammed gives 'POETICS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for poetics that I've seen before include "Art of writing verse" , "Art of verse-writing" .)