Genre Theory Is The Invention Of Literary

Critics, And Adds Little To The Experience And Pleasure Of Essay, Research Paper

`?A reader?s

appreciation of a work of literature is largely conditioned by, or dependent

on, a familiarity with the features of the genre to which it belongs, or from

which it deviates.? Examine the validity of this statement.What is genre? The word originally comes from the

French for ?kind? or ?class? and is a system of classification of media

(although ?literature? is the only medium that need concern us here) that seeks

to categorise texts into some kind of order. Indeed, the parallel has been made

between the generic classification of works of literature and the division of

all the creatures in the animal kingdom into various species. However, with a

discipline as creative as literature, classification can never be as precise

and scientific as that. So what dictates a text?s genre?Plato and Aristotle were the first to think about literature

in terms of genre. They saw genre as being distinguished by ?manner of

imitation? (or ?representation?). This is best explained by Wellek and Warren[1]:?lyric poetry is the poet?s own persona; in

epic poetry (or the novel) the poet partly speaks in his own person, as

narrator, and partly makes his characters speak in direct discourse (mixed

narrative); in drama, the poet disappears behind his cast of characters.So, for these first theorists, genre was divided into

three vast categories of poetry, prose and drama, each defined by how much of

the author?s own ?voice? comes through in the text. These categories remained

until the seventeenth and eighteenth century when writers began to think in

terms of subdivisions of these groups. Indeed, according to Wellek and Warren,

by the eighteenth century prose fiction had two ?species?: the novel and the

romance. For the Neo Classicists, genre was an important preoccupation. They

were fond of this kind of concise ordering of literature. This fondness for order

led Boileau to create a ?canon? of genres which included the pastoral , the

elegy, the ode, the epigram, satire, tragedy, comedy and the epic.[2]

Due to the rigidly authoritarian and traditionalist nature of Neo Classicist

criticism, any mixing of these genres was prohibited (the doctrine of ?genre tranche?). There was also a

hierarchy of worthiness applied to them (which is still evident today in a

subtler form) which placed the epic and the tragedy above the sonnet or ode

(Milton?s ?minor poetry? was of the latter, while his ?major? or ?great? works

are of the former). However, it was never made clear by the Neo Classicists

what it was exactly that dictated into which category a text fell. Wellek and

Warren have attempted to address this problem:Gene

should be conceived, we think, as a grouping of literary works based,

theoretically, upon both outer form (specific metre or structure) and also upon

inner form (attitude, tone, purpose ? more crudely, subject and audience).[3]So, to identify a generic text, one needs a combination of

an accepted style and continuous subject matter. Add to that the shared devices

and purposes (features) of the genre and you have the means to be able to

attempt to classify a text.So how does all this talk of genre affect the reading

of a text? Is it a pointless theoretical discussion with no relevance to the

appreciation of the text in question, or does it increase our pleasure and help

define the way in which we read and interpret that text? When one chooses which

book to read in one?s ongoing journey through the universe of literature, one

does not tend to simply pick a title at random. No, one tends to choose a title

based upon a preconceived notion of whether one will enjoy it. And what is this

notion based upon? It is based upon what ?kind? of text it is, into which genre

it has been placed. One has a familiarity with it?s ?outer? and ?inner? form,

it?s ?devices? and ?purposes?. Therefore one knows more or less what to expect

from the chosen text. It has been conjectured by Noel Carrol in his ?The

Paradox of Junk Fiction, Philosphy and Literature Volume 8? that the reason

people choose to essentially reread the same story in different guises time

after time in their consumption of generic junk fictions has a lot to do with the

pleasure gained from the practising of their skills of narrative

interpretation. By this he means:?the

pleasure afforded by the opportunity to guess or infer, often correctly, what

is going to happen next in an ongoing course of narrative events, as well as

the opportunity to make judgements, including moral judgements, about these

actions.[4] If one takes the basis of this theory and apply it

differently to non junk fictions, it still works. Take ?the epic? for example.

If one takes up a copy of Paradise Lost

for the first time, one is familiar with the features of the genre. One knows

that this text will cover a large expanse of time, will feature a hero who

exhibits the characteristics of great strength, courage and honour. There will

be battles, the pitting of wits between enemies all written in what is known as

the ?epic style?. One could argue that some of the pleasure derived from

reading this text comes from predicting how the author will fulfill these

criteria. Certainly a lot of my own pleasure in this text came from the

identification of the ?epic hero?(could it be Adam, The Son or Satan?), who?s

presence I was alerted to by virtue of my familiarity with the conventions of

the genre, and discovering Milton?s skill in fulfilling the criteria of the

genre whilst at the same time adapting it to suit his own purposes. Genre theory can help one?s understanding of a text. Take,

for instance, an author like Jorge Luis Borges. When one is reading his short

stories such as those that appear in collections such as The Book of Sand[5] it is clear that ?intelligent attention to the text itself? is not enough

to glean what approaches complete understanding. In his work on the?? hermeneutic interpretation of narrative