Discussing Literary Genre

To define genre is to embark on a conjectural journey within a theoretical minefield. Genre theory has drawn immense debate and contemplation throughout literary history, however, several conclusions have emerged. Genre types are unfixed categories whose characteristics differ considerably among the specific genres; furthermore, the role of literary history plays a significant role in discussions of genre, for genre types evolve and shift with each new literary text. An approach to the discussion of genre, family resemblances, illustrates similar conventions among texts within a genre, but there are significant problems in this approach. There are several ways to discuss genre, and although problems abound in any approach, the subjective nature of the literary experience calls attention to the importance of the interaction between reader and text to provide the final word on genre.

Although there is considerable theoretical debate about the definition of specific genres, the conventional definition tends to be based on the idea that texts within a genre share particular conventions of content and form, such as themes, settings, structure and style. However, the nature of genre leads to several problems inherent in the defining of genres. Certain genres are looser and more open ended in their conventions than other genres and some genres have many conventions while others have very few. Furthermore, literary texts that overlap and mix genres blur the distinction between them. Genres are not discrete systems consisting of a fixed number of list able items. Consequently, the same text can belong to different genres in different countries or times. For example, Latin poets categorized the elegy mainly in terms of its meter, while poets during the English Renaissance regarded the subject matter and tone to be determinate of form. History and culture play a role in the ever changing status of genres, which are difficult to define because the concept encompasses so many different literary qualities and conventions that can be broken or accepted, overlapped or mixed.

Rather than define genre, some theorists approach the discussion of genre using Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblances'; among literary texts. Although a literary text rarely has all the characteristics of...

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... are interpreted, and expectations and emotional outlooks are the individual results of reading literature. The expectations prompted by conventions in a literary text play a large role in the discussion of genre. For example, Mavis Gallant’s “From the Fifteenth District'; cheats the expectation that arises from the first sentence, “[a]lthough an epidemic of haunting...'; (Gallant 115), and surprises readers with the discovery that the story is a reversal of the ghost story. A reader’s personal interaction with a literary work is decisive of genre, for what we think a genre is and the individual’s impression of a literary text often serve to classify a literary work.

The individual’s response to literature plays a vital role in the discussion of genre, for literary texts are created for an audience of one. The various means to discuss genre provide insightful observations; however, significant problems are inherent in these discussions. The constantly changing categories of genre and the emergence of new literary works make defining genre a daunting task better left to the individual reader.