Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture. However, it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. It is a French term derived from the Latin words genus, generis, meaning “type,” “sort,” or “kind.” It designates the literary form or type into which works are classified according to what they have in common, either in their formal structures or in their treatment of subject matter, or both. The study of genres may be of value in three ways. On the simplest level, grouping works offers us an orderly way to talk about an otherwise bewildering number of literary texts. More importantly, if we recognize the genre of a text, we may also have a better idea of its intended overall structure and /or subject. Finally, a genre approach can deepen our sense of the value of any single text, by allowing us to view it comparatively, alongside many other texts of its type.

Genre is not an easy matter to discuss; on the one hand the term is relatively new for social scientists, while on the other it has a very long and at times confusing history in literature and the visual arts. There have certainly been some fundamental difficulties with the traditional conceptualization of genre in the humanities. The first is a surprising confusion in the meaning of the word ‘genre’ itself. The concept goes back to the basic distinction made by the Greeks between the dramatic, epic and lyrical forms of literature: that is, a distinction made partly in terms of mood and theme, and partly of mode of presentation and the relationship with the audience. The current meaning of ‘genre’, which dates from the nineteenth century, is ‘a style or category of painting, novel, film, etc. characterized by a particular form or purpose’. In literature, a genre can be defined by form (such as drama, poetry, proverbs, letters), by mood (as comedy, tragedy), or by content (as history, memoirs, autobiography); even though certainly these are usually closely tied together. Genre may also refer either to a type of text, or to an element within that text because all these definitions cut across each other. It has been impossible to agree on any settled definitions of genres, or to group them convincingly as major and minor genres and subgenres. (more…)