lecture V

Question 1

politics/resistance

Answer 1

sometimes a text is attempting to do
something, and sometimes we want to resist
that (or use it to teach that).

Question 2

Genre

Answer 2

‘Type or category of work sharing particular
formal or textual features and
conventions. [Sometimes referring to] fiction,
poetry, drama, and non-fiction” (p. A66)
Relegates everything else to subgenre.

Question 3

type or category

Answer 3

Genre classifies a body of work.
● Can be overwhelmingly large in history and use:
e.g. sonnet.
● Can be very specific: e.g. social media novel.
● Can be historically located: e.g. elegy.
● Type suggests pre-existing traits, category
suggests ordering principles: e.g. satire vs.
Enlightenment poetry.

Question 4

formal and textual

Answer 4

Genre consists of both how a work is
shaped/structured and what its contents are.
● Form refers to poetics. E.g. use of
enjambment identifies a poetic genre.
● Text means it can be determined by content:
e.g. many BLM poems discuss police
brutality.

Question 5

features and conventions

Answer 5

Genre must be located in the use of specific
phenomena or in engaging existing patterns.
● Features can be described in the work: James Bond
seduces a female character.
● Conventions can be described across works: James
Bond always seduces a central female character.
● Can be lost: James Bond always seduces a helpless,
overly sexualised female character.

Question 6

Genre Revisited

Answer 6

In reality, the use of genre and subgenre has
become interchangeable.
● Weakening of interest in categorisation
● Resistance to strict confines (Romanticism)
● Questioning of whether genres exist to begin
with (do they describe or prescribe?)

Question 7

Caveats

Answer 7

Additional factors make genre an unstable
concept to work with:
● Texts will often contain multiple elements
from multiple genres. What is Wednesday?
YA drama? Detective? Gothic romance?
● Texts can shift drama without clearly
signalling this (cf. Survival Horror)