Anomalies of Genre

The Utility of Theory and History for the Study of Literary Genres

Bibliographic Data

ID3118630
AuthorsHayden V White (corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume34
Issue3
Pages597-615
Publication date2003-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Literary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/nlh.2003.0039
OpenAlexW2040099993
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited2

IN THIS COMMENTARY I will consider a topical thread that runs through most of the essays comprising this issue of New Literary History and the one before it. The topic is the relation between history and theory in literary studies. In his contribution to this symposium, Michael Prince cites Ralph Cohen's suggestion that both the notion of (literary) genre and genres themselves appear to be "resistant to theory." Prince goes on to suggest that genre's resistance to theoretical consideration tells us more about theory than it does about genre itself. For if, as everyone seems to agree, genre is an essential element or aspect of literarity, then genre's resistance to theory implies that theory itself is inimical to literature and should not, therefore, be brought to bear upon the literary artwork. Indeed, Prince holds that it may be genre's resistance to theory that generates the endless task of literary interpretation, which has the role in criticism of mediating not only between literature and life but also between literature and theory as well. If we hold to interpretation and abandon theory we might be able, Prince tells us, to produce a low-level "theory of genre" "without falling into paradox or self-contradiction." And in his essay on "mauvais genres," he provides a brilliant historical account of how eighteenth-century English thinkers, in their attempt to construct a "theory of genre," met with a kind of resistance by genre that left them in a wasteland of theory and a quagmire of logical contradiction, left them, that is, with little more to do than turn over the question of genre to the newly emerged field of aesthetics, where the paradoxes it generated could be assimilated to the idea of the sublime

Art · Contradiction · Criticism · Epistemology · History of literature · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Literary criticism · Literary genre · Literary science · Literary theory · Literature · New Criticism · Reception theory · Relation (database) · Resistance (ecology) · Computer Science · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy

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