Genre Theory: Classifying Literary Works
The origins of genre theory go back at least to Aristotle’s Poetics in which he outlined the foundations that define a tragedy. Aristotelian theory was centered on authorial intention; modern day views that the reader takes any part in decoding the meaning, or that the meaning is any way influenced by forces external to the text would have been anathema to him. A primary feature of genre is that the reader comes to it with expectations of form, style and content that cannot be undone by interpretation; a detective story is a detective story and it cannot be interpreted by the reader as anything else because the author’s intention was to create a detective story.
Aristotelian criticism of this type was the rule of the day for most of the next two millennia and it wasn’t until the last two centuries that criticism of authorial intention became the norm. Ironically, it was the non-literary theorists such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud that influence literary criticism the most; psychology and social factors became the preferred method of reading the true meaning of literature. Opposition to these new theories and a return to traditional Aristotelian approaches had their biggest impact under the Chicago School, put forth by such critics as R.S. Crane and Elder Olson. The Chicago School rejected the notion of the criticism that in turn had rejected the whole idea that authorial intention should have any bearing on a text. Since genre is by definition completely author-centered-a reader cannot pick up a romance novel and label it science-fiction simply by making the claim that there are clues in the text to indicate it takes place in parallel universe-the argument of Chicago School is particularly apt for genre theory.
One of the arguments against genre theory is that such strictly defined definitions of intent have an ideological component that merely serves to reinforce and reproduce the prevailing ideology. This is particularly true of the Marxist theory, which views genre as a method of social control. Readers respond to genre expectations by reproducing them as conventions that naturalize an ideological viewpoint. In response, some critics argue that the ideological aspect of genre lies not in the form that it takes, but rather in the purpose of its discourse. For instance, a romance novel by itself may not necessarily be attempting to reproduce an old-fashioned ideology, but if the romance novel is specifically being written in order to reinforce that ideology, then the criticism of genre rings true. Regardless, the whole question goes back to authorial intent, however, and not reader response to the text.
One of the central concerns of genre theory, of course, is what makes a certain set of literature archetypes qualify as genre. Northrop Frye writes that “the study of genres is based on analogies in form.” Genre as an exercise in form is the dominant view as to what constitutes genre among the general populace; a mystery is supposed to follow certain conventions of form, an epic another, a tragedy still another. The result of equating form with genre has led to generic texts being looked upon as a lesser form of literature because they are thought to be formulaic. Formulaic writing is further considered unworthy of serious critical engagement because it is often considered to be written in response to commercial expectations rather than literary expectations. One of the lasting effects of genre theory is that it has resulted in a significant re-evaluation of the literary worth of generic literature.
Genre theory must still continue to divide and categorize literary works according to conventions based on historical expectations, but today’s criticism as well as the postmodern movement toward mixing and defying genre expectations has led to a new awareness of textual reading that in a manner combines both solid Aristotelian criticism with a dollop of New Criticism techniques. Genre expectations are indeed manifested by analogous formulations so that a western novel must contain cowboys and a science fiction novel must meet certain expectations. But the postmodern move toward playing around with genre conventions have allowed more latitude toward authorial intent. A novel that used to be described as defying genre conventions has now become a subgenre itself. An author who places wild west cowboys into a futuristic setting is no longer necessarily accused of defying genre conventions; he could equally well be setting to the task of writing a sci-fi western.
This trend toward combining genres rather than defying them or upsetting them perhaps owes a debt to non-Aristotelian criticism. Writers influenced by the movement toward the reading of text from an author-centered point of view to a reader response have quite possibly either consciously or unconsciously been motivated to make the reader response critic work harder to find meaning apart from his own intent by working in foundations from a multitude of generic conventions. Today the genre theorist can potentially face a novel that meets even the strictest requirements for a gothic novel, a suspense novel, and romance novel all the same time. Genre theory today therefore must take into account not only authorial intention, but also a reader response mode in the form of piecing together those very same historical analogies of which Frye wrote.
Genre theory has succeeded in making what had been viewed as inferior modes of literary expression into viable works for serious criticism. The way it has done this is by turning the conventions of the New Criticism on its head; if authorial intention is the primary importance in establishing the content of a work, then no literature should be viewed as existing solely for its commercial means. After all, as the famous saying goes, nobody but a blockhead ever wrote to get rich; they write to express themselves. Under those rules, then, everything ever written-including the most formulaic of writing-should contain at least a nugget of viable expression ripe for critical engagement.
