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Aristotle classified genres, or the types of literature, into three major categories: lyric, epic or narrative, and drama, mirrored in our modern categories of poetry, novel, and drama. But we also have a proliferation of other literary kinds: epic, tragedy, comedy, satire, biography, essay, pastoral, and so on. What are the rules, the conventions, of the different genres? How do authors and readers use genre to create and either fulfill or flout the expected reading experience? Literary genre has been studied extensively by some literary critics and theorists - the neoclassical critics, the American Chicago critics or neo-Aristotelians, Northrop Frye and his theory of archetypes, structuralists such as Roland Barthes. Our contemporary literary discussions have focused on questions of social, historical, and political contexts, and genre has consequently moved into the background. This class asserts that genre theory remains an important part of literary study in general. We will examine some of the historical discussions of genre and analyze some particular generic types.
COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: ENGL201 Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
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