Genre Essay

Genre Essay

Introduction

The word Genre gets its origin from a French word that is usually used for the terms 'kind' or 'classes. The text in number of fields and aspects such as rhetoric, theory of literature and the theory related to media make extensive use of the genre conventions. However, recent trend has been shown towards the use of genre in the context of linguistics that helps in referring to a specific type of text. For more than an era of two thousand years, the genre convention study remain focused on the classification of the literature world into types and sub types along with giving names to them. It can be considered as very similar to the situation in which the botanist makes division of the flora kingdom into number of plants varieties (Allen, 1989). Genre is generally used for any literature category along with those of the fields of art and entertainment. The conventions basically give birth to genres. These genre conventions have a characteristic to get changed over time because of the invention of new genres that lead to the discontinuation of the old genres. More often, the genres work by accommodating a number of conventions at a particular time. The essay is written with an objective to study the way the genre conventions for changes over time and across culture.

Discussion

The genre classification concept was initiated by Aristotle and Plato classifying the literature into genres of three types. These three classes are accepted in Ancient Greece and included the poetry, drama and prose. The further sub division of the genre includes epic, lyric and drama. Comedy and tragedy are the further classification of the drama Genre. The contribution to these generally accepted forms of poetry has been made by a number of other theorists. The expansion of the genre has been made by the theorist focusing on the philosophizing of genre and its uses.

Nature of Genre in the context of time period and culture

There is no complete stability in a recognized genre convention. The situation and the context in which the genre is used leads to the uncontrolled fixity of the genre conventions. The homogenization of genre could lead to the positive or negative effect on the fixity of the genre element.

Genre shows an embedment in the particular culture, but at times a clash has been demonstrated. The history shows a number of occasions in which the cultural group may not feel comfortable to keep within the set of structures created with the help of genre. In one of the study conducted by Anthony Pare, the relation between the Inuit social workers in the context of identity and genre has been studied. The findings of the study make Pare to ascertain the conflict that exist between the genre of Inuit social workers, their forms of record keeping and the cultural values that are being held by these workers making it difficult for them to work in complete alignment with the expectations of the ...