Erin Byrd

Essay 1: genre in general

Genre – Not Just a Funny Word

Before this class began, I had a somewhat vague knowledge of what genre is.  I knew, or remembered, from high school English class what the term meant generally, but did not have as firm a grasp on it as I am sure I did before.  Since being in this class, however, I have gotten a renewed definition and idea of what it means, and would now feel confident discussing it, should the need ever arise.  Here, I will demonstrate how my knowledge has been reinforced and extended.

            Before this class started, if someone were to ask me what genre was, I might say something about it being a classification system for literature.  While this would be correct, it would not be enough, as I have realized now.  If I had been asked to give an example of a genre, I might not have been able to think of one, because I had not heard or talked about the word or its meaning in so long.  Since being in this class, my understanding of what genre is or can be has skyrocketed, and I feel like I actually have something to say about the subject.

            Now, for example, I know that a genre is sort of a category of something, whether it is literature, film, or some specific form of literature, such as a play or novel, etc.  Once a person has decided or figured out which genre something fits into, such as fiction, that author has what is called a “contract with the reader” to make it true to that genre more than any other, even though there are at times mixed or hybrid genres where more than one is present (romantic comedy, for example). 

            Prior to this course, I did not know about the different categories within genres—subject, representation, and narrative.  Now that I have learned about these, it makes it easier to understand and tell which works fall under which categories.  For example, I recently watched the movie Away From Her, and based on the knowledge I now have, I would say that the subject would be special interest, the representation is drama or dialogue, and the narrative type is tragedy.  To answer the question of how one copes with the fact that genre can be a confusing concept, I suppose my answer to that would be we make our best guess and move on.  Just like everything else in literature, there is no one absolute truth when it comes to things like evaluating something.  It is up to each individual person in the audience to decide what something means to them, so the answers will be as varied and unique as the people giving them, and there are rarely wrong answers.

            In conclusion, I have definitely increased my knowledge of genre, what it means, how it is used, and how to define which genre some work of literature is.  I already feel much more confident in my understanding of it, and I know it will only improve through the rest of the time in this course.