Jarrod Goergen

Essay 1: Genre--Exact Definition or Broad Description?

            The term “genre” is used to classify or categorize different types of works. Books, movies, musical compositions, and works of literature are just a few of these different types of works that are classified into different genres. Sometimes the classification of genres is clear and definite. For example, some of the more popular musical genres consist of rock, rap, classical, country, folk, and heavy metal. However, these genres can often become blurred due to the blending of genres and the addition of other musical elements within a genre. Therefore, the simple genre classification of rock can become pop-rock, punk-rock, hard-rock, or soft-rock. However, even though classifying different works into different genres can become confusing, it is still an important tool used to distinguish these different works. One area that genre is most important to is literature.

            Being that the name of this particular course is Tragedy, the genre of literature being studied is Tragedy. Therefore, it is relatively clear and definite what types of literature are going to be studied. However, works of tragedy also contain multiple elements of other genre categories, such as subject genre, representational genre, and narrative genre (Genres Handout). Subject genre deals with the content or subject matter a particular piece of literature contains (Genres Handout). Therefore, the subject genre of a movie about what happens to a group of people in a haunted house would be considered a horror movie. Representational genre refers to the numbers and types of voices in a particular work (Genres Handout). Representational genre includes pieces of work in which there is a narrator or a single voice, pieces of work in which there is drama or dialogue but no narrator or a single voice, and pieces of work in which there is both  narrator and dialogue present (Genres Handout). Finally, Narrative genre “refers to the kind of story or plot that a work of literature tells or enacts” (Genres Handout). The four basic story lines of the Narrative genre include Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, and Satire.

            One of the components that lead to the blurriness of clear and definite genres is genre conventions. Genre conventions are simply norms or expectations that are usually seen in a certain type of genre. These conventions, unlike rules, are not set in stone and not all of the genre conventions associated with one genre may be seen in a work dealing with that particular genre, which can cause basic story lines to work together. Therefore, there may be elements of romance in works dealing with tragedy. For example, in Eugene O’Neill’s tragic play Mourning Becomes Electra, Brant is noted as saying “Oh! But you said- (Then with a confused, stupid persistence he comes closer to her, dropping his voice again to his love-making tone.) Whenever I remember those islands now, I will always think of you, as you walked beside me that night with your hair blowing in the sea wind and the moonlight in your eyes!” (p 280). The prevalence of multiple elements or conventions of another genre present in one genre could even lead to the combination of genres, such as a romantic comedy. One of the main objectives of this course, furthermore, is to study “genres” of literature not as rules but as adaptable conventions of subject, narrative and representation (Class Syllabus).

            Even though genre is an effective tool for classifying different types of works, it can also be very confusing. As stated before, some genres may cross each other and lines may be blurred. However, I think that by knowing and realizing that there are genre conventions rather than only genre rules that the phenomenon of genre crossing may be easier to deal with. By knowing that one small portion of a work from a certain genre comes from a different genre it will be easier to identify this simply as a genre convention and not a complete switch into a different genre. Furthermore, by knowing and realizing that some genres may also have sub-genres, such as rock having sub-genres like punk-rock and hard-rock, it will be easier to acknowledge these as simply genres within another genre rather than completely different entities.

            Being that I am an avid music fan, I have had many encounters with the term “genre.” The music world is always divided into different genres in order to classify different types of music, much like literature. In this class, however, I have furthered my learning of the term “genre” by realizing that although genre is different classifications of certain types of works, it also contains categories of genres such as narrative and subject genres as discussed before. I also did not realize that all works of literature contain each one of the three narrative, subject and representational genres as discussed in the class handout. Therefore, in the future I can look for different categories of genres in different works other than literature such as film and music while placing these works into their own genres.