Genre

by John Frow

Overview

This second edition of John Frow’s Genre offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the area. Genre is a key means by which we categorize the many forms of literature and culture, but it is also much more than that: in talk and writing, in music and images, in film and television, genres actively generate and shape our knowledge of the world. Understanding genre as a dynamic process rather than a set of stable rules, this book explores:

• the relation of simple to complex genres
• the history of literary genre in theory
• the generic organisation of implied meanings
• the structuring of interpretation by genre
• the uses of genre in teaching

John Frow’s lucid exploration of this fascinating concept has become essential reading for students of literary and cultural studies, and the second edition expands on the original to take account of recent debates in genre theory and the emergence of digital genres.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138020580
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/16/2014
Series:	The New Critical Idiom
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

John Frow is Professor of English at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Approaching genre Preliminary questions The situation of genre The performance of genre Classes and members 2 Simple and complex genres Simple forms: the riddle Generic complexity Citation and intertextuality 3 Literary genre theory Genre as taxonomy Presentational modes: Plato and Aristotle The natural forms Genres and modes Poetics and history 4 Implication and relevance The structural dimensions of genre Implication and presupposition Genre as schema Generic truths: Philosophy Generic truths: History 5 Genre and interpretation Reading genre The frame Generic cues Figures of genre 6 System and history Genre systems Synchrony and diachrony Genrification Emergent Genres Teaching genre

What People are Saying About This

Terry Eagleton

Easily the most informative and wide-ranging series of its kind, so packed with bright ideas that it has become and indispensable resource for students of literature. (Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester, UK)