Genre Theory

A way to examine and navigate texts

Genre-a category of artistic, musical, or

literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content

Old Way: Examine form Superficial Traits

Structure Features

Wedding at the end, Invocation to the Muse, death of the hero?

New Way: Examine content “Dimension of the soul”

What part of the human experience is the story exploring?

Ways of Looking at Genres

Tragedy

Hero’s suffering and loss

(and society’s) as he moves from ignorance to self-knowledge

Moment of crossing a threshold into the tragic realm: “marked by the sudden catastrophe of the loss of a garden state”

Expands the boundaries of society’s vision or “ordinary awareness”

The Tragic Abyss

Tragedy is “less an

analogy of anything that happens in life than an unconcealing of the substratum of human existence” It’s what at the root

of existence that we are afraid to face

The Tragic Abyss

Tragedy “dredges

something up from the bottomless pit” “something

essentially metaphysical”

Descent into tragedy is transformative for hero, society, and READER

The Tragic Abyss

Tragic Hero: highly placed member of

society Hamartia: Hero’s weakness (tragic flaw/

mistake) which leads to others suffering

Tragedy Terms

Peripeteia: the moment of reversal in a

tragedy Anagnorisis: recognition of hero’s or

another’s “true identity,” sometimes a recognition of his part in causing the suffering, often an epiphany

Tragedy Terms

Hubris: pride in self that violates the

prerogative of the gods; produces incomprehensible nameless suffering

Telos: the end towards which a community or individual wishes to go; teleological questions ask “what do we wish to become or accomplish in the end?”

Tragedy Terms

Eudaimonia: the deep happiness that comes

from living virtuously and moving toward one’s telos throughout life; happiness that comes from accumulated

momentum or responsible excellence that one has built through living one’s life

richest happiness possible for a human, attaining quantities of internal, external, and narrative goods

Hedononia: immediate pleasure and satisfaction (the word is related to hedonism)

Tragedy Terms

There is no time left in tragedy Consequences of previous actions now have

their unforeseen consequences Things have already been decided as the

action of the play is occurring. Choice has been narrowed down (usually to

those with unwanted or painful consequences)

Time in Tragedy

Man is a fool Subject to whims,

fancies, lusts, etc. Acceptance and

survival within limits Comic protagonist

accepts way things are and alters as he has no fixed ideas

Tragedy vs. Comedy

Ennobling of mankind in the struggle

Displays limits on human behavior and capabilities

Tragic motion reveals things as they are not the way they appear or thought to be

Tragic hero is forced to alter, painfully

“Lord, what fools

these mortals be.”

“Man is a giddy

thing.”

Comedy

• Humor vs. comedy• Humor:

• Subversion of expectations (and expectations)/ variations of patterns

• Emotional distance• Laughter

• Comedy:• Not necessarily “funny”• Komos: revel or Kome:

the village

The Comic Terrain

• Comedy “endures

and perseveres in a fallen world … making its way by mutual helpfulness toward a community of love within the larger order of society”

The Comic Terrain

• Comic protagonist is

a survivor• never quite takes

himself seriously enough to erect a rigid world of his own making, as does the tragic hero.

• Not tragic agony but the fearful mystery of joy.

The Comic Terrain

• Low or base

characters • insignificant aims• some

accomplishment of aims • either lightens the

initial baseness • reveals the

insignificance of the aims.

The Comic Terrain

• Moral punishment?• Often ends “happily” • Reinforcement of

community (a wedding or dance)

The Comic Terrain

Consequences don’t “stick”—or are minimized Unlike tragedy, time remains, giving

opportunities to try solutions or avoid consequence

Solutions or choices remain open

Time in Comedy

Tragedy is a whirlwind Comedy is a wave

Football time is tragic Baseball time is comic

Comedy vs. Tragedy

Epic

“Epic is both more

frequent and more diverse than the recognized canon tends to indicate. Characteristics intrinsic to its nature include its sense of totality and its consciousness of mission.”

The Epic Cosmos

FOUR TRAITS OF EPIC penetration of the veil

separating material and immaterial existence, allowing an intimate relation between gods and men

an eschatological expansion of time

The Epic Cosmos

FOUR TRAITS OF EPIC restoration of

equilibrium between masculine and feminine forces

a sense of motion, linking human action to a divine destiny, toward which epic senses history moves

The Epic Cosmos

Creates a full picture

of the world (culture)that is struggling in transition. Recognition of Loss Hope? New Order

The Epic Cosmos

Hero of an epic is

excessive A superabundance of

human abilities or traits

Often causes his problem

Sometimes pulls back, allowing others “the stage” so that his abilities will be even more impressive

The Epic Cosmos

Hero may or may not

die—explaining why he isn’t around any more, and allowing for the founding for which he struggles

The Epic Cosmos

Lyric

The speaker relates

to a “beloved object” by Hoping for it, Consummating his

love for it, or Lamenting its

passing

The Prospect of Lyric

The “beloved

object” It is the object

(the receiver) of the speaker’s desire or praise

Is not necessarily an object—it could be a person, a time, an idea, or a thing

The Prospect of Lyric