Quote:Care to expand? My crystal ball is in the shop.
It shouldn't require expansion or a crystal ball, but, since you asked....
Quote:horror genre, thriller genre, sci-fi genre, who-done-it genre, romance genre, historical-drama genre etc.
its just a classification like any other - humans like to pigeon-hole.
Yes, that's a commonplace, but it should be obvious that my little essay has nothing to do with this. In fact, I already covered this point as much as it needs to be covered. Let me repeat: "The more interesting question is,
'Except for matters of convenience and ease of communication, why is weird fiction perceived as a separate genre; indeed, why does the idea of 'genre' exist at all?'" [my emphasis]
>Why do
> so few seem to question these classifications?
> Why-- outside the general designation of "the
> novel"--are the works of Dickens or Proust not
> considered to be part of a "genre"?
Quote:They are If I look at Oliver Twist amazon puts it in to the following genre
Subjects > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > British > Classics > Dickens, Charles
Subjects > Literature & Fiction > General > Classics
Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( D ) > Dickens, Charles > General
Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( D ) > Dickens, Charles > Paperback
look at any on line library catalogue and they will have a genre attached.
First, as a Master's degree candidate in library and information science, I'm quite familiar with library catalogues. You seem to think that I'm describing practical classification schemes, when, in fact, what I am discussing is the idea of a norm and a deviation from a norm. As NightHalo states, such a distinction between norms and a deviation from them allows for the "ghettoizing" of the deviations.
Also, look above at the classification scheme that you cite. The only comments pertinent to genre in the sense in which I'm using the term are incredibly broad: "world literature", "classics", etc. When one refers to Dickens, one thinks "novelist", without any notion of genre (in the sense of "Western", "Science Fiction", "Horror", etc.) attached to his name. Dickens's sort of fiction is simply the norm, one that reflects a particular world-view and a particular set of values. Again, as NightHalo realizes, my question is this: Aside from matters of convenience, why are Lovecraft, M.R. James, Clark Ashton Smith,
et al not simply considered as authors who produce literature, as well? Why, aside from convenience, must we always qualify their work with the generic epithets "horror", "ghost stories", and the like, whereas the works of Dickens and others are rarely, if ever, qualified by the genre of fiction to which they belong?
>This notion also implies
> that the norm is superior to the deviation.
Quote:I can separate sports car from the norm of car I'm not saying either is better its just convent to use that classification when shopping (no I'm not shopping for one -yet have to win lottery first). Its just a convenience not a judgement.
And you really think that this analogy applies to, say, horror literature versus Literature with a capital "L"? Lol. If so, then there's really no need for further discussion.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2 Nov 04 | 06:24PM by Kyberean.