Hi,

This issue is quite difficult. It seems to me that the term of "genre" is a confusing one. What is the definition of a "genre" ? According to Aristote, there is only two genre : theater (representation) and epic (narration). According to the XIX century theories, there is three : poetry, novel and theater. But one can also consider the genre with a sharper definition, also being codified since Antiquity : tragedy, comedy, elegy, ethopeia... . And yet we can see there is already some kind of confusion : for is it a formal definition or a thematical definition ? For example, what is defining Tragedy ? Is it its thematics or is it its forms which help you to say : "this is a Tragedy" ? Aye ! Both, I guess. Yet, modern tragedy are pretty different from, say classical tragedy. Specially in the form, it seems. But is it so sure ? In fact, I think one should admit there is a genre when there are parodies of it, this is to say texts which are making a close formal imitation while turning signification in a totally different way (ex: possesed by the devil, you're murdering a tomato to make a soup). Making a close formal imitation suppose formal regularities one can identify as such. It is the ability of identification of formal regularities, -ability itself due to memories of similar forms - which allows to say : this belongs to this genre, and as such it has this and that formal caracteristics.

After thoses litteray consideration of the genre, are coming the editorial consideration of it. And here come the fablulous expansion of denominations more or less pertinents : horror genre, thriller genre, sci-fi genre, who-done-it genre, romance genre, historical-drama genre. I suppose you willingly did not mention all thoses labels for science-fiction : "It's SF ?" "What SF ? Swords and Filthy ?" "No ! Science and Fantasy, but it's the Road Movie of a Serial Killer close to Hard-Science in a kind of Space-Opera universe !"
All those "genre" are thematics oriented, but not formal oriented. They don't say anything but the bookshelf you're supposed to find them at your shopkeeper. And, well... (Let's make some ennemies) I always felt sad to see Master Tolkien was in the neibourhood of ... appaling David Eddings.
In French, we are not speaking about "weird litterature", but about "Littérature Fantastique", which is not exactly covering the same field. "Fantastique" supposes a supernatural event, which is not a condition for "weird" litterature. "Supernatural Horror" is not the equivalent of "Fantastique", for many fantastique stories can be deprived of any horror (ex : O. Wilde, Dunsany).
And if fantastique - or weird - litterature is a genre, thematicaly defined by the term "weird" or "fantastique", it does not state anything about its formal caracteristics.

And yet, formal caracteritics are existing to fantastique or weird litterature : oxymore(living-dead),allegories,double meaning of words,... Well, mostly "figures" one can find among Baroco arts (for ex : Theophile de Viau).

There was a dispise of french university toward fantastique litterature, but on the whole, it started to decrease 30 years ago. It seems that for a generation or two in the middle of the XX century, science-fiction, fantasy and supernatural stories have been moved to the child books, probably in this period where rationalism and ingenering was highly praised and imagination and dream wonderfully despised.

Well, I don't mind to much about a separation between "Great" Litterature and Weird or fantastique litterature. Maybe it is the sign that weird and fantastique litterature are much more popular than the "great classics". And, well, it's a good sign !

Cheers !

David!

You should note the various polls in England, and the recent one in Australia, listing readers' favourite books. Lord of the Rings consistently comes in first, which says a deal about the fantastic.

What you may need to remember is that different cultures categorise differently. Thus in France you have the fantastic, which differs from the English scemas, confusing as they can be (I once spent a class that tried, stupidly, to define the difference between horror and terror on the lines of probability of happening). In English we define the difference between 'the romance' (as in Wells' 'scientific romance') and 'the novel', whereas this split is not apparent in many continental systems (such as the use of the German 'roman' to cover both).

I had a teacher who once said good literature tells a story or makes a point about the world, and great literature does both; that latter definition is what has stuck with me, and that's what I look for irregardless of whether it is highbrow or lowbrow in 'nature'.

Genre is actually quite a useful concept when deciding which bookshop to enter. It's very much a question of marketing. Outside of that, can't a genre work become accepted by the literary establishment and eventually become a "classic"? If I want to find "Frankenstein" or even "Melmoth the Wanderer", this is the shelf I would have to look on.

Of course, where there is an "establishment", there will also be snobbery and all that goes with it. There will be stereotyping and rejection of what is not approved of by the establishment. But then these people have careers to pursue. They have ulterior motives. It's a game. Who knows - every now and then someone will pluck a work from the "genre" bin and declare it a masterpiece, just to show what a clever person they are for finding it.

So I wouldn't worry too much about it. It isn't the literary professors who pose a threat to readers and writers, but the shareholders and money men who call the shots in the publishing industry - who would rather spend money promoting the latest David Eddings than risk it on an untried author.

This discussion has made "genre" out to be an entirely passive thing, imposed from without. Are writers never self-consciously generic? Was Lovecraft not defining his own genre when he wrote "Supernatural Horror in Literature"? Does it have to be a major problem?

There is a possibility that genre has a lifespan - leading from innovation through to self-parody - with the dull stuff in the middle. This is the view of Michael Moorcock - a writer who has straddled the "mainstream" and "genre" worlds yet identifies with neither. Certainly CAS, Lovecraft and Howard were great innovators; I think it would be very hard to write in their style today without resorting to parody or pastiche...

Quote:

Was Lovecraft not defining his own genre when he wrote "Supernatural Horror in Literature"?

Not really. Look closely at the title. It's Supernatural Horror in Literature, not Supernatural Literature or Horror Literature. Lovecraft's study discusses a thematic element within literature; it does not refer to a genre per se.

Quote:

Does it have to be a major problem?

I don't recall suggesting that it is a "major problem", just that it is arbitrary, as is the entire notion of "genre". My entire point is that one can make a "genre" out of anything, including mainstream fiction, as I indicated using the example of Dickens. I dislike the notion of norms and (ostensibly inferior) deviations from that norm in the arts, that's all. If others don't care, then that's fine with me. I should add (if I didn't make this clear from my prior posts here, although I believe that I did) that there is nothing wrong with using genre as a practical matter (bookstore signage and the like), so long as one does not get attached to the idea, or assume that it reflects a reality beyond the mind that creates such notions.

Hi,

What I was trying to point out, is that we may seriously speak about "genre" only when it has some formal caracteristics. Thematics cannot be enough.
However, from E.T.A. Hoffmann to Smith through Balzac and Henri James, we have pretty different forms of "fantastique" or "weird" literrature. And still, we recognise they have something in common : A glogal signification, a global meaning. And since Matthew Lewis's Monk, fantastique points out that there's no meaning. It an existentialist litterature.
There is another argument against the use of "fantastique" or "weird" to consider this type of litterature since gothic novels : it has much changed in its forms. Thus can we speak of a "genre" fantastique ? When there are novels (or romances), theater, poetry, paintings, sculpture we can consider as "fantastique". No, Fantastique or Weird are not "genre". They are rather a global signification : Allegories of a philosophical speech, "Fables" or "contes philosophiques". Yet, we the concept of "fable" we have something generic.

David Dunais Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi,

Hello, David!

This is a fine discussion from which I will learn much.

I am intruigued by your discrimination between genre and thematic content on technical grounds. I think that this has real validity and is the key to this discussion. I think perhaps we have been using the term "genre" inprecisel--that is, until your contributions.

However, I do have other points that I wish to raise throughout the discussion.

>
> What I was trying to point out, is that we may
> seriously speak about "genre" only when it has
> some formal caracteristics.

Such as verse, theatre, epistles, etc., if I understand you correctly. This make a lot of sense to me.

Therefore, assuming that we are limiting this discussion to the literary arena, the *largest* classification is genre, in the sense, above? Then an attribute of the genre might be thematic content, as well as possible other attributes at the same hierarchical level.

I would like to posit that maybe term "theme" used in this context (horror, fantasy, war, social manners, etc.) might be too loose a use of theme. Perhaps we could define theme with similar precision as we have "genre".

The first grab off the web, I got:

"a unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work; "it was the usual `boy gets girl' theme""

I once had a professor who maintained that if a theme cannot be expressed in a simple delcalrative sentence, it's probably not a theme, at all.

Perhaps "theme" is associated with the notion of "archetype"?

> Thematics cannot be
> enough.
> However, from E.T.A. Hoffmann to Smith through
> Balzac and Henri James, we have pretty different
> forms of "fantastique" or "weird" literrature. And
> still, we recognise they have something in common
> : A glogal signification, a global meaning. And
> since Matthew Lewis's Monk, fantastique points out
> that there's no meaning. It an existentialist
> litterature.

Please expand this idea that fantasy is "existential" in nature. If possible, please contrast it with an example of modern literature that is not existential.

> There is another argument against the use of
> "fantastique" or "weird" to consider this type of
> litterature since gothic novels : it has much
> changed in its forms. Thus can we speak of a
> "genre" fantastique ? When there are novels (or
> romances), theater, poetry, paintings, sculpture
> we can consider as "fantastique". No, Fantastique
> or Weird are not "genre". They are rather a global
> signification :

I agree with this reasoning. A global attribute of a genre, or something else. But are they actually thematic (fanatsy, horror, historical fiction, etc), or is "theme" a more narrow definition, since I would hold that "man's recognition of his own mortality" ss a theme that could be treated in both fantastic and non-fastastic literature. Therefore, what fantasy is (or horror, etc.) may actually be some component of setting: the universe in which the story takes place. E.g., the classic "where/when" of setting in definitely affected by fantasy. The time may be an unknown epoch; the place may be non-existent.

I'm just stabbing around here, and would truly like your opinion. I'm really intrigued that this might be laid out hierarchically, like class in object-oriented programming. Maybe this was done in some of my Literature classes, but I was asleep, or was trying to get a date with an attractive co-ed.

> Allegories of a philosophical
> speech, "Fables" or "contes philosophiques". Yet,
> we the concept of "fable" we have something
> generic.

This is a *fine* discussion!

Quote:

I think perhaps we have been using the term "genre" inprecisel--that is, until your contributions.

I think that I'll demur from the over-inclusive "we". The sense in which I used the term genre was quite evident: Horror fiction, fantasy fiction, realistic fiction, romance fiction, etc. If these aren't "genres", then tell me what they are, please, because these categories do seem to correspond to forms of literature as people conceive them. My post that originated this thread wasn't about defining the niceties of the term genre, though; for my purposes, the schema I outlined above was quite sufficient. As so often happens, however, the discussion has mutated in such a way that it no longer has anything to do with the concerns that prompted me to start this thread. That's fine, of course--hijackings occur all the time, and I'm as guilty of this as any--but this fact means I don't really have much to contribute to the current discussion. I'll simply repeat what I wrote in response to Mikey_C: The notion that there exists one category called "literature" and a series of sub-sets of literature denoted by their (alleged) dominant attributes is arbitrary. My entire point is that one can make a "genre" out of anything, including mainstream literature, as I indicated using the example of Dickens. I dislike the notion of norms and (ostensibly inferior) deviations from that norm in the arts, that's all.

Hi

Quote:

"hijackings occur all the time"

Yeah, it surely does. But I was interested to see that part of the discussion was due to different understandings of "genre".

Quote:

"The notion that there exists one category called "literature" and a series of sub-sets of literature denoted by their (alleged) dominant attributes is arbitrary".

I suppose you're partially right in your observation. And I would extend it to what is not "fantasy". Well, with limitations due to personal examples : I'm preparing a litterature degree to teach litterature at School, in France. Well, it's almost like there is nothing but french literature. It is not considered in its relations with german, english, american literature. Spain and Italy are considered for their influence upon XVI and XVII century. That's all. Well, it's the same phenomenon of discrimination than between "Grande Literature" and "genres". I'm afraid it is not specific to univeritarians. Narrowminds are well shared everywhere. Of course, it is a kind of a stupid.

Maybe there are historical periods which are favorables to a kind of "genre" (I mean specific forms illustrating/serving/"speaking" a specific theme) : Can't we find in arts throught history a kind of pendulum between gothic/baroco/romantic, extreme attitude and antic/classic/reasonable, "middle path" attitude.
So, yes, it is arbitrary, as history is arbitrary for us, coming after ;-)
The way to escape it ? Better cope with it (does "cope" exists in english ???)

Quote:

" I'm really intrigued that this might be laid out hierarchically, like class in object-oriented programming"

Well, I'm thinking about it since years, but I now believe it to be senseless (and I did something totally different, [indexfantastique.phpnet.org], but? yeah ! it's in french !). In fact, explosion - demultiplications - of the forms, "pulverisation" fo forms since XIX century made things impossible through a "pragmatic" approach : one cannot make the inventory of modern forms, they're too numerous. But I suppose we could imagine something as such with "traditionnal" forms. And for sure, keeping in mind this is just a comparative tool. I believe I have a strong argument for that : all literature was made considering former literature, consciously or not. All the writers up to the first quarter of XX century were latinists and a good number of them hellenists. I strongly suggest to read Horace's Ars Poetica to compare with the weird art.
Yes, of course it is a question of norm. I hate norms as constraints to mass mediocrity . OK. This being said, it might prove to be usefull as a comparing tool....

Quote:

"I would hold that "man's recognition of his own mortality" ss a theme that could be treated in both fantastic and non-fastastic literature. Therefore, what fantasy is (or horror, etc.) may actually be some component of setting: the universe in which the story takes place. "

You point it out ! The difference between the fantastic or not fantastic does not lay in the nature of the supernatural event described, but in its acceptability or non-acceptability in the mind of the reader, in the reader's universe (I'm not too sure its depending on the universe depicted in the story). Well, for example, in a traditionnal society, say India in contry side, if a ghost is awaking someone asleep by murmuring in his hear, well, there is a solution : "there is nothing impossible to God". But if in modern society, well, it would results most probably into insanity of the subject : for "such things cannot be". Fantastic lays in this impossibility which is and forces me to reconsider my conception of the world. IT build a tension between what is not-acceptable and what yet could be (modern trash literature is going further, forcing us to consider that what is non-acceptable is).
In fact, my conceptions about fantastique literature are quite close to S.T. Joshi's ideas about HPL. Yet, I don't say that ALL fantastic writers are atheists or believers. But fantastic literature is a product of modern atheist society. And it asks the existential question : "What the hell are we doing here ? Does I mean something in that mess". And first it tries to give a "romantic" answer : "theres are some mysterious "correspondances" linking things to things, there is a principle unifying the world" (sturm&drang,gothic novel,romantics up to Poe and Baudelaire, but still with the suspicion that it does not work). And second it states that "this underlying principle is evil", which is sliding to the concept of chaos (decadentism from Swinburne up to HPL and CAS(?)). And third it turn to absurd and non-sense, childs of chaos.
That was for :

Quote:

"Please expand this idea that fantasy is "existential" in nature. If possible, please contrast it with an example of modern literature that is not existential."

Well, I don't speak about "fantasy" but about "fantastique" (that's where the discutable word "genre" comes of some use). Maybe it is also existential in nature because it push asides limits of man (in connection with limits of writings), because its conquering its field upon impossibility, turning it to possible, but thus meeting its own limit : behind, there is still some "impossibility". It is a conscious construction upon vertigo of chaos, designed to show the chaos. Fantastique has a programme lying in impossibility.
Still, you're right, i'm afraid it does not make it different from the rest of modern literature. Well, if you put the big "L". And *That* is a sign that Fantastique has something to do with "Great Literature".
There is another strong sign : each major writer, "mainstream" writer of the XIX century commited himself more or less into Fantastique, Weird or "Fantasy" (I don't clearly kown what you mean with that ? REHoward, JRRT ? ) : Hawthorne, W. Irving, W. Scott, Byron, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, Stevenson, O. Wilde, H. James. Even Zola, Zola the naturalist. I think one cannot separate Fantastique/Weird Literature from "Literature"

Quote:

I suppose you're partially right in your observation.

Silly me--I think that I'm completely right, but I'm weary of arguing the point....

Good luck with your literature degree. I hope that you are familiar with, and fond of, the works of Julien Gracq. I've dropped his name in this forum a couple of times, to no response. That's a shame, as anyone who appreciates CAS's poetic prose would appreciate Gracq's magisterial prose-poetry, as well, even though Gracq does not write "weird fiction" (Uh-oh, it's that "genre" thing, or whatever it is, rearing its head again.... ;-) ).

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Quote:I think perhaps we have been using the term
> "genre" inprecisel--that is, until your
> contributions.
>
> I think that I'll demur from the over-inclusive
> "we". The sense in which I used the term genre was
> quite evident: Horror fiction, fantasy fiction,
> realistic fiction, romance fiction, etc. If these
> aren't "genres", then tell me what they are,
> please, because these categories do seem to
> correspond to forms of literature as people
> conceive them.

I believe that this is the conventional usage, against which you are railing.

Here's a conventional definition that I pulled off of the web:

GENRE: A type of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction. These general genres are often subdivided into more specific genres. For instance, precise examples of genres might include murder mysteries, western films, sonnets, lyric poetry, epics, tragedies, etc.

[guweb2.gonzaga.edu]

Seems like a good, broad-based, commonly held definition, doesn't it?

> My post that originated this thread
> wasn't about defining the niceties of the term
> genre, though; for my purposes, the schema I
> outlined above was quite sufficient. As so often
> happens, however, the discussion has mutated in
> such a way that it no longer has anything to do
> with the concerns that prompted me to start this
> thread. That's fine, of course--hijackings occur
> all the time, and I'm as guilty of this as
> any--but this fact means I don't really have much
> to contribute to the current discussion. I'll
> simply repeat what I wrote in response to Mikey_C:
> The notion that there exists one category called
> "literature" and a series of sub-sets of
> literature denoted by their (alleged) dominant
> attributes is arbitrary. My entire point is that
> one can make a "genre" out of anything, including
> mainstream literature, as I indicated using the
> example of Dickens.

Up to this point I can agree wholeheartedly. This seems emminiently sensible because works well to describe the actual logical delineations: poetry, prose, theatre as the 1st level of literature (itself a genre); horror, SF, war, etc., as sub-sets. It could go lower, perhaps: "feminist fantasy", or even "militant feminist Marxist fantasy".

I'll agree that it gets silly after a while, but there is value in categorization, if for no other reason than to ease the comparison of similar works. We won't likely try comparing Hemingway against Tolkein, unless we're out for something pretty unusual.

>I dislike the notion of norms
> and (ostensibly inferior) deviations from that
> norm in the arts, that's all.

But from here on, you are evidently flogging a dead horse, the saving grace being that it's *your own* dead horse, to do with as you wish.

This is like nothing so much as the dowager aunt who detests flatulence and therefore never mentions it, in hopes that somehow this will rid the world of it. Of course, it won't; it only "marginalizes" her--or rather, she willfully marginalizes herself.

But no doubt this is the way she likes it...