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William Hemmer
Joseph Cunningham
Intermediate Comp.
May 31, 2013
Importance of Genre
What is genre? It’s a simple question but can be very
difficult to answer.
It’s hard to answer because our brain
automatically thinks of movies and music having different
genres, which simply translates into categories. We can see
according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, genre is
defined as;
“a category of artistic, musical, or literary
composition characterized by a particular style, form, or
content.” Now try typing in the word genre to Google, and
we can see it primarily focuses on Merriam-Webster’s
meaning of genre. From the Ancient Greece to present day,
genre has transformed from a handful of classification to a
truckload of classifications while teaching humans the
importance of genre in our life.
While we use it to categorize subjects, where the hell
did we get such a weird word? “The term genre has a long
history, dating back to ancient Greeks and their study of
rhetorical structure in different categories of the epic,
lyric, and dramatic” (Carter, Nunan). Another article
mentions the same thing but also mentions how “Genre is a
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French word meaning ‘kind’, or ‘sort’” (Hutchinson Firm).
As we can see around the 4th century BC is when we started
to use the idea of genre. As we progressed in knowledge we
gave this term the name genre, which is the literary term
that we use to help us to categorize different types of
literature. With the expansion of technology and knowledge,
genre was not left behind.
As the world continued to develop so has the term
genre. Once used for literature now are used by a handful
of works used through out daily life. For example we now
have genres for music and movies. As seen in the Saga
Dictionary of Cultural Studies,
“A genre is a
classification of type or kind that when applied to
literature, television, or film give rise to such groups as
the romance novel, the western, the gangster movie, film
noir and so forth” (Barker). As we see from this quote
genre has started to expand farther outside than the
beginning with just literature.
As we see the most common
use for genre is in literature and movies, “However, in
more recent times, genre has been used as a system of
classification in art, literature and the media” (Mcleish).
Genre and the use with it in media seem unreasonable, but
the media is not the only shocking place genre lingers.
“More recently, however, it has been used in a range of
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educational contexts to refer not only to types of
literature texts, but also to the predictable and recurring
texts that are part of everyday life (e.g. work, study)”
(Carter, Nunan). Now media does not seem so out of place,
but what we must understand is that we use genre in our
habits of teaching, working, and studying to learn. As we
use genre for our teaching, working, and studying genre
becomes hard to understand the importance behind it.
Talking with classmates there has been a common
question asked about genre. Why must we write about genre
and why is it so important? In the HCC Writer’s Handbook
there is a chapter about genre written by Ava Arndt. Ava
mentions that genre matters because it helps us know what
to expect (1). There is nothing in Ava’s chapter about
genre and knowing what to expect that makes it hard to
understand. If we expected something and turns out it
wasn’t what we expected, we would be disappointed. Genre
also allows us to help sort and find what someone wants.
For example if John wants to watch a movie about action he
can search for movies about action and choose what he would
like. Also at the same moment he would have an idea of what
type of movie he would be watching. That same process would
be useful for literature, music, art, etc. Genre is also
import in the way that it informs the writer. “Genre also
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informs the artist” (Arndt). When she talks about this it’s
about genre setting guidelines for the artist to follow in
producing their work. As an example we have Joe who wants
to write a book about science fiction. With the help of
choosing that genre there are sets of guidelines that can
be followed to use the classification science fiction.
The
guidelines are not the law so you don’t have to follow the,
if the artist chooses not to.
“The most important point to remember if you want to
write a story in a particular genre, is that the
conventions can be broken. However, they sometimes act as a
useful guidelines to give your story a framework and to
help you get the plot moving” (Hutchinson Firm). As we see
again that genre matters in being useful to help us make a
work of art, but we also can see we can venture out of
those conventions and create something new. As we go back
into history we started with very simple genres such as
Romance and Drama. As we kept expanding those boundaries we
created more genres and within those genres we created sub
genres. For an example, “In comedy films, for instance,
there is the tragic comedy, the black comedy, the animated
comedy, and the mock documentary.” (Cunningham.)
With the work of making more genres and sub genres,
some of us took genre to a whole knew level. Instead of
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creating a new genre some choose to combine genres together
to make the process of choosing easier. “Since the mid1970s we have witnessed a notable collapse or blurring of
genre boundaries within cultural products that has been
hailed by some as the marker of postmodernism in film,
television and architecture”(Barker). With destruction of
some genres and the creation of new genres over the year,
we had artist create a new way of using genre. Blurring
genre boundaries is combining a set of genres to make a
mix. Blurring is one other possibility in using genre in
film, literature, music, art, etc.
What would genre be able to teach us from bending the
guidelines and creating new genres? Genre doesn’t teach us
to follow the guidelines. Genre just simply provides a
guideline for creations and will not kill us for breaking
those lines. As we become more familiar with different
genres we can actually become better people. What it can
teach us is a better way to compose our work. This allows
the creator to get across to our audience through a
mindset/mood for an impact on our audience. We don’t just
have to use genre to become better artist, but can use it
to make us better business leaders or managers. “Genre also
prepares you to function within, understand and interact
with a variety of forms. It can also teach you about
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appropriateness: when to use or seek particular kinds of
writing, music, film, or other artwork” (Arndt). This just
mentions again that genre is meant as a guideline to find
the most appropriate way to communicate through work. It
also states that it can teach us on how to perceive these
works of art through a new perspective. “You wouldn’t want
to use the novel genre for your Humanities Core essay
assignment, and you likely wouldn’t not use the academic
essay genre when writing to your best friend (or texting
them)” (Arndt). This is a straightforward and brilliant
example on what genre can teach us.
From the conception of the idea of genre to the
creation of many genres we must look back and appreciate
the progress. Genre has made categorizing our works of art
easier while provided guidelines to continue to make works
of art. Not only has genre been useful in creation, but
also it allows ourselves to take advantage of a knowledge
that can progress ourselves in a workforce or just in
personal accomplishment.
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Works cited
Arndt, Ava. "Genre." Ch 16 Genre. HCC Writer's Handbook,
n.d. Web. 21 May 2013.
<https://eee.uci.edu/programs/humcore/Student/WritersH
andbook/Ch16_Genre_Arndt.html>.
Barker, Chris. The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies.
2004. Credo Reference. Web. 21 May 2013.
Carter, Ronald. Nunan, David. The Cambridge Guide to
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. 2001.
Credo Reference. Web. 21 May 2013.
Cunningham, Joseph. “Genre.” Intermediate Comp. University
of Cincinnati. Cincinnati. 7 January 2013.
Presentation.
"Genre About Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun,
Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed on One Page." MerriamWebster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 30 May 2013.
Hutchinson Firm. The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
with Atlas and Weather guide. Abington: Helicon,
2010. Credo Reference. Web. 15 May 2013.
Mcleish, Kenneth. Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought.
London: Bloomsbury Publications, 1993. N. pag. Credo
Reference. Web. 18 May 2013.