Plato excluded lyric poetry from his original classification of literature, labeling it a non-mimetic mode that did not fit his rigid three-part system of dramatic dialogue, pure narrative, and epic. This exclusion set the stage for centuries of debate regarding what art could legitimately be called, as the philosopher sought to divide the world into categories that served a specific moral and intellectual purpose. Aristotle later revised this framework by eliminating the pure narrative mode and introducing two new criteria to distinguish genres: the object to be imitated, which could be superior or inferior, and the medium of presentation, such as words, gestures, or verse. These adjustments created a four-type system of classical genres including tragedy, epic, comedy, and parody, establishing a hierarchy that would dominate Western thought for millennia. The distinction between art that made an intellectual effort to render visible the universal essence of things and that which merely consisted of mechanical copying of particular appearances became the defining struggle of artistic theory. This hierarchy was most powerful in France between the 17th and 19th centuries, where the Académie held a central role in academic art and enforced a strict order of genres. History painting, including narrative, religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects, sat at the top of this pyramid, while still life and animal painting were relegated to the bottom. Samuel van Hoogstraten, a Dutch theorist, famously described landscape painters as the common footmen in the Army of Art, highlighting the social stratification inherent in these classifications. Idealism was privileged over realism in line with Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy, creating a system where the value of a work was determined by its adherence to these rigid, socially agreed-upon conventions.
The Evolution of Literary Taxonomy
Gérard Genette, a French literary theorist and author of The Architext, described how the integration of lyric poetry into the classical system replaced the removed pure narrative mode to become the third leg of a new tripartite system. This new system, consisting of lyrical, epical, and dramatic dialogue, came to dominate all the literary theory of German romanticism and extended well beyond that period. Genette reflected upon these various systems, comparing them to the original tripartite arrangement and noting that its structure was somewhat superior to most of those that have come after. He argued that more ambitious efforts to expand the tripartite system resulted in new taxonomic systems of increasing complexity, yet these systems were fundamentally flawed by their inclusive and hierarchical taxonomy. These flaws caused the whole game to a standstill and produced an impasse, as each new attempt to categorize literature immediately brought the game to a halt. The earliest recorded systems of genre in Western history can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, yet the concept has evolved into an intangible taxonomy that implies a concept of containment or that an idea will be stable forever. In popular fiction, which is especially divided by genres, genre fiction is the more usual term, distinguishing it from the broader categories of prose or poetry. A genre such as satire might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre but as a mixture of genres, showing how loosely genres are defined. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups, and they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed. This dynamic nature allows genres to proliferate and develop beyond Aristotle's classifications in response to changes in audiences and creators.
Carolyn Miller's work has been especially important for the perspective that understands genres as types of actions rather than types or forms of texts. Drawing on Lloyd Bitzer's concept of rhetorical situation, Miller reasons that recurring rhetorical problems tend to elicit recurring responses, and these recurring responses become typified, or socially constructed as recognizable types. She argues that these typified rhetorical actions are properly understood as genres, shifting the focus from the text itself to the social context in which it is used. Building off of Miller, Charles Bazerman and Clay Spinuzzi have argued that genres understood as actions derive their meaning from other genres, or other actions. Bazerman therefore proposes that we analyze genres in terms of genre systems, while Spinuzzi prefers the closely related concept of genre ecologies. This tradition has had implications for the teaching of writing in American colleges and universities, where David Russell has proposed that standard English composition courses are ill-suited to teach the genres that students will write in other contexts across the university and beyond. Elizabeth Wardle contends that standard composition courses do teach genres, but that these are inauthentic mutt genres that are often of little use outside composition courses. A text's genre may be determined by its linguistic function, formal traits, textual organization, and the relation of communicative situation to formal and organizational traits of the text. Genre is effective as a tool in rhetoric because it allows a speaker to set the context for a rhetorical discussion, and Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi suggest that rhetorical genres may be assigned based on careful analysis of the subject matter and consideration of the audience. This approach treats genres as channels through which social actions are enacted, rather than static containers for content.
The Hierarchy of Visual Arts
Genre painting is a term for paintings where the main subject features human figures to whom no specific identity attaches, meaning the figures are not portraits, characters from a story, or allegorical personifications. These works usually deal with subjects drawn from everyday life and are distinguished from staffage, which refers to incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting. The concept of the hierarchy of genres was a powerful one in artistic theory, especially between the 17th and 19th centuries, and it was strongest in France. The genres, which were mainly applied to painting, in hierarchical order included history painting, portrait painting, genre painting, landscape painting, animal painting, and still life. The hierarchy was based on a distinction between art that made an intellectual effort to render visible the universal essence of things and that which merely consisted of mechanical copying of particular appearances. Idealism was privileged over realism in line with Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy, creating a system where the value of a work was determined by its adherence to these rigid, socially agreed-upon conventions. Samuel van Hoogstraten, a Dutch theorist, famously described landscape painters as the common footmen in the Army of Art, highlighting the social stratification inherent in these classifications. The term genre is also used to refer to specialized types of art such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings, or groups of artworks with other particular features in terms of subject-matter, style or iconography. Visual arts have meanings that overlap rather confusingly, yet the hierarchy remained a dominant force in academic art for centuries.
The Fluidity of Music and Film
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions, yet it is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. There are numerous genres in Western classical music and popular music, as well as musical theatre and the music of non-Western cultures. The term is now perhaps over-used to describe relatively small differences in musical style in modern rock music, that also may reflect sociological differences in their audiences. Timothy Laurie suggests that in the context of rock and pop music studies, the appeal of genre criticism is that it makes narratives out of musical worlds that often seem to lack them. Music can be divided into different genres in several ways, and the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often arbitrary and controversial, and some genres may overlap. Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language. Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, and that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can also differentiate between genres. The basic genres of film can be regarded as drama, in the feature film and most cartoons, and documentary, with most dramatic feature films, especially from Hollywood falling fairly comfortably into one of a long list of film genres such as the Western, war film, horror film, romantic comedy film, musical, and crime film. Many of these genres have a number of subgenres, for example by setting or subject, or a distinctive national style, for example in the Indian Bollywood musical.
The Digital Age of Microgenres
A microgenre is a highly specialized, narrow classification of a cultural practice, and the term has come into usage in the 21st century, most commonly referring to music. It is also associated with the hyper-specific categories used in recommendations for television shows and movies on digital streaming platforms such as Netflix, and is sometimes used more broadly by scholars analyzing niche forms in other periods and other media. The vastly increased output of popular culture in the age of electronic media encourages dividing cultural products by genre to simplify the search for products by consumers, a trend the Internet has only intensified. The term may be used in categorizing web pages, like news page and fan page, with both very different layout, audience, and intention. Some search engines like Vivísimo try to group found web pages into automated categories in an attempt to show various genres the search hits might fit. Genre, and numerous minutely divided subgenres, affect popular culture very significantly, not least as they are used to classify it for publicity purposes. The concept of genre is often applied, sometimes rather loosely, to other media with an artistic element, such as video game genres. This proliferation of categories allows for a more granular understanding of cultural products, but it also raises questions about the stability and utility of these classifications in an era of rapid technological change. The ability to categorize and recategorize content in real-time has transformed the way audiences interact with media, creating a dynamic ecosystem where genres evolve as quickly as the platforms that host them.
The Audience and the Expectation
Although genres are not always precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. The classification properties of genre can attract or repel potential users depending on the individual's understanding of a genre. Genre creates an expectation in that expectation is met or not, and many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Inversely, audiences may call out for change in an antecedent genre and create an entirely new genre. This dynamic relationship between creator and consumer drives the evolution of genres, as the audience's response to a genre can lead to its transformation or the creation of a new one. The concept of genre is often applied, sometimes rather loosely, to other media with an artistic element, such as video game genres, and it affects popular culture very significantly. The term may be used in categorizing web pages, like news page and fan page, with both very different layout, audience, and intention. Some search engines like Vivísimo try to group found web pages into automated categories in an attempt to show various genres the search hits might fit. The ability to categorize and recategorize content in real-time has transformed the way audiences interact with media, creating a dynamic ecosystem where genres evolve as quickly as the platforms that host them. This process of categorization and recategorization is essential for the survival and relevance of genres in a rapidly changing cultural landscape.