Reply to Dominick LaCapra and Richard Harvey Brown

Abstract

I APPRECIATE comments of Dominick LaCapra and I welcome his invitation to expand upon some of statements made in History and Genre. Mr. LaCapra is quite right in noting that I conceive of genre as a classification system and as a discursive institution. I would add, however, that I conceive of both as expressed in writing. Writing about genre-about classification systems, about institutions and transformations-presupposes writing in a genre or genres. discussions such as mine and his fall within genres of literary theory, of criticism, of dialogues. Such genres undergo changes no less than epic, tragedy, or ode. writing-of whatever kind-is historical in sense that at a particular time certain works are identified as belonging together by an author or critic. And this grouping is made in order to relate such writing to literary, social, and other ends. When such ends become unimportant, writing of a particular genre diminishes or is discontinued while other genres assume importance. Thus in Renaissance serious objections arise to including De Rerum Natura in genre poetry, but during Restoration and eighteenth century Lucretius's georgic poem becomes once again an important literary genre, and thus is included in comprehensive genre poetry. Mr. LaCapra recognizes that my use of genre stresses the interchange between past and present as well as interaction between recurrence and change. In this respect, my own essay is directed at certain shortcomings of critical writings on genre. I take as my example Jacques Derrida's questioning of usefulness of naming and interrelating kinds of writing in Law of Genre. It is a questioning that seems not to realize that an individual text such as Derrida's own Law of Genre is generically related to literary theory, literary criticism, and fictive narrative. A study of genre need not disregard analyses of individual texts; on contrary, my view of genre makes interpretation of texts more precise and their historical interrelations more apparent. The mixture of genres, incorporation, merging, and transformation of genres, may appear a monstrosity to some critics and theorists and an impasse to others, but