The Genre of the Letter to the Romans

Abstract

Abstract With that quotation I began my book A Preface to Mark, and with it, or, at least, with the question that it implies, I would begin any serious study of any piece of literature—particularly the literature of another age and culture. Lewis was posing the question of what critics of the written word like to refer to as “genre.” Why is genre important? Briefly, because it is a tool of meaning. When we look at posters outside a cinema and see one of them advertising “romantic comedy” while another offers “a tense thriller,” we expect the movies in question to be somewhat different from each other, and we are generally right. If we know the genre of a work of art, we have an important clue as to what it is supposed to be about, and the manner in which we are expected to receive it. Of course it is true (as critics and commentators unwilling to pursue seriously the question of genre never tire of saying) that the church kept and treasured Romans because of its distinctive qualities, rather than its conformity to any particular rhetorical or literary canon.