I CALL THIS PAPER History and Genre though history is a genre and genre has a history. It is this interweaving between history and genre that I seek to describe. In The Political Unconscious Fredric Jameson wrote that genre criticism has been thoroughly discredited by modern literary theory and practice.' There are at least three reasons for this. First, the very notion that texts compose classes has been questioned. Secondly, the assumption that members of a genre share a common trait or traits has been questioned, and thirdly, the function of a genre as an interpretative guide has been questioned.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Ralph Cohen (1986) studied this question.