NP : Was " genres are literature too" thread

[Prashant Kumar]

Seems as though the distinction being made between "genre" fiction and
literary fiction is one of lowbrow vs. highbrow, implicitly, at least in
much academic discourse (though there is quite a bit of work on sci-fi). Of
course, the two aren't completely disjoint, and anything in both categories
(I think LoTR is a good example here) probably wouldn't have that quality
that makes academics chomp on the bit.

What's the sociology on the literary-genre divide? And, while we're at it,
since literary is obviously a genre, what defines it? I've heard tell that
"literary" is more a function of the author coming through the text, though
suppose one could spin that any which way.

P.

On 15 October 2012 04:58, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:

> Question:  Cannot all or most of the literary theories, that have been
> used and may still be used today, be applied just a well (maybe better)  to
> genre fiction as to literary fiction?  Is this perhaps an important
> unifying feature of all fiction regardless of how high or low?
>
> Maybe related, the last chapter of Terry Eagleton's latest--The Event of
> Literature--takes up the question of what do literary theories all have in
> common?  His candidate for the honor is the Unconscious.  All but one
> theory by his lights consider what is written as a Strategy for dealing
> with the Unconscious or the otherwise hidden.  He talks a lot about Freud's
> ideas on repression, etc. So literature--in theory--is the repressed,
> acceptable version of what's somehow down deep and hidden.  This is a very
> inadequate paraphrase, but it might serve the purpose of suggesting that
> possibly  literary and genre fiction are sisters under the skin.
>
> The colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin--Kipling
>
> P
>
>
>
>
> On 10/14/2012 12:05 PM, alice wellintown wrote:
>
>> And the abstract unifying agent in GR works because, though
>> implausible, it is convincing. So, Wood has no serious objection to
>> Pynchon's talking dogs or clocks, but to his rhetorical faliure, that
>> is, P fails not because verisimilitude is essential or even prefered,
>> but because P fails to convince us that all these characters and plots
>> are plausible under the unifying agent. The abstraction pulls the
>> characters on and off the stages like a puppet parade in a space
>> opera.
>>
>>
>
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