Genre as Criticism

Locating Genre in the web of critical methodologies

Genre as Criticism

1. Form Criticism

2. Structural Criticism

3. Rhetorical Criticism

Genre vs Form

First, some background...

Genre vs Form

Genres cannot be defined exclusively, and not even primarily, by characteristics of  form. ...

~ Erhard Blum, Formgeschichte -- A Misleading Category? Some Critical Remarks, p.33

Genre vs Form

Moreover, there is a threat of losing a simple elementary distinction: the distinction between the concrete, individual, particular text and the abstract, transindividual pattern of text formation, that is, the ‘genre.’

Genre vs Structure

In literary theory, structuralist criticism relates literary texts to a larger structure, which may be a particular genre, a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal narrative structure, or a system of recurrent patterns or motifs.

Genre vs Rhetoric

Presidential address at SBL 1968

Seen as the start of Rhetorical Criticism

Entitled "Form Criticism and Beyond"

Muilenburg's Address

Genre vs Rhetoric

A responsible and proper articulation of the words in their linguistic patterns and in their precise formulations will reveal to us the texture and fabric of the writer's thought, not only what it is that he thinks, but as he thinks it

Muilenburg's Address

~ Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, p.26

Genre vs Rhetoric

1. Rhetoric signifies the art of composition
2. The method involves close reading of texts
3. The purpose is to discover authorial intent

Three Emphases of Rhetoric Criticism

~ Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, p.26

Genre as

Classification

Genre as

Classification

A literary genre exists for itself alone as little as does an individual work of art

~ H. R. Jauss, Toward an aesthetic of reception, p.105

Genre as

Classification

Genre helps us to describe texts by singling out textual components worthy of attention

Genre as

Classification

Genre directs the ways in which we write, read, and interpret texts

Genre as

Classification

Genre prescribes artistic practices

Genre as

Classification

Genres help us to evaluate literary works

Genre as Method

Bad News

Good News

1. Köstenberger (John)
2. Bauckham (2 Peter)