The Literary Essay in Genre Theory
Keywords:
literary essay, genre theory, conditionalist poetics, literatinessAbstract
The present article seeks to characterize the literary essay applying tools provided by Genre Theory. Firstly, it places the essay as part of the conditionalist poetics postulated by Genette in Fiction and Diction, which allows for the inclusion of non-fictional prose in the realm of literature. Secondly, the theoretical constructions that have dealt with the essay as a genre are revised. These constructions oscillate between the consideration of the essay as a “weak genre” or even as a “bad genre” (mixed genre, stateless genre, pre-genre, anti-genre) and its categorization as a “strong genre” or fourth mode alongside the epic, lyric and dramatic modes which constitute the repertory of essencialist or constitutivist poetics. Finally, attention is drawn to the failure of theory in apprehending the essay as a genre and also to the challenge implied in displacing genre issues in favour of a theory of literariness.
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