1. Introduction to English Literature (ii) Genre analysis Asist. Andreea Şerban

2. Why label texts? To distinguish typical features To relate them to other similar text(s) DIFFICULTY – evolving types

3. Main literary genres Poetry Prose Drama  Exemplary cases; conventions

4. Possible classifications According to: – Formal arrangement (esp. poetry; e.g. sonnets) – Theme/ topic (e.g. war, love, crime, etc.) – Mood or anticipated response (e.g. pastoral, elegy, tragedy (catharsis)) – Occasion (e.g. chronicle plays, masques, etc.) – Mode of address (public speeches, letters, odes, dialogues, etc.)

5. Functions of genre Framework for a text’s intelligibility (procedures for reading) Reflects human experience (specific genres & specific experiences; e.g. comedies) Promotional device (social circulation; readers’ tastes) Way of controlling markets & audiences (create new ‘tastes’; e.g. Hollywood films)

6. Prose Fable Fairy-tale Short story Novel Parody Pastiche

7. Fables Anthropomorphism (animal characters // humans) Everyday problems Surprise ending Usually, the moral explicitly stated humorous & satirical

8. Aesop’s The Fox and the Crow One day, while he was out walking, a fox saw a crow swoop down and pick up a piece of cheese in its beak. The crow then flapped its wings and flew up onto a high branch in a nearby tree. “Man, that's a tasty looking piece of cheese,” said the fox to himself. “Hey, I should have that cheese. I’m the fox and I deserve it,” he said. “I’m a sly, smooth talking fox too. I’ll have it soon enough.“ …………………………………………………………………………… Flattered by all the compliments from the fox, and wanting to be called Queen of all Birds, the crow lifted her head and began to sing. But the moment she opened her mouth the cheese fell out, and the quick fox jumped and caught it before it hit the ground. “Yes!!!” yelled the fox, holding the cheese up over his head as he did his victory dance. “I got what I wanted.” The fox looked up at the sad crow in the tree. “To show you I’m not a really bad guy I’ll give you some advice for the future” he said to the crow. “Never trust a flatterer.”

9. Fairy-tales Beginning and ending formulae Good vs. bad characters Royal figures Magic & magic numbers Helper (often an animal) Problem to be solved Good always triumphs

10. Grimms’ The Story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Once upon a time, long, long ago a king and queen ruled over a distant land. The queen was kind and lovely and all the people of the realm adored her. The only sadness in the queen's life was that she wished for a child but did not have one. One winter day, the queen was doing needle work while gazing out her ebony window at the new fallen snow. A bird flew by the window startling the queen and she pricked her finger. A single drop of blood fell on the snow outside her window. As she looked at the blood on the snow she said to herself, "Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony." ………………………………………………………………………….. Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrived at the wedding, and her heart filled with the deepest of dread when she realized the truth - the evil queen was banished from the land forever and the prince and Snow White lived happily ever after.

11. Short stories Short & concise Single event/ effect in focus – Limited number of characters – Limited time span Exposition (characters, setting, theme) Ending (denouement, open, surprise)

12. J. Joyce’s “The Dead” (Dubliners) (i) LILY, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come. It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan's annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of Julia's choir, any of Kate's pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of Mary Jane's pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. (........)

13. J. Joyce’s “The Dead” (Dubliners) (ii) (………) A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

14. Novels Long narrative Many characters Long time span (years, a lifetime, generations) Several themes Several plots

15. Ch. Dickens’ Great Expectations (i) My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. (……….)

16. Ch. Dickens’ Great Expectations (ii) (………..) "We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench. "And will continue friends apart," said Estella. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

17. Parodies Rely heavily on intertextuality Require ability to recognize target Satirize/ mock previously written texts Imitate characteristics of another text  humorous or exaggerated effect Disrupt conventions, being highly creative (bring forward new ideas)

18. Pastiches Prominent in popular culture Light-hearted tongue-in- cheek imitation of a famous writer’s work (// parody) – borrowed themes & style Usually: – no originality (or value) – respectful even if jocular

19. The odd ones out… Poems Rhyme Meter (& message) Theme Stylistics (syntax, foregrounding, deviation, metaphorical language, etc.)

20. W. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.