The Life Cycles of Genres

Abstract

Critics disagree even about the kind of thing a “genre” is. For instance, are genres defined mostly by textual form or by social reception? Are they permanent categories, century-sized historical constructs, or short-lived generational phenomena? This essay tries to address some of these persistent debates with recent quantitative methods. It shows, first, that social and textual definitions of genre can align fairly well: genres defined by the judgments of specific readers can also be recognized by textual clues. Building on that success, it investigates controversies about the typical lifespan of a genre. It turns out that different models of a genre are often compatible, even if defined by the judgments of readers in different periods. For instance, the models that can recognize nineteenth-century “detective stories” and “scientific romance” also recognize twentieth century “crime fiction” and “science fiction.” This evidence suggests that—while genres are contingent historical constructs—many of them are more durable than literary historians have been willing to claim. But this is not universally true. The Gothic, for instance, is just as loose and mutable as critics have typically believed.