The Origin of Genres

Author(s): Tzvetan Todorov and Richard M. Berrong

Source: New Literary History, Vol. 8, No. 1, Readers and Spectators: Some Views and Reviews (
Autumn, 1976), pp. 159-170
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 The Origin of Genres
Tzvetan Todorov

TO PERSISTin discussinggenrestodaymightseem like an idle if not

obviously anachronisticpastime. Everyoneknows thattheyexisted in
the good old days of the classics-ballads, odes, sonnets, tragedies,
and comedies-but today? Even the genres of the nineteenth century
(though not altogethergenres to our way of thinking)-poetry, the novel-
seem to be disintegratingin our era, at least in the literature"that counts."
As Maurice Blanchot wrote of one modem writer,Hermann Broch: "Like
many other authors of our era, he experienced that impetuous impulse of
literaturethat no longer tolerates the distinction of genres and wants to
shatterthe limits."
This mightbe the very sign of the authenticallymodem writer-one who
no longer respects the separation of genres. Such an affirmation,whose
transformations can be followedfromthe Romanticcrisis at the beginning of
the nineteenth century(although the German Romantics were themselves
great builders of generic systems), has in our time found one of its most
brilliantspokesmen in Maurice Blanchot. Blanchothas said, more forcefully
than anyone else, thatwhich othersdared not thinkor did not know how to
formulate:thattoday there is no intermediarybetween the particular,indi-
vidual work and literatureas a whole, the ultimategenre; there is not, be-
cause the evolution of modern literatureconsists preciselyin making of each
work a questioning of the verybeing ofliterature.Let us rereadthis particu-
larly eloquent page fromLe livrea venir(Paris, 1959):
Thebookaloneis important, as it is, farfromgenres,outsiderubrics-prose,poetry,
the novel,the first-person
account-underwhichit refusesto be arrangedand to
whichitdeniesthepowerto fixitsplaceand to determine itsform.A bookno longer
belongstoa genre;everybookarisesfromliterature alone,as ifthelatterpossessedin
advance,in itsgenerality,
thesecretsand theformulas thataloneallowbookrealityto
be givento thatwhichis written.Everything would happen as if,genreshaving
dissipated,literature
alonewas affirmed, aloneshinedin themysterious lightthatit
spreadsand thateveryliterary creationsends back to it whilemultiplying it-as if
therewerean "essence"ofliterature. (pp. 136,243-44)

Blanchot's sentences seem to have the power of evidence on their side.

One mightquestion only one point of this argument:the privilege accorded
to our now. We know that every interpretationof historyis made starting

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160 NEWLITERARYHISTORY

fromthe present moment,just as the interpretationof space is constructed

starting from here, and that of others, from I. Nevertheless, when the
I-here-nowconstellationreceives so exceptional a location-the end point of
all history--onemightask ifthe egocentricillusion does not have something
to do with it (an illusion which, in the end, complements that which
Paulhan called the "illusion of the explorer").
For that matter,in reading those very writingsof Blanchot in which this
disappearance of genres is affirmed,one sees at work categories whose re-
semblance to genericdistinctionsis difficultto deny. Thus one chapterof Le
livred veniris devoted to the private diary, another to propheticspeech. In
speaking of Broch again ("who no longer tolerates the distinction of
genres"), Blanchot tells us that he "trusts to all the modes of expression-
narrative,lyric,and discursive" (p. 141). More importantly,this entirebook
rests on the distinctionbetween two fundamentalmodes, if not precisely
genres, the narrativeand the novel, the formercharacterizedby the persis-
tent search for its own point of origin, which the lattererases and hides.
Therefore,it is not "genres" that have disappeared, but the genres of the
past, and theyhave been replaced by others.One no longer speaks of poetry
and prose, of first-personaccounts and fiction,but of the novel and the
narrative[le rdcit],of the narrative[le narratif]and the discursive, of the
dialogue and the diary.
The factthata work "disobeys" its genredoes not make thelatternonexis-
tent; it is temptingto say that quite the contraryis true. And fora twofold
reason. First,because transgression,in orderto exist as such, requires a law
thatwill, ofcourse, be transgressed.One could go further:the normbecomes
visible-lives--only by its transgressions.This is, forthatmatter,what Blan-
chot himselfwrites:

If it is truethatJoyceshattersthe novelisticformby rendering it aberrant,

he also
makesone suspectthatit now livesonlyby itsalterations. It woulddevelop,notby
engendering monsters, formlessworkswithoutlaw andwithoutrigor,butbyprovok-
ing onlyexceptionsto itself,whichestablisha law and at the same timesuppress
to believethat,eachtime,in theseexceptional
it.... It is necessary workswherea limit
is reached,itis theexceptionalonethatrevealstous this"law" whoseuncommon and
necessarydeviationit also constitutes. Everythingwould happenas if,in novelistic
literature, andperhapsin allliterature,we couldneverrecognizetheruleexceptbythe
exceptionthatabolishesit:therule,ormorespecifically thecenterofwhichthecertain
workis theuncertain affirmation,thealreadydestructive manifestation,themomen-
taryand soon negativepresence.(pp. 133-34)

But thereis more. Not only does the work, forall its being an exception,
necessarilypresuppose a rule; but this work also, as soon as it is recognized
in its exceptional status, becomes in its turn,thanks to successfulsales and
criticalattention,a rule. The prose poem may have seemed like an exception
in the time of Aloysius Bertrandand Baudelaire, but who today would dare
to write a poem in alexandrines,with rhymedverse-unless as a new trans-
gression of a new norm?Have not Joyce'sexceptional puns become the rule
fora certainkind of modern literature?Does not the novel, no matterhow

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THE ORIGINOF GENRES 161

"new" it may be, continue to exercise its influence on the works that are
being written?
By defending the legitimacyof a study of genres, we have found, in the
process, an answer to the question implicitlyraised by the title"the originof
genres." From where do genres come? Why, quite simply, from other
genres. A new genre is always the transformationof one or several old
genres: by inversion, by displacement, by combination. Today's "text"
(which is also a genre, in one of its meanings) owes as much to the "poetry"
as to the "novel" ofthe nineteenthcentury,just as the "comedie larmoyante"
combined the traitsof the comedy and the tragedyof the seventeenthcen-
tury. There has never been a literaturewithout genres; it is a system in
continual transformation,and the question of origins cannot be disas-
sociated, historically,fromthe field of the genres themselves. Chronologi-
cally, there is no "before genres." Did not Saussure say, on a similar occa-
sion: "The problem of the origin of the language is none other than the
problem of its transformations"?Or Humboldt before him: "We call a lan-
guage originalonly because we are not familiarwith the previous statesof its
constitutiveelements."
The question oforiginthatI would like to raise is not, however,ofa histori-
cal nature,but ratherof a systematicone: both seem to me equally legitimate
and equally necessary. At issue is not what preceded genres in time but,
rather,what presides at the birthof a genre, at any time. Or more precisely,
do thereexist in language (since we are dealing with the genres of discourse)
formsthat,while announcing genres, are not yet genres themselves?But in
order to answer these questions, we must firstask: what exactlyis a genre?

II

Initially,the answer seems obvious: genres are classes of texts.But such a

definitiononly partiallydisguises its tautologicalcharacterbehind the plu-
ralityof the termsin question. Genres are classes; the literaryis the textual.
Rather than multiplyingterms, we should question the content of these
concepts.
We can begin with the conceptof text,or, or suggestyetanothersynonym,
discourse. One mightsay thata discourse is a series of sentences. And this is
where the firstmisunderstandingoccurs. We too oftenforgetan elementary
truthregardingall activitiesof knowledge: thatthe point of view chosen by
the observer redelimits and redefines his object. Thus with language we
forgetthatthe linguist's point of view sketches an object at the heart of the
language materialthatis peculiar to him, an object thatwill not be the same
if the point of view is changed, even if the materialremains the same.
The sentence is an entityof language, and of the linguist.The sentence is a
possible combinationofwords, not a concretespeech act. The same sentence
can be spoken in differentcircumstances;it will not change identityforthe
linguist even if, as a result of altered circumstances,it changes meaning.

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162 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

A discourse is not made of sentences, but of spoken sentences, or, to be

more concise, of enunciations. The interpretationof the enunciation is de-
termined,in part, by the sentence thatone speaks, as well as by the speech
act itself.A speech act includes a locutor who speaks, an allocutorwho is
addressed, a time and a place, a discourse that precedes and follows it: in
short,a speech-actcontext.In otherwords, a discourse is always and neces-
sarily a speech act.1
Let us now turnto the othertermin the expression "class oftexts":class. It
raises a problem only by its simplicity. One can always find a property
common to two texts,and thereforeput them togetherin one class. But is
thereany point in calling the resultof such a union a "genre"? I thinkthatit
would be in accord with the currentusage of the word and at the same time
provide a convenient and operant notion if we agreed to call "genres" only
those classes of texts that have been perceived as such in the course of
history.2The accounts of this perception are found most often in the dis-
course on genres (the metadiscursivediscourse) and, in a sporadic and indi-
rectfashion, in the textsthemselves.
The historicalexistence of genres is indicated by the discourse on genres;
that does not mean, however, that genres are only metadiscursive, and no
longerdiscursive,notions. To take an example, we can attestto the historical
existence of the genre "tragedy" in France during the seventeenthcentury
thanks to the discourse on tragedy(which begins with the existence of the
word tragedyitself);but thatis not to say thatthetragediesthemselvesdo not
have common featuresand thatit would not be possible to give an otherthan
historical description of them. As we know, every class of objects can be
converted into a series of properties by a passage fromextension to com-
prehension. The study of genres, which has as its point of departure the
accounts of the existence of genres, must have the establishmentof these
propertiesas its final objective.3
Genres are thereforeunits thatone can describe fromtwo differentpoints
of view, that of empirical observation and that of abstract analysis. In a
society, the recurrenceof certain discursive properties is institutionalized,
and individual texts are produced and perceived in relation to the norm
constitutedby this codification. A genre, literaryor otherwise, is nothing
but this codificationof discursive properties.
Such a definitionin turnrequires an explicationbecause of the two terms
thatcompose it: discursivepropertyand codification.Discursivepropertyis an
expression that I understand in an inclusive sense. Everyone knows that,
even if one limitsoneselfto only literarygenres, one can make any aspect of
the discourse obligatory.The song is contrastedwith the poem by phonetic
traits;the sonnet differsfromthe ballad in its phonology; tragedyis opposed
to comedy by thematic elements; the suspense narrative differsfromthe
classic detective novel by the fittingtogetherof its plot; finally,autobiog-
raphy is distinguished fromthe novel in that the author claims to recount
facts rather than constructfictions. To rearrange these differenttypes of
properties(though this classificationis of littleinterestto my subject), one
could use the terminologyof the semiotician Charles Morris, adapting it to

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THE ORIGIN OF GENRES 163

our purpose: these properties arise either fromthe semantic aspect of the
text,or fromits syntacticaspect (the relationofthe parts among themselves),
or fromthe pragmaticaspect (the relationbetween the users), or finallyfrom
the verbal aspect (a termabsent in Morris, and which we can use to include
everythingthatinvolves the materialityof the signs). The differencebetween
one speech act and another,and thus between one genreand another,can be
situated at any one of these levels of the discourse.
In the past, one could attempt to distinguish, indeed to oppose, the
"natural" formsof poetry(forexample, the lyric,the epic, the dramatic)and
its conventionalforms,such as the sonnet, the ballad, or the ode. One must
tryto understandon what level such an affirmationstillhas meaning. Either
the lyric,the epic, etc. are universal categories, and thereforepart of dis-
course (which does not preclude theircomplexity,theirbeing, forexample,
semantic,pragmatic,and verbal all at once), but then theybelong to general
poetics, and not (specifically)to the theoryof genres: theycharacterizethe
possibilities of discourse,and not the "realities" of discourses.Or else, such
termsreferto historicalphenomena; thus the epic is thatwhich is incarnated
by Homer's Iliad. In this case, it is certainlya question of genres; but, at the
discursive level, these genres are not qualitativelydifferentfroma genrelike
the sonnet-which itselfis also based on thematic,verbal, and other con-
straints.All one can say is that certain discursive properties are more in-
terestingthan others.I personallyam more interestedby the constraintsthat
bear on the pragmaticaspect of textsthan by theirphonological structure.
It is because genres exist as an institutionthattheyfunctionas "horizons
of expectation" forreaders, and as "models of writing" forauthors. These,
indeed, are the two aspects of the historicalexistence of genres (or, if one
prefers,of this metadiscursivediscourse thathas genres as its object). On the
one hand, authors write as a functionof (which does not mean in accord
with) the existinggeneric system,which theycan demonstrateboth within
the textand outside it, or even, in a way, between the two: on the cover of
the book. This demonstrationis obviously not the only way of proving the
existenceof models of writing.On the otherhand, readers read as a function
of the genericsystem,with which theyare familiarthroughcriticism,school,
the distributionsystemforthe book, or simple hearsay; it is not necessary
that they be conscious of this system,however.
Genres communicatewith the society in which theyflourishby means of
institutionalization.It is also throughthis process thattheymost interestthe
anthropologistor the historian. Indeed, the formerremembersabout a sys-
temof genres above all the categoriesthatdifferentiate it fromthe systemsof
neighboringpeoples; these categoriesare correlatedwith the otherelements
of the same culture.The same is true forthe historian: each era has its own
system of genres, which is in relation with the dominant ideology, etc.
Genres, like any otherinstitution,reveal the constitutivetraitsof the society
to which they belong.
The necessity of institutionalizationmakes it possible to answer another
question that one is tempted to raise: even if one concedes that all genres
result fromspeech acts, how does one explain why all speech acts do not

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164 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

produce literarygenres?The answer is thata societychooses and codifiesthe

acts thatmost closely correspondto its ideology; this is why the existenceof
certain genres in a society and their absence in another reveal a central
ideology, and enable us to establish it with considerable certainty.It is not
chance thatthe epic is possible duringone era, the novel duringanother(the
individual hero of the latter being opposed to the collective hero of the
former):each of these choices depends upon the ideological frameworkin
which it operates.
The place ofthe notion ofgenrecould also be specifiedby two symmetrical
distinctions.Since genre is the historicallyattestedcodificationof discursive
properties,one could conceive the absence of each of the two componentsof
this definition:historicalrealityand discursive reality.In the lattercase, one
would be dealing with categories of general poetics that, according to the
levels of the text,are called modes, registers,styles,or even forms,manners,
etc. The "elevated diction" or the "first-personnarrative"is certainlya dis-
cursive reality;but neithercan be fixedin a single momentin time: both are
always possible. In the formercase, however, thereis a question of notions
that belong to literaryhistoryas understood in the broad sense, such as
current,school, movement,or, in anothersense of the word, "style." There
is no doubt thatthe literarymovementof symbolismexisted historically,but
thatdoes not prove thatthe works of the authorswho claimed to be partof it
possess (other than unimportant) discursive properties in common; the
union may well be organized around friendships,common manifestations,
etc. Let us agree that such is the case; we would then have an example of a
historical phenomenon that has no precise discursive reality-which does
not make it inappropriate for study, though it does distinguish it from
genres and, even more,frommodes, etc. Genre is the point of intersectionof
general poetics and literaryhistory;in this sense, it is a privileged object,
which is enough to make it the principal subject of literarystudies.
Such is the global frameworkof a studyof genres.4It is now time to return
to the initialquestion concerningthe systematicoriginof genres. In a way, it
has already received an answer since, as I have said, genres arise like any
speech act fromthe codificationof discursiveproperties.We would therefore
have to reformulateour question as follows: is there any differenceat all
between (literary)genres and other speech acts? Praying is a speech act;
prayer is a genre (which may or may not be literary).The differenceis
minimal. But, to take another example, recountinga storyis a speech act,
and the novel is a genre in which somethingis certainlyrecounted;however,
the distance between the two is great. Finally, a third case: the ballad [la
ballade] is certainlya literarygenre, but "to stroll" ["(se) ballader"] is not
necessarily a verbal activity;there thereforeexist genres that do not derive
froma simpler speech act.
On the whole, threepossibilities can be imagined: eitherthe genre (such
as the ballad) codifies discursive properties,just as any other speech act
would; or the genre coincides with a speech act that also has a nonliterary
existence,such as prayer;or, finally,it derives froma speech act via a certain
number of transformations or amplifications,as would be the case with the

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THE ORIGINOF GENRES 165

novel, beginning with the action of recounting.Actually,only this thirdcase

presents a new situation. In the firsttwo, genre is in no way differentfrom
other acts. Here, on the other hand, one does not startdirectlywith discur-
sive properties, but with other, already constitutedspeech acts; one goes
froma simple act to a complex act. This is also the only case that merits a
treatmentapart fromotherverbal actions. Our question about the origin of
genres thereforebecomes: what are the transformationsthat certain speech
acts undergo in order to produce certainliterarygenres?

III

I will tryto answer this question by examining some concretecases. This

choice of procedure already implies that,just as genre is not in itselfeithera
purelydiscursive or a purelyhistoricalfact,so the question of the systematic
origin of genres cannot be maintained in pure abstraction.Even if the order
of this presentationleads us, forreasons of clarity,fromthe simple to the
complex, the order of discovery itselffollows the opposite path: beginning
with observed genres, one tries to find theirdiscursive germ.
My firstexample is taken froma culturedifferent fromour own, thatof the
Luba, who live in Zaire; I choose it because of its relative simplicity.5
"Inviting" is one of the most common speech acts. One could restrictthe
number of formsused and therebyobtain a ritualinvitation,like thatwhich
is practicedin our own culturein certainsolemn cases. But among the Luba
there also exists a minor literarygenre, derived from the invitation, and
which is practiced even outside its original context. In one example, "I"
invites his brother-in-lawto come into the house. This explicitformulaap-
pears only in the last verses of the invitation, however (it is a textwith a
verse rhythm).The preceding twenty-eightverses contain a narrative in
which it is "I" who goes to his brother-in-law'shouse, and the latterwho
invites him. Here is the beginning of this narrative:

I wentto mybrother-in-law's,
My brother-in-law said: hello,
And I said: helloto you also,
A fewmomentslater,he said:
Come intothehouse,etc.
The narrativedoes not stop there; it leads us to a new episode, where "I"
requests that someone join him during his meal. This episode is repeated
twice:

I said: mybrother-in-law,
Call yourchildren,
Let themeat thispastrywithme.
Brother-in-lawsaid: well!
The childrenhave alreadyeaten,
Theyhave alreadygoneto sleep.

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166 NEWLITERARY
HISTORY

I said: well,
So thatis how it is withyou,brother-in-law!
Call yourbig dog.
Brother-in-lawsaid: well!
The dog has alreadyeaten,
He has alreadygoneto sleep,etc.

There followsa transitioncomposed of several proverbs,and at the end, we

get to the directinvitation,this timeaddressed by "I" to his brother-in-law.
Without even enteringinto the details, one can affirmthat several trans-
formationsoccur between the verbal act of invitationand the literarygenre
"invitation" (of which the preceding textis an example): (1) An inversionof
the roles of addressor and addressee: "I" invites the brother-in-law,the
brother-in-lawinvites "I." (2) A narrativization, or more exactlythe embed-
ding of the verbal act of writingin thatof recounting:in place of an invita-
tion, we get the narrativeof an invitation.(3) A specification:one is not only
invited, but invited to eat a pastry;not only does one accept the invitation,
but one hopes to have company. (4) A repetitionof the same narrativesitua-
tion, but which contains (5) a variationin the actors who assume the same
role: firstthe children,then the dog.
Of course, this enumerationis not exhaustive,but it can alreadygive us an
idea of the natureof the transformations thatthe speech act undergoes. They
are divided into two groups that may be called (a) internal,in which the
derivation occurs withinthe initial speech act, as is the case in transforma-
tions 1, 3, 4, and 5; and (b) external,in which the firstspeech act is combined
with a second one, accordingto a given hierarchicalrelation,as is the case in
transformation 2, in which "inviting" is embedded in "recounting."
Let us now take a second example, still fromthe same Luba culture.We
will begin with an even more essential speech act: naming, attributinga
name. In our own culture,the meaning of anthroponymsis most oftenfor-
gotten; proper names signifyby evoking a contextor by association, not by
the meaning of the morphemes of which they are composed. This is also
possible among the Luba; but along with such names lacking in meaning,
one also finds others whose meaning is quite contemporaryand whose at-
tribution is motivated by this meaning. For example (the tones are not
marked): Lonji means "ferocity";Mukunza means "light-skinned"; Ngenyi
means "intelligence." In addition to these more or less officialnames, the
individual can also receive more or less stable surnames,whose functioncan
be praise or simply identificationby the characteristictraitsof the individu-
al, such as his profession.The elaboration of these surnames already brings
them closer to literaryforms.Here are examples of one of the formsof these
surnames, the makumbu,or names of praise: Cipanda wa nshindumeenu,
"beam against which one leans"; Dileji dya kwikishamunnuya,"shadow in
which one takes refuge"; Kasunyi kaciinyinkelende,"ax that does not fear
thorns."
It becomes apparent that surnames can be considered as an expansion of
names. In both cases, the beings are described such as they are or such as

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THE ORIGINOF GENRES 167

theyshouldbe. Fromthesyntactic pointofview,one goes fromtheisolated

name(nounornominalizedadjective)toa phrasecomposedofa nameplusa
relativethatqualifiesit. Semantically, one passes fromnames takenin a
literalsense to metaphors.Thesesurnames,justlikethenamesthemselves,
can also allude to currentproverbsor sayings.
Finally,there exists among the Luba a well-established-and well-
studied6-literary genrecalledthekasala.Thesearesongsofvariabledimen-
sions(sometimes morethan800verseslong)that""evokethedifferent people
and eventsof a clan, exaltits deceased and/orlivingmemberswithgreat
praises,and declaimtheirgreatactsand deeds."7Thisis, then,onceagaina
case of a mixtureof characteristics and praises.On theone hand,theper-
sons' genealogiesare indicated,situatingthemeach in relationto therest.
On theother,notablequalitiesare attributed to them,whichofteninclude
surnames,likethosethatwe havejustobserved.Furthermore, thebardcalls
on thepeopleand commandsthemto behavein an admirablemanner.Each
of theseproceduresis repeatedmanytimes.As becomesapparent,all the
characteristictraitsof thekasala were potentially containedin the proper
name,and evenmorein theintermediate formrepresented bythesurname.
Let us now returnto the morefamiliarfieldof the genresof Western
literatureto attemptto findout ifwe can observein themtransformations
similarto thosethatcharacterize theLuba genres.
As a firstexample,I will choose thegenrethatI alreadyhad occasionto
describemyselfin TheFantastic.If mydescriptionis correct,thisgenreis
characterized by thehesitationthatthereaderis invitedto experiencewith
regardto thenaturalor supernatural explanationoftheeventsdepicted.To
be moreprecise,theworlddescribedis certainly ours,withitsnaturallaws
(we are notdealing withthe marvelous), but at theheartofthisuniversean
eventoccursforwhichitis difficult tofinda naturalexplanation.Thatwhich
thegenreencodesis therefore a pragmatic property ofthediscursivesitua-
tion:namely,theattitudeofthereaderas it is prescribedby thebook (and
whichtheindividualreadercan adoptor not).This roleofthereaderdoes
not,mostoften,remainimplicit,butinsteadis represented in thetextitself,
in thetraitsofa witness-character; theidentification ofthereaderwiththis
character is facilitated
by the attribution of thefunctionof narrator to the
latter.The use ofthefirst-person pronoun"I" allowsthereaderto identify
withthe narrator, and thusalso withthe witness-character who hesitates
whenit comesto givingan explanationfortheeventsthathave occurred.
For simplicity'ssake, let us leave aside his tripartite
identification be-
tweenimplicit reader,narrator,and witness-character;letus agreethatit is a
questionhereofan attitudeoftherepresented narrator.A sentencein one of
themostexemplary fantastic
novels,Potocki'sSaragossaManuscript, sumsup
thissituationemblematically: "I almostcame to believethatsome demons
had animatedbodies ofhangedmenin orderto trickme." The ambiguity of
thesituationis evident:thesupernatural eventis designatedby thesubor-
dinateclause; themainclause expressesthenarrator's adhesionto reality,
but an adhesionmodulatedby theapproximation. This mainclausethere-
foreimplies the intrinsicnonverisimilitude of that which follows,and

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168 NEW LITERARY HISTORY

therebyconstitutesthe "natural" and "reasonable" frameworkin which the

narratorwishes to maintain himself(and, of course, us).
The speech act found at the base of the fantasticis thereforea complex act,
even ifwe simplifythe situationsomewhat. Its formulacould be rewrittenas
follows:"I" (a pronoun whose functionwe have explained) + verb ofattitude
(such as "believe," "think," etc.) + modalization of thisverb in the direction
of uncertainty(a modalization that follows two principal routes: the verb
tense,which will be thepast, thusallowing fortheestablishmentofa distance
between narratorand character;and the adverbs of manner, like "almost,"
"perhaps," "probably," etc.) + subordinate clause describinga supernatural
event.
In this abstractand reduced form,the "fantastic"speech act can of course
be found outside literature.It is that of a person reportingan event that
exceeds the frameworkof natural explanations when this person does not
want to abandon the frameworkitselfand thus informsus of his uncertainty
(a situation thatis perhaps rare in our day, but neverthelessperfectlyreal).
The identityof the genre is entirelydeterminedby thatof the speech act; the
two, however, are not identical. This kernel is enriched by a series of
amplificationsin the rhetoricalsense: (1) a narrativization:a situation must
be created in which the narratorwill end up formulatingour emblem-
sentence,or one of its synonyms;(2) a gradation,or at least an irreversibility
in the appearance of the supernatural; (3) a thematicproliferation:certain
themes, such as sexual perversionsor states of mind borderingon madness,
will be preferredover others; (4) a verbal representationthatwill exploit (for
example) the uncertaintythat one can experience in choosing between the
literaland the figurativemeaning of an expression. These are all themes and
devices thatI have attemptedto describe in my book.
From the point of view of origin, there is thereforeno differencein the
nature of the fantasticgenre and those that we encountered in oral Luba
literature,even iftheresubsist differencesof degree (i.e., ofcomplexity).The
verbal act expressing "fantastic" hesitation is less common than thatwhich
consists of naming or inviting;nevertheless,it is no less a verbal act than the
others. The transformationsthat it undergoes in order to become a literary
genre are perhaps more numerous and varied than those with which Luba
literaturefamiliarizedus, but they remain of the same nature.
The autobiographyis another genre peculiar to our society that has been
described with sufficientprecisionto enable us to examine it fromour pres-
ent perspective.8To put it simply, autobiography is defined by two iden-
tities: thatof the author with the narrator,and that of the narratorwith the
main character.This second identityis obvious; it is the one summarized by
the prefixauto- and thatallows one to distinguishautobiographyfrombiog-
raphy or memoirs. The firstone is more subtle; it separates autobiography
(as well as biography and memoirs) from the novel, even if the latter is
impregnatedwith elements drawn fromthe life of the author. In short,this
identity separates all the "referential"or "historical" genres from all the
"fictional" genres. The realityof the referentis clearlyindicated, since it is a

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THE ORIGINOF GENRES 169

question of the author of the book himself,a person registeredin the legal
records of his birthplace.
We are thus concerned with a speech act thatcodifies both semanticprop-
erties (which is what the narrator-character identityimplies) and pragmatic
properties(this by the author-narrator identity--one claims to tell the truth
and not a fiction). In this form, the speech act is extremelywidespread
outside literature:it is practicedeverytime one tells a storyabout oneself. It
is interestingto note that Lejeune's and Bruss's studies, on which I am
relyinghere fora genre description,have in factestablished the identityof
the speech act which is only its kernel.This object displacement is revealing.
The identityof the genrecomes fromthe speech act thatis at its base: to tella
storyabout oneself,which does not mean thatthis initialcontract,in orderto
become a literarygenre,does not have to undergo numerous transformations
(I leave it to the specialists of the genre to establish them).
What about still more complex genres such as the novel? I do not dare to
begin formulatingthe series of transformations thatpreside at its birth;but,
thoughit probablybetraysmyoptimism,I will say here thatthe process does
not seem to me qualitativelydifferent.The difficulty in studyingthe "origin
of the novel" (as understood in this sense) would resultonly fromthe infinite
combination of speech acts each in the other.At the verytop of the pyramid
there would be the fictionalcontract(thus the codification of a pragmatic
property),which in turn would require the alternationof descriptive and
narrativeelements, i.e., describing immobilized states and actions unfold-
ing in time (it should be noted thatthese two speech acts are coordinatedone
with the other,and not embedded, as in the preceding cases). To this would
be added constraintsregardingthe verbal aspect of the text(the alternation
of the narrator'sdiscourse and thatof the characters)and its semantic aspect
(the personal life, preferablyin the great frescoesof the era), and so forth.
The rapid enumeration which I have just made is in no way different,
except in its brevityand schematicnature,fromthe studies thathave already
been devoted to this genre. And yet it is. There was lacking this
perspective-a minuscule displacement, or perhaps an optical illusion?-
which makes it possible to see thatthereis no abyss between literatureand
that which is not literature;that literarygenres have their origin, quite
simply, in human discourse.

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHESCIENTIFIQUE,

PARIS
(Translated by Richard M. Berrong)

NOTES

1 Thismannerofposingtheproblemsis in no wayoriginal(thedifference between

sentenceand enunciationgoes back at leastto thedistinction
betweengrammatical
meaning and historicalmeaning made by F. A. Wolf at the beginningof the
nineteenth I am onlyreviewingtheevidence,evenifitis sometimes
century); forgot-

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170 NEWLITERARYHISTORY

ten. For more complete discussions using modem-day terminology,one should con-
sult the writingsof Austin, Strawson,Searle, or my presentationof this problematicin
"L'Vnonciation," Langages,17 (1970), 3-11, and, in collaborationwith Oswald Ducrot,
in our Dictionnaireencyclopydique des sciencesdu langage(Paris: Seuil, 1972). See also a
more recentwork, Dan Sperber's "Rudiments de rh6toriquecognitive," Pottique,23
(1975).
2 This affirmationhas its corollary:the diminished importancethatI now accord to
the idea of theoreticgenre, or type. I in no way renounce the necessity of analyzing
genres in abstractcategories. But the study of the possible types now seems to me to
be a reformulationof the general theoryof discourse (or of general poetics): the latter
entirelycontains the former.Historicalgenres are theoreticalgenres; but insofaras the
reverse is not necessarilytrue,the separate notion of theoreticalgenre seems, forme,
to lose its interest-unless in the frameworkof a heuristicstrategy,as in the examples
presented by ChristineBrooke-Rose.
3 Overall, I am more optimisticthan the authors of two recentstudies, which have
led me to clarifymy own views: Dan Ben-Amos, "Analytical Categories and Ethnic
Genres," Genre, 2 (1969), 275-301; and Philippe Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique
(Paris: Seuil, 1975), pp. 311-41. Lejeune and Ben-Amos are willing to see an unbridge-
able abyss between the abstractand the concrete,between genresas theyhave existed
historicallyand categorial analysis to which theycan be subjected today.
4 The idea that genres should be related to speech acts is formulatedin K. Stierle,
"L'histoire comme exemple, l'exemple comme histoire," Podtique,10 (1972), 176-88;
Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique, pp. 17-49; E. Bruss, "L'autobiographie considere
comme acte litt&raire,"Podtique, 17 (1974), 14-26. Genres are examined from an
ethnological point of view in P. Smith's "Des genres et des hommes," Poetique, 19
(1975), 294-312;and froma historicalone in "Autobiographie et histoirelitt&raire,"the
concluding chapter of Lejeune's Le pacte autobiographique.
5 I owe all my informationconcerningLuba literarygenres and theirverbal context
to the kindness of Ms. Clmentine Falk-Nzuji.
6 Cf. P. Mufuta Kabemba, Le chant Kasala des Lubas (Paris, 1968); C. Falk-Nzuji,
Kasala, chant heroique luba (Lubumbashi, 1974). For analogous data concerning
Rwanda, see Smith, "Des genres et des hommes," esp. pp. 297-98.
7 Fafk-Nzuji,p. 21.
8 I am thinking in particular of the previously cited studies: Lejeune's Le pacte
autobiographiqueand Bruss's "L'autobiographie consid&r6ecomme acte litteraire."

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