Tzvetan Todorov and Richard M. Berrong - The Origin of Genres - 1976 PDF

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
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468619
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The Origin of Genres
Tzvetan Todorov
TO PERSIST in discussing genres today might seem like an idle if not

obviously anachronistic pastime. Everyone knows that they existed 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 altogether genres to our way of thinking)-poetry, the novel-
seem to be disintegrating in 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
literature that no longer tolerates the distinction of genres and wants to
shatter the limits."
This might be the very sign of the authentically modem writer-one who
no longer respects the separation of genres. Such an affirmation, whose
transformations can be followed from the Romantic crisis 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
brilliant spokesmen in Maurice Blanchot. Blanchot has said, more forcefully
than anyone else, that which others dared not think or did not know how to
formulate: that today there is no intermediary between the particular, indi-
vidual work and literature as a whole, the ultimate genre; there is not, be-
cause the evolution of modern literature consists precisely in making of each
work a questioning of the very being of literature. Let us reread this particu-
larly eloquent page from Le livre a venir (Paris, 1959):
The book alone is important, as it is, far from genres, outside rubrics-prose, poetry,
the novel, the first-person account-under which it refuses to be arranged and to
which it denies the power to fix its place and to determine its form. A book no longer
belongs to a genre; every book arises from literature alone, as if the latter possessed in
advance, in its generality, the secrets and the formulas that alone allow book reality to
be given to that which is written. Everything would happen as if, genres having
dissipated, literature alone was affirmed, alone shined in the mysterious light that it
spreads and that every literary creation sends back to it while multiplying it-as if
there were an "essence" of literature. (pp. 136, 243-44)
Blanchot's sentences seem to have the power of evidence on their side.

One might question only one point of this argument: the privilege accorded
to our now. We know that every interpretation of history is made starting
160 NEW LITERARY HISTORY
from the present moment, ju

starting from here, and th
I-here-now constellation rece
all history--one might ask if
to do with it (an illusion w
Paulhan called the "illusion o
For that matter, in reading
disappearance of genres is af
semblance to generic distinct
livre d venir is devoted to th
speaking of Broch again ("
genres"), Blanchot tells us t
narrative, lyric, and discursi
rests on the distinction betw
genres, the narrative and the
tent search for its own poin
Therefore, it is not "genres"
past, and they have been rep
and prose, of first-person ac
narrative [le rdcit], of the n
dialogue and the diary.
The fact that a work "disobe
tent; it is tempting to say th
reason. First, because transgr
that will, of course, be trans
visible-lives--only by its tran
chot himself writes:
If it is true that Joyce shatters the novelistic form by rendering it aberrant, he also
makes one suspect that it now lives only by its alterations. It would develop, not by
engendering monsters, formless works without law and without rigor, but by provok-
ing only exceptions to itself, which establish a law and at the same time suppress
it.... It is necessary to believe that, each time, in these exceptional works where a limit
is reached, it is the exception alone that reveals to us this "law" whose uncommon and
necessary deviation it also constitutes. Everything would happen as if, in novelistic
literature, and perhaps in all literature, we could never recognize the rule except by the
exception that abolishes it: the rule, or more specifically the center of which the certain
work is the uncertain affirmation, the already destructive manifestation, the momen-
tary and soon negative presence. (pp. 133-34)
But there is more. Not only does the work, for all its being an exception,
necessarily presuppose a rule; but this work also, as soon as it is recognized
in its exceptional status, becomes in its turn, thanks to successful sales and
critical attention, a rule. The prose poem may have seemed like an exception
in the time of Aloysius Bertrand and Baudelaire, but who today would dare
to write a poem in alexandrines, with rhymed verse-unless as a new trans-
gression of a new norm? Have not Joyce's exceptional puns become the rule
for a certain kind of modern literature? Does not the novel, no matter how
THE ORIGIN OF GENRES 161
"new" it may be, continue to

being written?
By defending the legitimac
process, an answer to the que
genres." From where do g
genres. A new genre is alw
genres: by inversion, by d
(which is also a genre, in on
as to the "novel" of the ninet
combined the traits of the c
tury. There has never been
continual transformation,
sociated, historically, from
cally, there is no "before ge
sion: "The problem of the
problem of its transformati
guage original only because w
constitutive elements."
The question of origin that I would like to raise is not, however, of a histor
cal nature, but rather of a systematic one: both seem to me equally legitima
and equally necessary. At issue is not what preceded genres in time bu
rather, what presides at the birth of a genre, at any time. Or more precisel
do there exist in language (since we are dealing with the genres of discourse
forms that, while announcing genres, are not yet genres themselves? But
order to answer these questions, we must first ask: what exactly is a genre?
II
Initially, the answer seems obvious: genres are classes of texts. But such a
definition only partially disguises its tautological character behind the plu-
rality of the terms in question. Genres are classes; the literary is the textual.
Rather than multiplying terms, we should question the content of these
concepts.
We can begin with the concept of text, or, or suggest yet another synonym,
discourse. One might say that a discourse is a series of sentences. And this is
where the first misunderstanding occurs. We too often forget an elementary
truth regarding all activities of knowledge: that the point of view chosen by
the observer redelimits and redefines his object. Thus with language we
forget that the linguist's point of view sketches an object at the heart of the
language material that is peculiar to him, an object that will not be the same
if the point of view is changed, even if the material remains the same.
The sentence is an entity of language, and of the linguist. The sentence is a
possible combination of words, not a concrete speech act. The same sentence
can be spoken in different circumstances; it will not change identity for the
linguist even if, as a result of altered circumstances, it changes meaning.
A discourse is not made of s

more concise, of enunciations
termined, in part, by the sen
act itself. A speech act inclu
addressed, a time and a plac
short, a speech-act context. I
sarily a speech act.1
Let us now turn to the other
raises a problem only by its
common to two texts, and th
there any point in calling the
would be in accord with the c
provide a convenient and ope
those classes of texts that h
history.2 The accounts of thi
course on genres (the metadis
rect fashion, in the texts them
The historical existence of g
that does not mean, however
longer discursive, notions. To
existence of the genre "trage
thanks to the discourse on tr
word tragedy itself); but that
have common features and th
historical description of the
converted a series of pro into
prehension. The study of ge
accounts of the existence of
properties as its final objectiv
Genres are therefore units th
of view, that of empirical o
society, the recurrence of ce
and individual texts are pro
constituted by this codificati
but this codification of discu
Such a definition in turn req
that compose it: discursive pro
expression that I understand
even if one limits oneself to o
the discourse obligatory. The
traits; the sonnet differs from
to comedy by thematic eleme
classic detective novel by the
raphy is distinguished from
facts rather than construct f
properties (though this classi
could use the terminology of
our purpose: these properties

text, or from its syntactic aspe
or from the pragmatic aspect (
the verbal aspect (a term abse
everything that involves the m
one speech act and another, an
situated at any one of these le
In the past, one could attem
"natural" forms of poetry (for
its conventional forms, such as
try to understand on what lev
the lyric, the epic, etc. are un
course (which does not preclud
semantic, pragmatic, and verb
poetics, and not (specifically)
possibilities of discourse, and
terms refer to historical phen
by Homer's Iliad. In this case, i
discursive level, these genres a
the sonnet-which itself is also based on thematic, verbal, and other con-
straints. All one can say is that certain discursive properties are more in-
teresting than others. I personally am more interested by the constraints that
bear on the pragmatic aspect of texts than by their phonological structure.
It is because genres exist as an institution that they function as "horizons
of expectation" for readers, and as "models of writing" for authors. These,
indeed, are the two aspects of the historical existence of genres (or, if one
prefers, of this metadiscursive discourse that has genres as its object). On the
one hand, authors write as a function of (which does not mean in accord
with) the existing generic system, which they can demonstrate both within
the text and outside it, or even, in a way, between the two: on the cover of
the book. This demonstration is obviously not the only way of proving the
existence of models of writing. On the other hand, readers read as a function
of the generic system, with which they are familiar through criticism, school,
the distribution system for the book, or simple hearsay; it is not necessary
that they be conscious of this system, however.
Genres communicate with the society in which they flourish by means of
institutionalization. It is also through this process that they most interest the
anthropologist or the historian. Indeed, the former remembers about a sys-
tem of genres above all the categories that differentiate it from the systems of
neighboring peoples; these categories are correlated with the other elements
of the same culture. The same is true for the historian: each era has its own
system of genres, which is in relation with the dominant ideology, etc.
Genres, like any other institution, reveal the constitutive traits of the society
to which they belong.
The necessity of institutionalization makes it possible to answer another
question that one is tempted to raise: even if one concedes that all genres
result from speech acts, how does one explain why all speech acts do not
produce literary genres? The

acts that most closely corres
certain genres in a society
ideology, and enable us to e
chance that the epic is possi
individual hero of the latt
former): each of these choic
which it operates.
The place of the notion of g
distinctions. Since genre is t
properties, one could conceiv
this definition: historical re
would be dealing with categ
levels of the text, are called
etc. The "elevated diction" o
cursive reality; but neither
always possible. In the form
that belong to literary his
current, school, movement,
is no doubt that the literary
that does not prove that the
possess (other than unimp
union may well be organize
etc. Let us agree that such i
historical phenomenon tha
not make it inappropriate
genres and, even more, from
general poetics and literary
which is enough to make it
Such is the global framewor
to the initial question concer
has already received an an
speech act from the codifica
have to reformulate our que
between (literary) genres
prayer is a genre (which m
minimal. But, to take anoth
and the novel is a genre in w
the distance between the t
ballade] is certainly a literar
necessarily a verbal activity
from a simpler speech act.
On the whole, three possib
as the ballad) codifies disc
would; or the genre coincid
existence, such as prayer; or
number of transformations
novel, beginning with the a

presents a new situation. In
other acts. Here, on the oth
sive properties, but with
from a simple act to a com
treatment apart from othe
genres therefore becomes:
acts undergo in order to p
III
I will try to answer this q

choice of procedure already
purely discursive or a pure
origin of genres cannot be
of this presentation leads u
complex, the order of disc
with observed genres, one
My first example is taken f
Luba, who live in Zaire;
"Inviting" is one of the m
number of forms used and
is practiced in our own cul
there also exists a minor li
which is practiced even o
invites his brother-in-law
pears only in the last vers
verse rhythm). The prece
which it is "I" who goes to
invites him. Here is the be
I went to my brother-
My brother-in-law sai
And I said: hello to yo
A few moments later, he said:
Come into the house, etc.
The narrative does 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: my brother-in-law,
Call your children,
Let them eat this pastry with me.
Brother-in-law said: well!
The children have already eaten,
They have already gone to sleep.
I said: well,
So that is how it is with you, brother-in-law!
Call your big dog.
Brother-in-law said: well!
The dog has already eaten,
He has already gone to sleep, etc.
There follows a transition composed of several proverbs, and at the end, w

get to the direct invitation, this time addressed by "I" to his brother-in-law.
Without even entering into the details, one can affirm that several trans-
formations occur between the verbal act of invitation and the literary genr
"invitation" (of which the preceding text is an example): (1) An inversion o
the roles of addressor and addressee: "I" invites the brother-in-law, the
brother-in-law invites "I." (2) A narrativization, or more exactly the embed-
ding of the verbal act of writing in that of recounting: in place of an invita-
tion, we get the narrative of 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 repetition of the same narrative situa-
tion, but which contains (5) a variation in the actors who assume the same
role: first the children, then the dog.
Of course, this enumeration is not exhaustive, but it can already give us an
idea of the nature of the transformations that the speech act undergoes. They
are divided into two groups that may be called (a) internal, in which the
derivation occurs within the initial speech act, as is the case in transforma-
tions 1, 3, 4, and 5; and (b) external, in which the first speech act is combined
with a second one, according to a given hierarchical relation, as is the case in
transformation 2, in which "inviting" is embedded in "recounting."
Let us now take a second example, still from the same Luba culture. We
will begin with an even more essential speech act: naming, attributing a
name. In our own culture, the meaning of anthroponyms is most often for-
gotten; proper names signify by evoking a context or 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 contemporary and 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 official names, the
individual can also receive more or less stable surnames, whose function can
be praise or simply identification by the characteristic traits of the individu-
al, such as his profession. The elaboration of these surnames already brings
them closer to literary forms. Here are examples of one of the forms of these
surnames, the makumbu, or names of praise: Cipanda wa nshindumeenu,
"beam against which one leans"; Dileji dya kwikisha munnuya, "shadow in
which one takes refuge"; Kasunyi kaciinyi nkelende, "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
they should be. From the syn

name (noun or nominalized ad
relative that qualifies it. Se
literal sense to metaphors. Th
can also allude to current pro
Finally, there exists amon
studied6-literary genre called
sions (sometimes more than 8
and events of a clan, exalt its
praises, and declaim their gre
case of a mixture of characte
sons' genealogies are indicated
On the other, notable qualitie
surnames, like those that we
on the people and commands
of these procedures is repea
characteristic traits of the k
name, and even more in the i
Let us now return to the mo
literature to attempt to find
similar to those that characte
As a first example, I will ch
describe myself in The Fanta
characterized by the hesitatio
regard to the natural or supe
be more precise, the world d
(we are not dealing with the m
event occurs for which it is d
the genre encodes is therefor
tion: namely, the attitude of
which the individual reader c
not, most often, remain impli
in the traits of a witness-chara
character is facilitated by the
latter. The use of the first-p
with the narrator, and thus also with the witness-character who hesitates
when it comes to giving an explanation for the events that have occurred.
For simplicity's sake, let us leave aside his tripartite identification be-
tween implicit reader, narrator, and witness-character; let us agree that it is a
question here of an attitude of the represented narrator. A sentence in one of
the most exemplary fantastic novels, Potocki's Saragossa Manuscript, sums up
this situation emblematically: "I almost came to believe that some demons
had animated bodies of hanged men in order to trick me." The ambiguity of
the situation is evident: the supernatural event is designated by the subor-
dinate clause; the main clause expresses the narrator's adhesion to reality,
but an adhesion modulated by the approximation. This main clause there-
fore implies the intrinsic nonverisimilitude of that which follows, and
thereby constitutes the "natu

narrator wishes to maintain h
The speech act found at the b
even if we simplify the situat
follows: "I" (a pronoun whose
(such as "believe," "think," et
of uncertainty (a modalizatio
tense, which will be the past,
between narrator and character; and the adverbs of manner, like "almost,"
"perhaps," "probably," etc.) + subordinate clause describing a supernatural
event.
In this abstract and reduced form, the "fantastic" speech act can of cour
be found outside literature. It is that of a person reporting an event tha
exceeds the framework of natural explanations when this person does no
want to abandon the framework itself and thus informs us of his uncertain
(a situation that is perhaps rare in our day, but nevertheless perfectly r
The identity of the genre is entirely determined by that of the speech act;
two, however, are not identical. This kernel is enriched by a series
amplifications in the rhetorical sense: (1) a narrativization: a situation m
be created in which the narrator will end up formulating our emble
sentence, or one of its synonyms; (2) a gradation, or at least an irreversibi
in the appearance of the supernatural; (3) a thematic proliferation: certai
themes, such as sexual perversions or states of mind bordering on madne
will be preferred over others; (4) a verbal representation that will exploit
example) the uncertainty that one can experience in choosing between th
literal and the figurative meaning of an expression. These are all themes a
devices that I have attempted to describe in my book.
From the point of view of origin, there is therefore no difference in
nature of the fantastic genre and those that we encountered in oral Luba
literature, even if there subsist differences of degree (i.e., of complexity).
verbal act expressing "fantastic" hesitation is less common than that whi
consists of naming or inviting; nevertheless, it is no less a verbal act than
others. The transformations that it undergoes in order to become a liter
genre are perhaps more numerous and varied than those with which Lub
literature familiarized us, but they remain of the same nature.
The autobiography is another genre peculiar to our society that has be
described with sufficient precision to enable us to examine it from our pr
ent perspective.8 To put it simply, autobiography is defined by two iden
tities: that of the author with the narrator, and that of the narrator with th
main character. This second identity is obvious; it is the one summarized
the prefix auto- and that allows one to distinguish autobiography from bi
raphy or memoirs. The first one is more subtle; it separates autobiograp
(as well as biography and memoirs) from the novel, even if the latte
impregnated with elements drawn from the life of the author. In short, t
identity separates all the "referential" or "historical" genres from all th
"fictional" genres. The reality of the referent is clearly indicated, since it
question of the author of the

records of his birthplace.
We are thus concerned with a
erties (which is what the narr
properties (this by the author-
and not a fiction). In this fo
outside literature: it is practic
is interesting to note that L
relying here for a genre descr
the speech act which is only it
The identity of the genre come
story about oneself, which doe
become a literary genre, does n
(I leave it to the specialists of
What about still more comple
begin formulating the series of
though it probably betrays my
not seem to me qualitatively d
of the novel" (as understood in
combination of speech acts eac
there would be the fictional c
property), which in turn wou
narrative elements, i.e., descr
ing in time (it should be noted
with the other, and not embe
be added constraints regardin
of the narrator's discourse and
(the personal life, preferably i
The rapid enumeration whi
except in its brevity and schem
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 that there is no abyss between literature and
that which is not literature; that literary genres have their origin, quite
simply, in human discourse.
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE,

PARIS
(Translated by Richard M. Berrong)
NOTES
1 This manner of posing the problems is in no way original (the difference

sentence and enunciation goes back at least to the distinction between gram
meaning and historical meaning made by F. A. Wolf at the beginning
nineteenth century); I am only reviewing the evidence, even if it is sometimes
ten. For more complete discussio

sult the writings of Austin, Straws
"L'Vnonciation," Langages, 17 (197
in our Dictionnaire encyclopydique
more recent work, Dan Sperber's
(1975).
2 This affirmation has its corollary: the diminished importance that I now accord to
the idea of theoretic genre, or type. I in no way renounce the necessity of analyzing
genres in abstract categories. But the study of the possible types now seems to me to
be a reformulation of the general theory of discourse (or of general poetics): the latter
entirely contains the former. Historical genres are theoretical genres; but insofar as the
reverse is not necessarily true, the separate notion of theoretical genre seems, for me,
to lose its interest-unless in the framework of a heuristic strategy, as in the examples
presented by Christine Brooke-Rose.
3 Overall, I am more optimistic than the authors of two recent studies, which have
led me to clarify my 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 abstract and the concrete, between genres as they have existed
historically and categorial analysis to which they can be subjected today.
4 The idea that genres should be related to speech acts is formulated in 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 from a historical one in "Autobiographie et histoire litt&raire," the
concluding chapter of Lejeune's Le pacte autobiographique.
5 I owe all my information concerning Luba literary genres and their verbal 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
autobiographique and Bruss's "L'autobiographie consid&r6e comme acte litteraire."

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The Origin of Genres

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

TO PERSIST in discussing genres today might seem like an idle if not

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

from the present moment, ju

"new" it may be, continue to

A discourse is not made of s

our purpose: these properties

produce literary genres? The

novel, beginning with the a

I will try to answer this q

There follows a transition composed of several proverbs, and at the end, w

they should be. From the syn

thereby constitutes the "natu

question of the author of the

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE,

(Translated by Richard M. Berrong)

1 This manner of posing the problems is in no way original (the difference

ten. For more complete discussio

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