Are Distinctions Between Genres Still Relevant?

1998

Why do readers — and especially literary critics — feel the need to classify works of art into categories which one often calls genres? On the one hand fashionable ideas lead some commentators to argue that, in this infinitely innovative world, genres have become irrelevant because traditional rules have been subverted. The ineffable text (sacralized in italics) is all that counts. Yet, on the other, their description of works of literature inevitably resorts to such terms as ‘fantasy’, ‘allegory’, ‘realism’, ‘tragedy’, even if they carefully place these in inverted commas. As the ‘reception’ school of criticism has convincingly shown, a novel, poem or play takes on its full meaning when it…

Reality, Realism and Mimesis

1998

In any discussion of a literary work, ‘reality’ has no objective existence. It cannot be proven through scientific methods. What can be considered as ‘realistic’ is what is believable. Far from being a mere replica in a mirror, fictional reality is only validated by the readers’ acceptance of artistic illusion.

Pour Jean Sévry

2012

From Fantasy to Magic Realism

1998

Much use has been made of the term ‘magic realism’ to refer to texts which introduce an important ‘imaginary’ dimension into ‘realistic’ evocations of the world. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier has also coined the phrase to real maravilloso (marvellous reality) which he applies to a vision characteristic of Central and South America.

Towards Hybrid Aesthetics

1998

In order to avoid limiting hybridity to sterile ‘racial’ considerations, it needs to be placed firmly in its cultural context. Cultures and civilisations have often been taken as synonyms. For E.B. Tylor in Primitive Culture, words such as ‘culture’ or ‘civilization’ refer to the body of sciences, arts, beliefs, moral principles, laws, customs, in short all the habits and faculties acquired by human beings as part of their social life. Tylor draws a distinction between three stages in the evolution of societies: the savage, the barbarian and the civilised. He thus reintroduces a hierarchy between ‘civilisation’, which is reserved for the highest point on his evolutionary scale, and ‘culture…