Lecture 04

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:15]Hello dear learner once again a very warm welcome you all in this 8-week so course entitled understanding literary genres and devices I am Dr. Dr. Vishal Singh, assistant professor in the department of English Wasanta College Foreignman Rajgart admitted to the privileges of Banaras Hindu University.

[00:00:39]This course has been designed in the collaboration with professor Mjari Junjunwala, head department of English was college for women Raj Khadwaranchi.

[00:00:50]Dear learners, as we are moving forward towards lecture number four, let's uh recapulize what we did in lecture number three. We have already discussed what is genre, what is concept of genre. We discussed the definition of genre, functions of genre, classical genre and also we tried to summarize how genre is related to the forms and also to mood. We compared genre, form and mode.

[00:01:31]Now moving forward towards lecture number four which is entitled history of literary classification from aristotal to postmodernism.

[00:01:49]What we are going to deal with in this lecture I mean what are the topics which we are going to cover? Let's have a look over that.

[00:01:59]The classical foundation Aristotal's poetics since the very beginning Henistic to medual developments renaissance humanism neocclassical hierarchies romantic rebellion Victorian and realist expansion modernism fragmentation and experiment postmodernism play and deconstruction digital and global genres continuity and change. So basically what we are going to discuss in this session how genre got developed with the time how journey started in the beginning with that is total when he defined three major genre in English literature and later how it moved forward and there are gradually change in the field of genre with with the time with the temperament with the effect of the certain writers.

[00:03:05]So we will have a understanding over it after completing this lecture. So let's uh begin the lecture without delaying.

[00:03:17]So the first I mean if you are going to discuss the beginning of the genre though before uh Aristotal also we had a Socrates we had a Plato who are considered as a Greek masters in English literature but technically a systematic categorization of genre begins with aistotal if we are going to read it uh in detail we had already poetry. Socrates had uh spoken on poetry. Plato has also said something on poetry. How poets should be banished from the state and how poetry is not useful for the society and they advocated only one kind of poetry that may be only heroic poetry.

[00:04:06]So we had already discussion in past but why we are going to talk about Aristotal? Why I am saying here that Aristotal should be considered as a beginning of categorization of genre because we have a very well-known book by Aristotal poetics which I have already mentioned in my previous lecture though he has written so many books but there are two books which are surviving with us and they are wellknown one is rhetoric which talks about art of speaking another is poetics which talks about art of writing. So in this book basically which comprises within 26 chapter though it is believed that there was another part of this book also we are not going in detail of the history of poetics but whatever we have that is uh in 26th chapter and basically dealt with the three major category of the genre Aristotal discussed about epic tragedy and comedy to some extent we may get reference of satire also but that is somehow related to the comedy only. So he mentioned only three kinds of genre in English literature in the very beginning in his book poetics.

[00:05:24]It came somewhere in 4th century BC.

[00:05:28]So we can imagine about the history of beginning of genre and it is also considered as a first systematic literary theory.

[00:05:41]in the field of literary criticism or you may say in the field of literature also as I already said it is divided into three parts I should not say divided but it dealt with three major genre epic tragedy and comedy so let's uh discuss what is epic by Aristotal what was the definition of epic according to Aristotal an epic is a narrator ive poem that imitiates noble actions of great men on a grand scale written in a elevated style. It resembles tragedy in seriousness and completeness but differs in having no fixed time limit and being told through narration not action. We need to be careful about these points. What Aristotal said? Epic has a mode of narration.

[00:06:43]Tragedy which is a form of drama always follow the mode of performance action.

[00:06:55]Now if you'll in uh read it in detail we will find that Aristotal has given more importance to Tresy than anything.

[00:07:03]Comedy is inferior than tresdy in his opinion. Talking about tresd what he said Aristotle defines tresd as the imitiation of an action that is serious complete and of a certain magnitude arousing pity and fear to achieve the catharsis of such emotions.

[00:07:27]It is presented in dramatic form rather than nourish. As I said epic follow narration while tragedy follow performance.

[00:07:38]About comedy what he said for it is total comedy is an imitation of characters of lower type not in the sense of moral wickedness but of human folly and weakness.

[00:07:55]it proposes is to provoke laugher by representing the ridiculous aspect of life. When we will read further we will find what was the purpose of comedy. What was the purpose of satire?

[00:08:13]Comedy or satire were not only being written to amuse people or to entertain the society.

[00:08:22]But satire was used in writing to bring certain positive change in the society to satarize social evils whatever was prevailing at that time to mock them so that people will get aware about that and there will be certain positive change among them.

[00:08:40]So this was a purpose of satire.

[00:08:43]Aristotle also has discussed about the mameshes which is imitiation.

[00:08:50]So as I just said in tragedy we used to immediate serious action of noblemen while in comedy we used to immediate action of lower kind of people.

[00:09:04]So this is what uh which was established by Aristotal what has been discussed by Aristotal while he was just beginning this journey of literary genre. Let's move forward because you cannot go in a very much detail in this topic.

[00:09:22]We had another change in the field of genre helenistic to medual development.

[00:09:29]So what was helenistic development?

[00:09:31]Hellenistic refers to the transition of thought, culture and literature from the Henistic period.

[00:09:42]Hellenistic period refers especially Alexander the great which marked for the Greek Greek philosophy for the exploration for the knowledge and uh kind of spread of education at that time. Later moving forward we have medual period.

[00:10:03]What was there in medual period?

[00:10:05]Religion was the focus.

[00:10:08]People started to write stories on the base of Bible on the base of life of saints. So that we had another kind of genre came in English literature especially in the field of play. What was that? mystery plays, miracle plays, morality plays and interludes.

[00:10:31]All these kind of play were being dealt with the life of saints or on the story of Bible which is given there. So somehow theme was always religious.

[00:10:45]Medual period dominated by Christian theology and is scholasticism.

[00:10:53]During this shift, classical Greek ideas, especially those of Plato and Aristotal, were absorbed, adopted and reinterpreted by early Christian thinkers, saving the intellectual foundations of medual Europe. So we had shifted in genre from Aristotal to classical and then medual period.

[00:11:22]Now if we are moving forward from this medual setting we had Resa.

[00:11:34]Resa is known for rebirth everywhere in entire Europe. It was a kind of awakening. People started to think, people started to write and major focus was on humanism means people started to talk about the human issues about the social issues not about the religious issues only. It was a great period also. We had Elizabethan period in English literature at that time. We had a great writers well-known William Shakespeare and the Philip Presley we had.

[00:12:19]Now what happened in this revival of classical genre with humanist ideals expression? What kind of expressions were human experiences? people started to talk about social issues, about the human issues, not only about the divine truth.

[00:12:38]In poetry, we had John Milton who was a great poet at that time. He has written so many works. Paradise lost 1667, paradise regained 1671 somewhere.

[00:12:52]Then we have poems like on his blindness and all.

[00:12:58]He has written paradise last great epic.

[00:13:02]Then we had four great testies Hamlet, Ollo, King Leier, Magbet by William Shakespeare.

[00:13:12]In the development of genre, we can see reven at that time. Even if you are going to study William Shakespeare, we'll find we have trai comedy also.

[00:13:24]a kind of blend of tragedy and comedy both where in tragedy it was a kind of expression or a kind of uh narration performance where protagonist is suffering and at the end target is catharsis of emotions through pity and fear. But in tragic comedy though in the beginning there is suffering in the beginning there may be sad plot but at the end everything is going to be in happy ending.

[00:13:57]We have tempest best example for comedy written by William Shakespeare that was a great play.

[00:14:06]Then in the field of essay in the pros writing we have Montag who has been considered as a father of essay.

[00:14:16]and his essays were subjective in the writing style.

[00:14:23]So this was also development of the genre in renaissance and humanism.

[00:14:29]Later moving forward in neocclassical age it was somewhere it started in 1660 and it was a long period till around 1798.

[00:14:43]After Puritan period when we had 1649 to 1660 we had Puritan period where Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell were ruling and we know what kind of writing were getting produced at that time when there were these two people. So everything was as just on the basis of religion and all. Theaters were closed.

[00:15:09]So people were not allowed to write play and it was considered a kind of immoral act either performing or writing a play.

[00:15:20]Then people or we may say on the demand of readers on the demand of society people started to write something different from play.

[00:15:33]While play was very uh strong and you may say significant genre in the Elizabethan period before neocclassical age. So in neocclassical age though there were some writer who were writing play but with that at the end of the neocclassical age we had beginning of the novel especially in pre-romantic age we had graveyard poetry a different kind of genre in poems graveyard poet we had gothic novel and John also categorized into two parts on the basis of its rank. How somewhere comedy was for the low rank of people, tragedy was for high rank of people.

[00:16:22]Even epic was for high rank of the people. Epic always dealt with certain grand theme, heroic theme or divine theme written in grand style. So epic was something considered which is written in elevated style while comedy is inferior to epic and in between somewhere we had lyric and pastoral also. What is pastoral? A literary genre that idolizes rural life and nature often contrasting it with the corruption of city life.

[00:17:01]Satire was also very strong device or we may say satire was a very strong feature of writing at that time. We had Jonathan Swift who was writing Guliver travels at that time. It was completely a kind of satire on British government and its policies towards the Irish people.

[00:17:22]We had Alexander Pope he was also using satire. We had John Ryden at that time. He was also using satire. So we can see how satire was very prevailing style of writing at that time in neocclassical age. So society was divided into hierarchy and also writing was also divided into hierarchy.

[00:17:46]Moving forward from 1798 to 1837 we had romantic age which begins somehow with the publication of lyrical ballad in 1798 by William Wsworth. We had great poet in the very beginning who are also considered early romantic poets William Wsworth Simulter Cridge and Robert Saudi. Then in the second generation our later romantic poet also we used to call them we have Lord Baron we have John Kez and PBI. So we know how they are different from each other in the same period that is not point to discuss here. But talking about the style of writing where neocclassical age was completely focused on the imitation of Greek masters focusing on rules only very rigid kind of structure. If you want to write something good then you have to follow the Greek masters only. It was a kind of belief at that time. So what was the drawback? When you are only following and imitating someone from the past, you will not produce anything new.

[00:19:00]Everything will be just a copy of past and also it will become a kind of you know boring things for the reader also and for the writer also. Right? So what happened again? This romantic age came as a rebellion against neocclassical age. They said no more rules. we are not going to follow only rules while we are writing or producing our work of art. So they again started to focus on individual thinking about individual being about the emotion rather than intellect while intellect was the focus in neocclassical age.

[00:19:41]So what is there? It was a kind of reaction against rigid rigid qualification. Uh sorry it was a kind of reaction against rigid classification of neocclassical age. They valued emotion, imagination and individuality and also they started to blend genre.

[00:20:03]How Wsworth was writing lyrical ballads.

[00:20:08]Seli was writing words drama means play which was supposed to be written in pros. Now there was a mixture of poetic lines.

[00:20:22]So in this way they started to blend also genre of English literature.

[00:20:32]Romantic age is also known for the beginning of the lyric as a dominant romantic form. The lyric became the leading romantic form as it best conveyed personal emotion, inner experience and the poet's individual voice. We can read what's definition of poetry. How he was talking about the spontaneous feeling.

[00:21:04]He was saying that in a way poetry is expression of the personality. Not like I poetry is a escape from the personality.

[00:21:12]It is an spontaneous overflow of the emotions.

[00:21:17]Romantic writers rejected neocclassical rules and hierarchies emphasizing emotion, imagination, individuality and freedom of expression which resulted which came in the form of romantic poems which was focused on the nature which was focused on the human emotion. We have so many examples Lucy Gray Defodils and graveyard poetry also Thomas Gray has written just before romantic age in pre-romantic age written in country church somehow in 1751 it was also a kind of new genre in English literature after romantic age there was after 1837 Victorian age came in existence with queen Victoria Victoria on the throne and it was till 19001.

[00:22:12]It was also a long period 1837 to 19001.

[00:22:17]Now with the uh theory of Darwin with the theory of evaluation now what happened this age was also called a kind of age of confusion age of compromise is of conflict why there was a theory of Bible how we came in existence how human being came in existence from Adam and you. And now we had a Darwin who was talking that our ancestor is no one but an ape. So people got confused which way they have to proceed in the life what they have to accept either by Bill or Charles Darin.

[00:23:07]It was also called age of industrialization urbanization. People were moving from rural area to urban areas to get employment to settle themsel. So things were changing rapidly at that time and it was a time of pros writing again.

[00:23:27]Novel was developing so well in this era. We had so many novelist plenty of novels have been written in this particular time. We have a very good example of Charles Deakons who has written so many novels on the theme of poverty, on the theme of industrialization, on the theme of at that time I mean to say Oliver Twist great expectations David Copperfield there so many novel have been written by Charles Dickens which is a kind of representation of that society. If you'll read we can understand what kind of England was at that time. So this was also a development. The Victorian era saw a major growth of pro fiction and the novel becoming the chief literary form.

[00:24:17]New genres like the narrative essay and serialized fiction flourished reflecting everyday life. Deakons was writing in a serial form. They used to publish it in episode and then at the end they used to compile and it they used to make it like a one text one novel.

[00:24:39]They focused on social realism, moral instructions and human psychology portraying society's values struggles and moral concerns with depth and detail.

[00:24:53]During this period there was a significant growth of pro fiction and the novel as I just said with blending of genres such as the narrative essay and serialized fiction literature emphasized social realism moral instruction and human psychology exploring everyday life ethical concerns and the complexity of human character.

[00:25:18]So we can say in one sentence that Victorian literature is a kind of representation of Victorian England and especially it was in the pro. So it was also a a kind of development in the genre.

[00:25:33]Now modernism we know modern age somewhere it is start after 19001 and there is no clear demarcation between modern and postmodern age. But even then we used to consider or we used to agree on the point that somewhere modern age is from 19001 to 1940.

[00:25:52]We know there were two world war. World war first and world war second.

[00:25:57]Millions of the people died in those wars and millions of the people also got wounded with amputed leg and amputed arm. They survived after the war. So what was the notion towards the patriotism towards the country all that was in a way either vanishing or getting reduced with the time people were suffering they were in anxiety they were in estress and facing some internal psychological issues. So at that time we had we started another kind of literature writer said that now complete break from the past. We are not going to follow anything whatever was there in the past.

[00:26:46]So what they will do they will experiment in their writing not only in their content but also in their style in their writing style. So that we have a stream of consciousness, we have flashback, we have psychological novel, we have buildings Roman novel, there are plenty of example of the writers and works. We have James Joy. He has written a portrait of the artist as young man Ulyses based on psychological theme on the life of writer itself. We have Virginia Wolf, Mrs. Deo to the lighthouse. We have Henry James and even in the field of poetry TS IOT has written wasteland which is still person cannot interpret completely. I mean to say you cannot say that this is a exact interpretation of the wasteland which has been divided into five sections in 433 lines and end with the Santi Santi Santi. So there are multiple interpretation of that poem is still. So the point is either it is novel in modern age or it is a poem in modern age. Everything have a various interpretation and open to interpretation. You cannot say this is the fixed meaning of this text.

[00:28:04]So this boundary of genres got collapsed in the modern age. Poetry becomes pro-like.

[00:28:13]We have poetic plays. The best example TS IOT's murdered in the cathedral.

[00:28:20]This is a poetic play.

[00:28:23]Writer started right in stream of consciousness as I just discussed.

[00:28:29]Then emphasis was not the on universal subject. Writer started to write on individual issues.

[00:28:40]Now it it writing become subjective than objective.

[00:28:48]Now what was there? Modernist literature saw collapse of traditional genre boundaries experimenting freely with form and style. It emphasized formal innovation, ambiguity and complexity, prioritizing artistic structure over straightforward content or clarity.

[00:29:14]Later, last but not least, postmodernism which is somewhere 1942 till now. What is there now? People are playing with the genre.

[00:29:28]Now writers are focusing on interextuality.

[00:29:31]There is no fixed boundary. Text are related to each other, multi-disiplinary, multi- uh textual reading, blurring between high art and pop culture. We have now parody, paste, metapiction and even we have a magical realism. All these things came in this era. We have now hybrid genre. We are mixing two genre and blending it and creating a kind of hybrid genre.

[00:30:02]Postmodern literature is characterized by intertextuality and self-reference blurring the lines between high art and popular culture. It implies paste parody and metaphiction. Rejecting rigid classification and giving rise to hybrid genre that mixes styles, forms and conventions.

[00:30:26]One more thing there digital and global gen genre.

[00:30:30]So when we talk about digital and global genre what does it mean? Contemporary literature includes online genres like blogs, fanfiction and hypertext narratives.

[00:30:44]People are writing their blogs that is also part of literature. Nowadays even is a simple tweet is also considered a part of literature.

[00:30:54]Along with multimedia storytelling using audio, video and interactive text genres today evolve rapidly through advances in technology and in the influence of global interconnectedness.

[00:31:12]So we can say this is in the process of change. Genre is continuously changing since beginning till now.

[00:31:23]While you are talking about the continuity of its change, genres persist as flexible frameworks as I already discussed in my last lecture.

[00:31:33]It's not a kind of cage. It's a playground where as a writer you can play with your thought, with your idea, with your approach, what you have to write, what you want to write, what you want to produce, you can play with that.

[00:31:48]It reflects social, political and aesthetic shifts.

[00:31:52]Each age redefineses genre according to its worldview. What I said in the very beginning, time writer, society affects genre. Whatever is the demand of the society, writer will write according to that. And sometime as I said in the very beginning of my first lecture, literature and society they affect to each other. So genre is also part of literature of course. So this is based on society. So as society will change itself, genre will also keep changing with the time. While summarizing this session what we discussed today in classical genre what you find there was a kind of hierarchy when Aristotal was talking about epic, tragedy and comedy.

[00:32:42]So trady how it was imitiating action of ser serious kind of action of serious people while comedy was imitiating action of lower kind of people. Romantic is something which is talking about the individual. We know in neocclassical age what we were doing we were focusing on rules.

[00:33:02]There was a hierarchy. We were imitiating only classics Greek masters.

[00:33:06]But in romantic age we as a writer revolt against the neocclassical rules and norms. They started to focus on individual things individual human beings on their emotion rather than intellect. In modern age it became as an ease of experiment not only on the basis of content but also on the basis of writing style. As I already discussed very good example of experiment of James Joyce a portrait of the artist as young man. You will see how stories start in the beginning. Once upon a time there was a Macau until the end of the novel in the fifth chapter you will find language is very difficult. So he was not only uh developing with the content but also he developed with the language of the text. Language got mature till the end of the text. Not only Stephan Dedler as a character got mature till the end of the chap novel but even language of the text got mature till the end of the text. So this is how experiment was there in the modern age.

[00:34:06]Then in postmodern we already discussed how hybridity came there mixing up both genre and producing something new.

[00:34:15]And at the end I will say just genre is not fixed. It is a living evolving system that adapts to changing cultural and artistic context. So dear learners we try to discuss what were genre in the beginning and what was journey of genre and how it got developed how it got changed since beginning since classical time till modern age and postmodern age. So for now thank you so much and happy learning. We'll meet again.