Genre(s)
43rd Annual SAES (Société des Angliscistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur)
Congress
Grenoble, France : 9th, 10th and 11th May 2003
Université Stendhal - Grenoble III.
http://www.u-grenoble3.fr/grenoble-saes/
POETS AND POETRY WORKSHOP
THE IMITATION OF TRADITION: English Language Poetry & Genre(s)
Papers should be no longer than 30 minutes.
Please send abstracts before the 8th February to:
Raphaël Costambeys
raphaël.costambeys@univ-pars3.fr
Since Aristotle’s classification of kind, hierarchies of genre have
constructed a landscape of shifting sands. Neoclassical generic
hierarchies and standards of decorum had sociopolitical and
philosophical implications, reflecting relationships between literature
and power; Romanticism saw the lyric ascend to the top of the hierarchy,
and confirmed the triad of lyric, epic (i.e. narrative) and drama, the
division suggested in Aristotle and set forth by Hegel. However, can
genre really be considered a sociopolitical tool in poetry; is the
tripartite division of poetic genres still relevant?
Following on from Aristotle’s argument that metrical form is not a
sufficient criterion for poetry, essentialists do not consider questions
of verse-forms essential to the definition of poetry: form does not
supersede function. But more in tune with the popular (or democratic)
vision of poetry, formalists see no distinction between form and
content, believing verse-form necessary for the achievement of the
effects of heightened intensity, compression or figured speech. So,
should we understand the poem as artifact or experience?
Other recent theories have argued for the institutional nature of genre,
for its function as a series of codes, while others stress the concept
of “mode” (the division between verse, poetry and prose). However,
universal ideas of genre have been attacked by contemporary poets trying
to render distinctions between genres and media, as well as high and low
art, at times porous and at others redundant. Do terms such as
‘intergeneric’ or ‘postgeneric’ now add themselves to contemporary
cultural and literary practices such as “multimedia” and “intermedia”,
denying absolute categories and hierarchies?
In these threshold times between analyses of the performance of
signifying codes and a return to more ‘traditional’ literary studies,
how does one still discuss poetic genre? How do categorial distinctions
of poetic form function? Can the question of genre as form still be
perceived as relevant in the study of poetry? Is it not simply the
imitation of tradition? In true workshop style, we shall attempt to
offer tentative answers to these questions through the close study of
poets and their poetry.
-- Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski Maître de Conférences Institut du Monde Anglophone - Télé3 Université Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle5, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine 75006 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 40 51 33 00 Fax: +33 (0)1 40 51 33 19
13, rue Santeuil 75231 Paris Cedex 05. Tel: +33 (0)1 45 87 78 12 Fax: +33 (0)1 45 87 48 89
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