Genre Theory: some notes

Just a few notes on a theory I've been thinking about for some time. I think I may have observed before that when a new genre of literature or music (and other arts as well) emerges, there follows a period of experimentation that rather quickly exhausts the creative possibilities of the new kind. The classic example is epic poetry. After Homer everything is repetition and imitation. Some later examples (Virgil, Milton) may be classic in their own way, but they never achieve the same levels of artistic success as the original masterworks. It's probably safe to assert there will never be another Homer. (Scholarly aside: I do believe that both The Iliad and The Odyssey were made, fashioned into their final forms by a shaping intelligence, a master poet, working within an oral tradition, but reaching a level of individual achievement not previously attained if even striven for. My reasons for this view are numerous and complicated, but primarily based on the narrative and thematic structure of the two poems.)

Other examples of genres emerging and reaching full maturity rather rapidly come readily to mind: early English drama, culminating in Shakespeare; the English novel, principally Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne. With what we call classical music the tradition becomes fixed over a similarly discreet period, running perhaps from Bach to Mozart and Beethoven. As with any theory, this one is overly simplistic, and becomes more challenging when one looks for exceptions that appear to test or prove the rule. What interests me, however, is why this sort of pattern should have so often been the case, and for that I also have a theory.

When a new genre or kind of art, literature, music, or dance first emerges or is first recognized as something new or different, there are necessarily few established rules or patterns governing practice. Those who choose to work in the emerging kind will feel freedom to experiment with the forms. With time, however, the successes become apparent, and later practitioners, students, followers and disciples, will tend to adhere to the established patterns of their masters. The best practices, or most successful ways of creating or producing the new or emerging kind, will dominate, and the period of experimentation will come to an end. Creativity in an established kind becomes a quest for variations on familiar and successful previous works or performances. That is why all mature art forms tend to be allusive and self-consciously aware of their own belatedness and the debts owed to earlier traditions and predecessors.  For example, consider Virgil's playful repetitions of Homeric forms, themes, and language. There is no mistaking Virgil for Homer, the Roman poet is individual and creative in his own ways, but without knowledge of Homer, much of Virgil's own brilliance would be lost to us. Virgil both acknowledges Homer's mastery and challenges it as best he can, sometimes playfully, and sometimes with more serious intent. In this way the secondary master keeps the tradition alive, or brings the earlier kind to life in a new way and carries it forward to a later time.

Similarly, one can see what we have come to refer to as the "novel" -- the very name suggests our sense  of an emerging new kind of story or narrative -- very quickly run through a number of experiments with narrative form. Each of the early masters works from a somewhat specific set of generic assumptions. Defoe was much influenced by pamphleteering and familiar practices of eighteenth-century journalism; Fielding wrote in a comic mode that seemed to borrow from dramatic conventions both for plotting and character as he searched for an affective narrative voice. Richardson, most likely as a result of his own experiences and employment, wrote elaborate narratives based on personal correspondence and the exchange of letters. To some extent each of these early novelists toyed with their readers' expectations and assumptions with regard to the truth of their stories, often with rather playful asides or prologues proclaiming the veracity and trustworthiness of their fictions. But for playfulness and experimentation, none achieved the levels of Lawrence Sterne, especially in his masterpiece, Tristram Shandy. Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves may take some of this playfulness to its logical or illogical extremes, but the seeds were there in the earliest examples of the kind.

I suppose what I'm describing could also be called the theory of the classic. Often what we come to think of as classics are early exemplars of a new genre that become so well established as models of the form or kind that most other later works seem in one way or another derivative. Thus we have such things as "classic rock." I'm not sure how far I want to push this aspect of my theory of genres, but I would argue that there is some relationship between what I am describing and our notion of classics in literature, art, music, theater, and dance. If I were going to develop this into a fully articulated critical argument or theory, I would begin here to adduce more examples, but since I'm merely jotting down these notes for my own amusement, I will pause now while I consider more possibilities.