The Metaphysical Foundations of the Literary Genres

Author’s Note to the First Brazilian Edition (1991)

The text of this small book is composed of four classes, delivered in April 1987 in my course Introduction to Intellectual Life. In the oral exposition, I was able to add comments and developments that, even though omitted from the book, can be hinted at by the footnotes.

Now, looking from a distance of four years at this work so full of good intentions as it is of faults, I noticed at least two that, if cannot be completely remedied, should at least be confessed.

The first is the use of the plural form which some call ‘modes’ and others ‘majestic’, a vice I have forever abandoned.

The second is that the concept of number, so fundamental to my exposition, remained vague and obscure. Perhaps the following clarifications will help it become more exact: The concept of number, as I understand it, is at the same time quantity (or a pure nexus undetermined in terms of quality, as Husserl defined it in his Philosophy of Arithmetic) and form, or qualitative number as understood by the ancient Pythagoric school (see Santos, Mário Ferreira dos. Pitágoras e o Tema do Número. 2nd ed. São Paulo: Matese, 1965. pp. 67-105). In this second meaning, number can also be synonymous with order and relation (or system of relations). In the text, I go from one meaning to the other without any ceremony or previous warning. I know that I explain it, even though I do not justify it, by saying that the text was originally intended to be read only by my students, who, being used to the double understanding of the word, would not face any difficulty in making the correct choice according to the context.

I thank Ana Maria Santos Peixoto for the priceless effort she devoted to the publication of this book.

Olavo de Carvalho. Rio de Janeiro, August 1991.

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I. Formulating the Question
II. Some Contemporary Opinions
III. The Mode of Existence of Genres
IV. Ontological Foundations
V. Verse and Prose
VI. Narrative and Exposition
VII. Species of the Narrative Genre
VIII. Species of the Expository Genre
IX. The Lyrical Genre. Conclusion

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The question of the literary genres has been disputed for centuries. It is one of the most important matters in the Theory of Literature. While excusing ourselves from the narration of the historical evolution of the debate, we will present a summary of the problem and of the solutions we will offer.

Should those solutions seem scandalously new to scholars in the field, we assure that any attempt to novelty is far from our intention. We have limited ourselves to applying to the study of an old question about the ontological principles, which are as old as the world.

I. Formulating the question

The first reason we have to believe that there are literary genres is that many authors, such as Aristotle and Boileau, have written treatises to expose the rules that define them.

The second reason is that these rules have been followed by thousands of writers for many centuries, and so, for that reason, we are able to find works which perfectly exemplify the classic conception of Lyric, Tragedy etc.

The first reason we may have for believing there are no literary genres is that there is an equally large number of works, old and modern, but above all modern, that do not fit perfectly in any of the genres defined by the treatises.

The second reason is that some authors, like the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce as a case in point, say that genres do not exist. In the understanding of these authors, only individual works exist¹, which are taken account of by history, and a posteriori can be subjected by the scholar to some dubious classification according to their differences and similarities, which, being in their turn so varied and large in number as the works themselves, do not amount to groups constant and distinct enough to be labeled as ‘genres’.

The third reason is that many writers, knowing the first two reasons, decided to write their books in a way that deliberately escaped the rules and regulations of all known genres. This exception has become a rule-and-rule exception, and the systematic mess that followed seemed to provide extensive confirmation to Croce’s argument.

The problem of genres is similar to the dispute between Realism and Nominalism: do universal concepts express realities that exist by themselves, extra mentis, or are they just a mental assembling of common characteristics that a more or less happy circumstance allowed us to distinguish in various individual beings? Are universals ‘real beings’ or mere ‘reason beings’? Is there a horse hood or just horses? Is there a triangle hood or just triangles? Likewise, are the literary genres universal and necessary structures underlying all possible literary inventions, or are they nothing more than mere formal conventions laid down by habit, comfort, and sometimes by pretentiousness?

II. Some Contemporary Opinions

Some contemporary scholars are inclined to compromise on solutions. In their work, Theory of Literature, today a classic, René Wellek and Austin Warren state that.

‘The literary kind is an institution—as a church, university, or State is an institution. It exists, not as an animal or even as a building, chapel, library, or capitol, but as an institution. One can work through, express oneself through, existing institutions, create new ones, or get on, so far as possible, without sharing in politics or rituals; one can also join, but then reshape institutions.

The theory of genres is a principle of order: it classifies literature and literary history… by specifically literary types of organization and structure…

Do genres remain fixed? Presumably not.’²

This position deserves the credit of distinguishing between a physical, individual mode of existence, and a non-physical, or ‘institutional’ mode of existence, putting genres in the latter. It is certainly better than denying the existence of genres after looking for signs of them where they were not to be found. However, all in all, this distinction is no other than the same there is between individual works and genres—between horses and horse hood—, names only changing. Individual works exist like animals and buildings exist; genres, like institutes of zoological research and schools of architecture. That does not absolutely explain where genres come from, or whether they emanate from a necessity inherent to the real order of things, or from a mere human desire of systematization and comfort. The problem continues: in order to know about the origin and worth of zoology institutes, it is not enough just to realize they are not a kind of animal.