The Architext

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Grard Genette
The Architext
An Introduction
Translated by Janc E. Lcwin
With a Foreword by Robert Sclzoles
Univcrsity of California Prcss
Bcrkclcy Los Angeles Oxford
Originally published .1s Imroduaicm /'ar(hirexrt
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Contents
Forcword, by Robcrt Scholcs
..
Vll
Translator's Note
.
Xl
THE ARCHIIEXT: AN lNTRODUCTION 1
Indcx 87
Foreword to the English-
language Edition
Poetics is a vcry old and vcry young "science": the little it
"knows" it would pcrhaps somctimes be better off forgetting.
In a sense, that is alll wantcd to say-and that too, of course,
is still too much.
(G. Gcnctte)
In the heaven of ideas, thc tortoisc of form always out-
runs thc harc of contcnt. Hcrc on carth things are more
complicatcd, but here, too, the tortoise regularly out-
lasts thc hare. For ovcr two dccadcs now, Grard Ge-
nette has persisted in formal and rhetorical studies,
whilc idcological storms raged around him and critical
fashions arrivcd with fanfarcs :md dcparted with whim-
pers. After poststructuralism, evcn after deconstructur-
alism, the formal corc of structural studics-which a
rash critic once callcd the "low structuralism" of Ge-
nctte-rcmains. lf literature is to be studied, discussed,
criticized, it will always need poetics-and poetics is
what this little book is all about.
As m y cpigraph indicatcs, takcn, as it is, from near thc
cnd of Genettc's discussion, this book is "little" in more
than one sense. lt is brief, of course, consisting of one
V111 Fonword
major article, followed by sorne second thoughts and a
dialogue in which its methodology is challenged and
gently defended. But it is also unpretentious, claiming
for poetics neither truth nor intrinsic worth. What Ge-
nette does claim for poetics is only that criticism cannot
get along without it. What he shows, howevcr, in the
course of bis discussion, is that the history of poetics is
one of astonishing confusions and misprisions, in \vhich
every sort of latcr idea and attitude has bccn rcgularly
foisted upon thc foundcrs of poctic thought, Plato and
Aristotle. As one of thosc whom Gcnette cites as guilty
of such error, 1 can do no better than ph:ad 110/o col!telldcre.
Sincc 1 first read his words, u pon this book 's publication
in France sorne years ago. 1 have mcnded m y ways.
Spccifically, om: of che important things Gcncttc
dtmonstrates herc is that many later critics have attrib-
uted to Aristotle a poetic doctrine that is mainly Ro-
mantic in its origins. thus sowing confusions that still
confound us. Not contcnt mercly to show thc rcsults of
this process, Gcnctte sketches the evolution of this mis-
prision with masterful learning and lucidity. From the
ancicnt through the medieval, Renaissance, Enlighten-
ment, and Romantic and on to the modern thcories of
literary gcnre, Gcncttc traces thc process by which new
forms of textuality are regularly justified by being as-
signed ancient lineages, the thicket of poetics thus con-
tinually made denser and more difficult to penetrare.
His project is to prune this thicket and blazc trails
through it.
He also oftcrs, \vith propcr diffidence and disarming
wit, sorne advice for the continuation of poetic think-
ing. Challcnging himsclf in a closing dialogue to justify
this practicc, his interlocutor asks why this should not
be lcft "to litcrary historians (it's their job, certainly)."
Genette's response is to point out that all emprica) stud-
ies depcnd upon definition of their objccts in ordcr to
Forewonl
.
IX
function, and such dcfinition rcquircs thought prcciscly
to avoid thc pitfalls of traditional tcrms that conccal and
confusc their objects over time. The history of literature
is a real history, with certain irreversible clements in it,
but it is "guidcd" toa great extent by poetic possibilities
that can be describcd formally only by poetics. Wc necd
poctics bccause wc cannot make sen se of any individual
text without situating it in terms of other texts and in
tcrms of a rcpcrtory of textual possibilitics. Evcn thc
study of literary transformation, Genette maintains,
"implies the examination, and thus the taking into ac-
count, of continuitics."
As a proposal for continuing poctics, Gcnettc sug-
gcsts wc rccognizc that what wc call "gcnrcs" are best
describcd as thc intcrscctions of ccrtain modes of cnun-
ciation and ccrtain thematic conccrns. The modes are
basic to thc pragmatics of language itsdf (likc narration)
and are therefore cxtrcmcly pcrsistent across time and
cultures. Themes, howcvcr, though also pcrsistcnt
(lovc, dcath), are grcatly marked by cultural and histor-
ical situations. Persistcnt or durable links bctwccn par-
ticular mudes and rhemes give us literary genrcs or "ar-
chitcxts." Thc study of these is what, sin ce Aristotlc,
we have callcd "poctics"-an old scicncc, as Gcncttc
says, and also a young onc, bccause it must always be
rencwcd. What Gcncttc has accomplished, in a tcxt no
largcr than Aristotk's own, is to discncumbcr poctics of
ccnturies of accrctions. He givcs it to us again, clarificd
and refrcshcd, in this book. Among othcr things, he rc-
minds us hcrc of why Aristotlc's Porties has itsclf provcd
so durable, and in doing so he has given us a book that
bclongs, in courses and on shelves, right ncxt ro its
grcat architcxtural prcdcccssor.
-Robert Scholt.:s
Translator's Note
In English, the words epic, lyric, and twrrative function
both as nouns and as adjectives; unlcss the context pro-
vides a decisivc "adjcctivity" cuc, thc rcader proccsscs
cach of thosc words as a noun. In this book, howcvcr,
it is essential for thc readcr to rccognize whcn the noun
is meant and when the adjective. (French makcs the dis-
tinction: l'pope/pique, le lyriquellyrique, le rcitltwrra-
tij.) Thus, whencvcr thc adjcctival form is mcant but the
contcxt lacks a strong adjectivity cuc (a cue that lcads
the reader to process the word instantaneously as an ad-
jcctivc), 1 havc uscd epical instcad of epic, havc uscd lyr-
ical instcad of lyric, and ha ve placcd "[ narrat!(]" immc-
diatcly aftcr ttarrative. (In a fcw placcs, the context
makcs it appropriatc to modify this practicc in one di-
rection or the othcr.)
For thc English translation, thc author modificd the
original French tcxt in a handful of placcs.
1
Wc are all familiar with that passagc in A Portrait oJ tl1e
Artist as a Y o m 1 ~ Matl in which Stcphcn cxplains to his
friend Lynch "his" theory of the thrcc majar acsthetic
forms: "Thc lyrical form, thc form whcrcin thc artist
prcscnts his imagc in immcdiatc rclation to himsclf; thc
cpical form, thc form whcrcin he prcscnts his imagc in
mediate relation to himsclf and to othcrs; thc dramatic
form, thc form whcrcin he prcscnts his imagc in im-
mcdiatc rclation to othcrs."
1
This tripartition in itsclf is
not cspccially original, as Joyce was well awarc, for in
thc first vcrsion of thc episodc he addcd ironically that
Stephcn was cxprcssing himsclf "with a na'if air of dis-
covcring novcltics," cvcn though "his Esthctic was in
thc main 'applied Aquinas.' "
2
1 don't know whcthcr Saint Thomas cvcr proposcd
such a tripartition-or evcn whcthcr Joycc was rcally
suggcsting he did-but 1 havc notcd hcrc and thcrc that,
for sorne time, thc tripartition has bccn rcadily attrib-
utcd to Aristotlc, evcn to Plato. In hcr study of thc his-
tory of the division into genres, Irene Behrcns cited an
cxamplc of thc attribution from thc pcn of Erncst Bovct
l. James Joycc, A p,,rtrait of tile Artistas a Y o r m ~ Man (1916;
rpt. Ncw York: Viking, 1966), 214.
2. Stcplrcrr Hcro (Ncw York: Ncw Dircctions, 1944), 77.
?
-
The Arcllitext
("Aristotlc having distinguishcd among thc lyric, cpic,
and dramatic genres ... ") and immcdiatcly rcfuted it,
while asscrting that it was alrcady vcry widespread.
3
But, as wc will scc, hcr clarification did not kecp othcrs
from rcpcating the ofTensc-undoubtcdly in part be-
cause thc error (or, rathcr, thc retrospective illusion that
is in qucstion here) is decply rooted in our conscious, or
unconscious, litcrary minds. Bcsidcs, hcr clarification
itsclf was not cntircly untainted by the tradition shc was
dcnouncing, for she wondercd in all seriousness how it
carne about that thc traditional tripartition did not ap-
pear in Aristotle, and she found one possible reason in
thc fact that Grcek lyricism was too closcly associatcd
with music to be includcd within poctics. But tragcdy
was just as dosel y associatcd with music; and lyric is ab-
sent from Aristotle's Poetics for a much more basic rca-
son-a reason that needs only to be perceived for the
qucstion itsclf to lose any kind of rclcvancc.
But not, apparcntly, any raison d'ctrc; wc do not cas-
ily forgo projccting onto the founding text of classical
poetics a fundamental tenct of "modcrn" poetics (which
actually, as wc will often sec, really means romantic po-
ctics), and perhaps the thcorctical consequences of the
projection are unfortunatc. For by usurping that remate
anccstry, the relatively recent thcory of thc "threc major
gcnres" not only lays claim to ancientness, and thus to
an appearancc or prcsumption of bcing ctcrnal and
thcrcforc sclf-cvidcnt; it also misappropriatcs for the
3. Ernest Bovet, Lyrisme, pope, drame: une /oi de l'volu-
tion /iuraire explique par l'flolution xnrale (Paris: Colin,
1911 ), 12; Irene Bchrcns, Die Lehre 11011 der Einteilrm,q der Dicht-
kunst, vomclrmliclr vom 16. bis 19. Jahrlumdert: Studierr zur Ge-
schichte dcr poetischm Gatttmgen, Beihefte zur Zcitschrift ftir ro-
manische Philologie, no. 92 (Halle: Nicmeyer, 1940).
An Introduction 3
benefit of its three generic institutions a natural foun-
dation that Aristotlc, and Plato bcforc him, had estab-
lished, perhaps more lcgitimatcly, for something very
diffcrent. This knot of confusions, quid pro quos, and
unnoticcd substitutions that has lain at thc hcart of
Westcrn poctics for severa) ccnturics is what 1 want to
try to untangle a bit.
But first, not for the pcdantic pleasure of finding fault
with sorne very bright minds but to illustratc, by their
examples, the pervasiveness of this lectio facilior, here are
a few other, more rccent occurrences of it. In Austin
Warren:
Aristotle and Horace are our classical tcxts for
genre thcory. From them, wc think of tragcdy and
cpic as thc charactcristic (as wcll as thc two major)
kinds. But Aristotle at least is also aware of other
and more fundamental distinctions-bctwecn
drama, epic, and lyric .... The three major kinds
are already, by Plato and Aristotle, distinguished
according to "manner of imitation" (or "represen-
tation"): lyric poctry is thc poct's own persona; in
epic poetry (or the novel) the poet partly speaks in
his own pcrson, as narrator, and partly makes his
characters speak in direct discourse (mixed narra-
tivc); in drama, the poct disappcars bchind his cast
of characters .... Aristotlc's Poetics ... roughly
nominates epic, drama, and lyric ("melic") poetry
as thc basic kinds of poetry.
Northrop Frye, more vague or more prudcnt: "We have
the threc generic terms drama, epic, and lyric, derived
from tlze Greeks." More circumspect still, or more eva-
si ve, Philippc Lcjeunc assumes that the point of depar-
ture for the theory was "the threefold division by tl1e
Ancients among the epical, the dramatic, and the lyri-
4 Tllc Arclztext
cal." N oc so. chough, Robert Scholcs, who specifies
that Fryc's system "bcgins with his acccptancc of thc ha-
sic Aristotcliatz division into lyric, cpic, and dramatic
forms." And evcn lcss so Hlcne Cixous, who, com-
mcnting on Scephcn 's spccch, pinpoints its so urce thus:
"A classical tripartitc division derivcd from Aristotlc's
Porties, 1447 a, b, 1456-62 a and b." As for Tzvctan To-
dorov, he has thc triad go back ro Plato and to Di-
omedcs' dcfinitivc systcmatization of Plato:
From Plato to Gocthc and Jakobson ro Emil Stai-
gcr, attempts havc bccn made to divide literaturc
into thrcc catcgorics and to considcr chcsc as thc
fundamental or cvcn thc natural forms of litera-
turc .... Systcmatizing Plato in thc fourth ccn-
tury, Diomcdcs defincd duce basic genrcs: onc in-
cluding thc works in which only che author
spcaks, anothcr including thc works in which only
che charactcrs spcak, and a third including thc
works in which both aurhor and charactcrs spcak.
In 1938 Mikhail Bakhtin, without formulating thc at-
tribution in qucstion quite so preciscly, assertcd that thc
thcory of gcnrcs "has not. up to our own time, bccn
ablc to add anything substancial to what Aristotlc had
alrcady done. His poctics remains thc immutablc foun-
dation of the thcory of gcnrcs, although sometimcs this
foundation is so dccply buried that we no longer disccrn
. ""
lt.
4. "Litcrarv Gcnrcs," in Rcn Wcllck and Austin Warrcn,

Tllcory of Ltcraturc (Ncw York: Harcourt, Bracc, 1956), 217.
223; Northrop Fryc, Anatomy of Crtcsm: Four Essays (1957;
rpt. Ncw York: Athcneum, 1967), 246; Philippc Lcjcunc, Le
Pacte autobo,l!raplzquc (Pars: Seuil, 1975). 330; Robcrt Scholcs,
Stmcwralsm ll Litmzture (Ncw Havcn: Vale Univcrsity Prcss,
1974), 124; Hl\:nc Cixous, Tlzl' Exlc ~ { a m e s )<ycc, trans.
A11 l11troductio11
Evidently Bakhtin is unaware of the massive silence
thc Poctics maintains on thc subjcct of lyric gcnrcs, and
paradoxically his mistake demonstrates thc very igno-
rancc of the foundation of the theory of genres that he
thinks he is dcnouncing. For what is important, as we
will scc, is thc rctrospcctivc illusion by which modcrn
(preromantic, romantic, and postromantic) literary the-
orists blindly project thcir own contributions onto Ar-
istotle, or Plato, and thus "bury" thcir own diflcrencc-
their own modcrnity.
That attribution, so widesprcad today, is not entirely
an invention of the twenticth century. We find itas early
as the eighteenth ccntury, in a chapter that Abb Bat-
teux addcd to his cssay Les Bea11x-Arts rduits a 1111 mmc
pri11cipe (The Fine Arts Obeying Onc Law). The titlc of
this chaptcr is almost more than wc could havc hopcd
for: "Que ccttc doctrine est conforme a celle d'Aristote"
(That This Doctrine Is in Keeping with Aristotle's).
5
Thc doctrine in qucstion is Battcux's general thcory on
"thc imitation of fair nature" as the sole "law" of thc
fine arts, including poetry; but for the most part thc
Sally A. J. Purccll (Ncw York: David Lcwis, 1972), 625; Os-
wald Ducrot and Tzvctan Todorov, E11cyclopedic Dictio11ary of
tl1e Scimccs C!f trans. Cathcrim Portcr (Baltimorc:
Johns Hopkins Univcrsity Prcss, 1979), 153; Mikhail Bakhtin,
Estllrtique et tl1orit du romatl, trans. Dara Olvcr (Pars: Gal-
limard, 1978), 445. AII emphascs on attributions are mine.
5. This chaptcr first appearcd in thc 1764 rcprint of thc es-
say (originally published in 1746) in thc tirst volumc of Les
Pri11cipes de littrature. At that time it was only thc cnd of a
chaptcr, "La Posic des vcrs," that was addcd on. In thc post-
humous edition of 1824, this ending was madc into a separare
chaptcr, with a titlc taken from thc tcxt of thc material added
in 1764.
6 The Architext
chapter concentrares on dcmonstrating that Aristotlc di-
vides the art of poctry into thrce genrcs or, as Battcux
called them, borrowing a term from Horace, three basic
colors. "These three colors are those of the dithyramb,
or lyric poctry; thc cpic, or narrativc poctry; and finally
thc drama, or tragedy and comedy." The abb himself
quotes the passage in the Poetics on which he bases his
claim, and thc quotation is worth repcating, in his own
translation: "Les mots composs de plusicurs mots con-
viennent plus spcialemcnt aux dithyrambes, les mots
inusits aux popes, et les tropes aux drames" (The
words made up of severa} words are more especially ap-
propriatc to dithyrambs, rare words to epics, and tropes
to dramas). This comes at the cnd of chapter 22, which
focuses on questions of lexis or, as we would say, style.
As one can see, at issuc here is the appropriate linkage
between genres and stylistic methods-although Bat-
teux stretches Aristotle's terms a bit in that direction by
translating ta hroika (heroic verses, that is, dactylic hex-
ameter) as "epic" and ta iambeia (iambic verses, and
more particularly, no doubt, thc trimcters of tragic or
com e dialogue) as "drama."
Let us ovcrlook this slight accentuation: herc Aris-
totlc indccd secms to apportion thrce stylistic features
among three genres or forms (dithyramb, epic, dra-
matic dialogue). What we still need to evaluate is the
equivalcnce Batteux establishcs betwccn dithyramb and
lyric poetry. Today thc dithyramb is not a wcll-known
form, for almost no examples of it remain; but scholars
generally describe it as a "choral song in honor of Di-
onysus" and thus readily classify it among the "lyric
forms. "
6
They do not, howcvcr, go as f.1r as Batteux,
6. Jacqucline de Romilly, La Tragdie grecque (Paris: Prcsscs
univcrsitaircs de Francc, 1970), 12.
Atl IntroductiotJ 7
who says that "nothing corresponds better to our lyric
poctry," an asscrtion that givcs short shrift to, for cx-
ample, the ocles of Pindar or Sappho. But as it happens,
Aristotlc does not mention the dithyramb anywhere
clsc in the Poetics, cxccpt to rcfcr to it as a forcrunner of
tragedy.' In thc Homeric Problems, he spccifles that the
form was originally narrativc and later became "mi-
mctic"-that is, dramatic.
8
As for Plato, he mcntions
thc dithyramb as the consummate example of poetry
that is ... purely narrative.
9
Nothing thcrc, then, authorizcs us to claim that in
Aristotle ( or Plato) thc dithyramb illustratcs thc lyric
"gcnrc"-quitc thc contrary. The passage Batteux cites
is the only one in all the Poetics he could have invoked
to give Aristotlc's sanction to the illustrious triad. The
distortion is flagrant, and the point at which it is applicd
is significant. To appreciate the significancc more fully,
7. 1449a.
8. 19.918b-919.
9. Rep11blic 394 c. "lt seems that at thc beginning of the
fifth century, the lyric song in honor of Dionysus may have
dealt with sacred or heroic subjects more or lcss associated
with thc god; thus, according to thc fragmcnts of Pindar that
havc bccn prcscrvcd, thc dithyramb appcars to havc bccn a
piccc of hcroic narration, sung by a choir, without dialogue,
and leading into an invocation to Dionysus or sornctirnes cvcn
to other divinities. Plato must be alluding to this typc of com-
position rather than to the dithyramb of the fourth century,
which was profoundly modificd by thc mixing of musical
modcs and thc introduction of lyric solos" (Rosclyne
Dupont-Roc, "Mimesis ct nonciation," in Ecriture et tllorie
potiques: lectures d'Homere, Escllyle, Platon, Aristote [Pars:
Prcsscs de l'Ecolc normalc supricurc, 1976), 8). Cf. Arthur
Wallace Pickard-Cambridgc, Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1927).
8 The Architext
wc must once again rcturn to thc sourcc-that is, to thc
system of genrcs that Plato conceived and Aristotlc dc-
veloped. 1 say "system of genres" as a provisional
concession to the vulgate, but wc will soon sec that thc
tcrm is incorrect and that somcthing entircly differcnt is
in volved.
11
In thc third book of the Republic, Plato justifics his well-
known dccision to expcl pocts from thc statc with two
sets of considerations. Thc first bcars on the content (lo-
.I!OS) of thc poets' \Vorks. which basically should be mor-
alizing (though all too often it is not): the poet should
not rcpresent shortcomings, cspccially in gods and he-
roes, and should certainly not promote shortcomings
by represcnting virtuc as miserable or vice as trium-
phant. Thc sccond bears on the "form" (lexis), meaning
thc modc of rcprtsclltatio/1}
11
Every pocm is a narrative
(diegesis) of past, prcsent, or future cvents; narrative in
this broad sense can take thrce forms: it can be purcly
narrative (lzaple dit:(!esis), it can be mimetic (dia mime-
sos-in othcr words, as in the theater, by way of dia-
logue betwecn characters), or it can be "mixed" (in
1 O. Of course thc tcrms l1wos and lcxis do not a priori ha ve
this antithetical valuc; out of contcxt, the most faithful trans-
lations would be "discourse" and "diction." lt is Plato himsclf
who constructs thc opposition (392 e) and glosscs it as Iza lek-
tcoll ("thc mattcr of spccch ") and lzc5s /ckteo11 ("thc manncr of
spccch "). Subscqucntly, as we know, rhetoric limits lexis to
thc mcaning "stylc." [Translator's note: Translations of Plato
are from thc Locb cdition.]
A11 l11troduction 9
othcr words, in rcality altcrnating-somctimcs narra-
tivc and sometimes dialogue, as in Homer). Herc 1 will
not go back ovcr thc dctails of Plato's demonstration
11
or his wcll-known dcvaluing of che mimetic and mixed
modes, which is onc of his main grounds for indicting
poets (the other, of coursc, is the immorality of their
subjects). 1 simply wish to point out che corrcspondencc
betwccn the tluee modcs of lexis distinguishcd by Plato
and what will latcr be callcd the poctic "genres": the
purc mimctic corresponds to tragcdy and comedy, the
mixcd to cpic, and thc purc narrativc ro-"espccially"
(malista pou)-dithyramb (che only illustration). The
wholc "system" comes clown to that. Clearly, Plato
hcrc is considcring only the forms of poctry that is
"narrativc" in thc broad scnse-poctry that the subse-
quent tradition, aftcr Aristotle, will more rcadily call
(invcrting thc terms) "mimetic" or po-
ctry that "reports" cvents, real or fictivc. Plato dclib-
eratcly. !caves out all nonrcprescntational poetry-and
chus, abovc all, what wc calllyric poetry-and a fortiori
all other forms of literature (including, of course, any
possible "rcprescntation" in prose. like our novel or
modcrn thcatcr). An cxclusion not only in fact but in-
deed in principie, for again, the rcprescntation of cvents
is hcrc thc vcry dcfinition of poctry: thcrc is no pocm
cxccpt a rcprcscntational one. Plato obviously was not
unawarc of Iyric poccry, but he cxcludcs it hcrc with a
dcliberatcly rcstrictivc dcfinition-a rcstriction pcrhaps
ad hoc, since it facilitatcs the banning of pocts (cxccpt
11. 1 discuss thcm in of Litcrary Discourse, trans.
AJan Shcridan (Ncw York: Columbia Univcrsity Prcss,
1982), 128-33; and Narrativc Discoursc, trans. Janc E. Lewin
(lthaca: Corncll Univcrsity Press, 1980), 162-70.
10 The Architext
lyric pocts?), but a rcstncuon that, va Aristotlc, will
become-and for centuries will rcmain-the basic tenet
of classical poetics.
Indecd, the first page of the Poctics clearly defines po-
etry as the art of imitation in verse (more exactly, "by
rhythm, language, or 'harmony'" [1447 a]), explicitly
excluding imitation in prose (the mimes of Sophron,
the Socratic dialogues) and nonimitative verse-and
making no mention at all of nonimitative prose, su eh as
oratory, on which the Rlzctoric, for its part, focuses.
12
To
illustrate nonimitative verse Aristotle selccts the work
of Empedocles, and more generally any "treatise on
medicine or natural sciencc ... brought out in verse"
(1447 b)-in other words, didactic poetry, which he re-
jects despitc what he calls a widcspread opinion ("thc
name of poet is by custom given to the author"). ToAr-
istotlc, as wc know, "it would be right to call ... [ Em-
pedoclcs] physicist rather than poct," even though Em-
pedocks uses the same meter as Homer. As for the
pocms that we would call lyric (for examplc, those of
Sappho or Pindar), neither here nor elsewherc in thc Po-
etics docs Aristotlc mcntion thcm; thcy are plainly out-
sidc his ficld, as they wcre outsidc Plato's. Thc subse-
quent subdivisions will thus be brought to bear only
within the strictly circumscribed arca of rcprcsenta-
tional poctry.
Thcir basis is an intcrsccting of categories that are di-
rectly connected to the very fact of representation: thc
12. [Translator's note.] Throughout, translations of the
Poctics are S. H. Butchcr's (1895; rcv. 1911; rpt. in Critcism:
Thc Major Tcxts, ed. Waltcr Jackson Bate [New York: Har-
court, Brace, 1952]). All references to the Poetcs are givcn in
che text.
An Introduction 11
object imitated (thc question what?) and thc manner of
imitation (the question how?). The object imitated-
herc wc have a ncw rcstriction-consists solcly of hu-
man actions, or more precisely of human beings in ac-
tion, who can be rcprcscnted as superior to (beltionas),
equal to (kat'hemas), or inferior to (kheironas) "us"
(1448a)
13
-that is, no doubt, to ordinary people. The
middle group will reccivc vcry little attention, so the
criterion of content (the object imitated) comes down to
the contrast betwccn superior and inferior hcrocs. As
for the manner of imitation, it consists cithcr of tclling
(thc Platonic llapte diegesis) or of "prescnt[ing] all [the]
characters as living and moving before us" (1448 a)-
that is, setting them on stage moving about and speak-
ing (the Platonic mimesis, or dramatic rcprescntation).
Here again we see that an intermediare class-the Pla-
tonic mixed class-has disappcarcd, at least as a taxo-
nomic principie. Apart from that disappearance, what
13. Thc translation and thcrcforc thc intcrprctation of
these terms obviously involve the entire interpretation of this
aspect of the Poetics. Their usual meaning is clearly moral, as
is the context of their first appearance in this chapter: char-
acters are distinguished by vice (kakia) and virtue (arete). The
later classical tradition tends rather to interpret thcm in social
terms, with tragcdy (and epic) portraying characters of high
rank and comcdy charactcrs of low rank; and it is ccrtainly
true that thc Aristotelian theory of thc tragic hero, which wc
will come u pon latcr, is not consistcnt with a purely moral dcf-
inition of the hcro's cxcellence. "Superior"/"inferior" is a
prudent compromise, perhaps too prudent, but one hesitates
to have Aristotle rank an Oedipus or a Mcdea with heroes
who are "better" than the average person. As for Hardy's
[French J translation (Pars: Les U elles Lcttrcs), it gets cn-
meshcd in incohcrence from the start by trying both rcndcr-
ings within fiftccn lines of cach othcr.
12 The Arclritext
Aristotle calls "thc manner . . of imitation" (1447 a) is
exactly equivalent to what Plato caBed lexis. This is not
yct a systcm of gcnrcs; che most exact tcrm for dcsig-
nating this category is undoubtedly thc tcrm-uscd in
the !Butcher] translation-mode. Strictly spcaking, wc
are dealing not with "form" in the tradicional sensc, as
in che contrast bctwecn verse and prosc or bctwcen dif-
ferent types of verse, but with sitllatious of
To use Plato's tcrms, in the narrative mode the poet
speaks in his own namc, whercas in the dramatic mode
thc charactcrs thcmsclves speak-or, more prcciscly, thc
poet speaks disguised as so many characters.
In che first chapter Aristotlc distinguishes in principie
three types of diffcrcntiation among the arts of imita-
tion: differentiation by the objcct imitated and by thc
mode of imitation (the two wc are concerncd with
hcrc), but also diffcrentiation by the "medium" (in
( Butchcr's J translation ( 1447 a J; literally, thc qucstion
"in what?" in the sense of one's cxpressing oncsclf "in
gestures" or "in words," "in Grcck" or "in English,"
,,. '' ''. ,, ,,. ,, ,,. .
m prose or m verse, m pentamcter or m tn-
meter," etc.). This third type corrcsponds bese to what
our tradition calls jorm; but it rcccives no real attcntion
in che Poetics, whose systcm of genrcs comprises by and
largc only objects and modes.
Setting the t\vo "object" categorics in cross-relation
to che two "modc" categories chus produces a grid with
four classes of imitation, corresponding preciscly to
what thc classical tradition will call gmres. Thc poet can
recount or sct on stagc thc actions of superior clurac-
tcrs, rccount or sct on stagc che actions of inferior char-
acters.14 The superior-dramatic defines tragedy, the
14. With rcspcct to lcvcl of dignity (or morality),
clcarly docs not ditTcrcntiatc betwccn charactcrs and actions,
vicwing thcm no doubt as indissolubly linkcd-in fact he dis-
A11 ltztroductiotl 13
superior-narrative defines cpic; thc infcrior-dramatic
corresponds to comedy, the infcrior-narrative corre-
sponds to a genre that is less clcar-cut-one that Aris-
totle leaves unnamed and illustrates somctimes by the
"parodies" (pardiai), no longcr cxtant, of Hegemon
and Nicochares (1 448 a) and somctimcs by a Margites at-
tributcd to Homer (1448 b), which he cxpressly declares
is to comedies what the Iliad and thc Odyssey are to trag-
edies (1449 a). This slot, thereforc, is obviously thc onc
for comic narration, which seems to havc originally
been illustrated-whatever wc should takc that to
mean-basically by parodies of epics (the mock hcroic
Batracllolll}'Omachic could, rightly or wrongly, givc us
cusscs charactcrs only as carricrs of thc action. Corncillc
secms to have been the first to break that bond, invcnting in
1650 thc mixcd subgenre of "hcroic comedy" for Don Satrclrc
d'Aragon (a nontragic action in a noble setting). His Pulchrie,
1671, and Tite et Brtrice, 1672, are other, later examples. In
his Discours du pohne dramatiqr1e, 1660, he justifies that disso-
ciation with an explicit criticism of Aristotlc: "Dramatic po-
ctry, according to him, is an imitation of actions, and he stops
herc (at the bcginning of thc Poetics) with thc rank of thc char-
actcrs, not saying what those actions should be. In any case,
his dcfinition was consistcnt with thc practicc thcn in vogue,
when only characters of inferior rank wcre allowed to speak
in comcdy. Bis dcfinition is not cntircly appropriatc in our
time, however, when even kings can figure in comedy as long
as thcir dccds do not raisc them above it. When one sets on
stagc a simple )ove story among kings and they endanger nei-
ther themselves nor their realms, 1 do not think that even
though thc charactcrs are illustrious, the action is sufficiently
so to risc to the lcvel of tragcdy" (CEuvres de Pierre Conrei/le,
cd. Charles Marty-Lavcaux (Pars: Hachettc, 1862-68],
1 :23-24). The in verse dissociation (a tragic action in an cvcry-
day setting) will, in thc next ccntury, produce bourgcois
drama.
14 The Architext
sorne idea of these). The Aristotclian genre system,
then, can be depicted like this:

Dramatic
Narra ti ve
[ 11arratif J
T
Superior tragedy
.
cptc
Inferior comed y parody
As we know only too wcll, thc rcmainder of the Po-
etics will dcploy on this grid a succession of abandon-
ments or dcadly depreciations: the inferior-narrative
will be mentioned no more, and comedy very little. The
two high genres will be left face-to-face in an unequal
match becausc, after sctting forth this taxonomic framc-
work, thc Poetics (at lcast all but a fcw pagcs of what rc-
mains of it) turns out to be mainly a theory of tragcdy.
That outcome in itself does not concern us. Let us at
least note that this triumph of tragcdy is not solely thc
effcct of incomplctcness or mutilation but results from
explicit and motivated attributions of higher value.
First, of coursc, thc superiority of the dramatic modc
over thc narrative (the well-known reversa} of Plato's
prcjudice), a supcriority proclaimed apropos of Homer,
one of whose merits is that as narrator he intervenes as
little as possible in his poem and makes himself as much
of an "imitator" (that is, a dramatist) as an epic poet can
be, letting his characters speak as often as possible (1460
a) (this commendation shows, incidentally, that al-
though Aristotle omitted the category, he was no less
aware than Plato of the "mixed" nature of Homeric
narration, a fact whose consequcnces 1 will rcturn to).
15
15. In 1448b, Aristotle goes so far asto call the Homeric
cpics "dramatic ... imitation" (mimescis dramatikas), and ap-
At1 ltztroductiotl 15
Sccond, thc formal supcriority of tragcdy's varicty of
meters and its inclusion of "music and scenic effects"
(1462 a). Third, the intcllcctual superiority of tragedy
for its "vividncss of imprcssion in rcading as wcll as in
representation" (1462a). Fourth and fth, the aesthetic
superiority of tragedy for its concentration and unity
(1462 b) and, more surprising, the thematic superiority
of thc tragic objcct.
More surprising because theorctically, as we have
seen, the opening pages of the Poetics attribute to the
two genres objects that are not only equal but identi-
cal-namcly, the represcntation of superior heroes.
This equality is proclaimed again (for the last time) in
1449 b: "E pie poetry agrees with [ ekolomesetz] Tragedy in
so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a
higher typc." Thcn comes thc rcmindcr of thc diffcr-
ences in form (epic's uniform meter versus tragedy's
varying meter), the difference in mode, and the differ-
encc in "lcngth" (tragcdy's action cnclosed within the
famous unity of time-one revolution of the sun). Fi-
nally, the officially granted equality of object is surrep-
titiously dcnied: "Of their constituent parts sorne are
common to both, sorne peculiar to Tragedy. Whocvcr,
ropos of the Mar<(!ites he uses the expression "dramatising the
ludicrous" (to gloio11 dramat'P''iesas). Howcvcr, thcsc vcry
strong tcrms do not prcvcnt him from kceping thosc works
in the general category of narrativc (mimeistlzai apangelloma,
1448 a). And we should bear in mind that he does not apply
these terms to the cpic in general, but to Homer only (monos,
in 1448b as in 1460a). For a more detailed analysis ofthe rea-
sons for this praise of Homer and, more gencrally, of the dif-
ference between the Platonic and Aristotelian definitions of
Homcric mimesis, see Jcan Lallot, "La mimesis selon Aristote
ct l'cxccllcncc d'Homcrc," in Ecriwre et tllorie potiques, 15-
23. From our vicwpoint thcse diffcrcnccs pose no problem.
16 The Architext
thcrcforc, knows what is good or bad Tragcdy, knows
also about Epic poetry: for all the elemcnts of an Epic
poem are found in Tragedy, but the elemcnts of a Trag-
cdy are not all found in thc Epic pocm." Thc placing of
highcr valuc, in thc propcr scnsc of thc phrasc, lcaps out
at thc reader, for this passage attributes an automatic
supcriority if not to thc tragic poct thcn at least to thc
connoisscur of tragcdics, by virtuc of thc principie
"whoevcr can do more can do lcss." Thc rcasons for this
superiority may still sccm obscurc or abstruse: tragedy
allcgedly indudes, with no conccssion of rcciprocity,
"constituent parts" (mre) that cpic docs not indude.
What docs ali this mean?
Litcrally, no doubt. that of thc six "parts" of tragcdy
(plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song
[ 1450 a]), thc last two are spccific ro it. But asidc from
thesc tcchnical considcrations, the comparison intimares
even at this point that thc initial dcfinition common to
thc objects of both genres will not complctdy sutiicc (ro
say rhe lcast) to define thc objcct of tragcdy-an inti-
marion borne out a fcw lincs larcr by this second dcfi-
nition, which has becn authoritativc for ccnturies:
"Tragcdy then, is an imitation of an action that is seri-
ous, complete, and of a ccrtain magnitudc; in languagc
cmbcllished with each kind of artistic ornament, the
severa! kinds being found in separare parts of the play;
in the form of action, not of narrarivc; through pity and
fcar cffccting thc propcr purgation of thcsc cmotions"
(1449b).
As everyone knows, the theory of tragic catharsis set
forth in thc final phrasc of that definiran is not among
thc clcarest, and its obscurity has supported multitudes
of perhaps pointless excgeses. For us, in any case, the
important rhing is not thc effcct (whcrhcr psychological
A11 l11troductiotl 17
or moral) of the two emotions of tragedy but the very
prcscncc of thcsc cmotions in thc definition of the
genre, as well as the set of specific features Aristotle des-
ignares as necessary to thcir production and thercforc to
thc existence of a tragcdy that is in kccping with that
definition: an uncxpected (para te11 doxmr) and amazing
(thaumaston) train of cvcnts, as when "coincidcnces ...
have ;m air of dcsign" (1452a); "pcripeteia" or "rever-
sal" of the action, as when behavior produces an out-
come that is thc revcrsc of what has bccn anticipated
(1452 a); "rccognition" of pcrsons whosc identities ha ve
hitherto been unknown or conccalcd (1452 a); misfor-
tune suffcrcd by a hcro who is ncither wholly innocent
nor wholly guilty, causcd not by a real crimc but by a
tragic flaw (hamartia) ( 1453 a); violcncc committed ( or,
bettcr, on thc vcrgc of bcing committcd, but prcvcntcd
at the last momcnt by thc rccognition) betwcen pcople
dcar to each othcr, prefcrably bound by tics of blood
but unawarc of thc naturc of thcir tics (1453 b); and so
on.
16
All thcsc critcria, which mark thc actions of Oe-
dipus Rcx or thc Cresphontes as the most perfcct tragic
actions and Euripcdcs as thc author who is most tragic,
eminently tragic, or cspccially tragic (1453
a), certainly constitute a ncw definition of tragedy-onc
wc cannot wholly dismiss mcrcly by calling it less cx-
tcnsivc and more dctailcd than thc earlicr dcfinition, for
some of the incompatibi1itics are a little more difficult
to reconcile. One example is the idea of a tragic hero
16. Chaptcrs 9-14; a littlc furthcr on (l459b). to be sure,
Aristotle restares the balance somewhat by granting to epic
the samc constituent "parts" that tragedy has, "except song
and sccncry," induding "Reversals of lntention, Recogni-
tions, and Tragic lncidcnts." But the basic motif of thc
tragic-fcar :md pity-rcmains alicn to c:pic.
18 The Architext
who is "ncither entircly good, nor entirely evil" (ac-
cording to Racine's faithful paraphrasc in thc prcface to
but basically Jallible ("very far from bcing
perfect. he must always ha ve sorne defect." as the pref-
ace to Britmmiws extcnds the idea-corrcctly, in my
vicw) or not clear-sightcd cnough or-and this amounts
to thc samc thing-too clear-sighted (like Oedipus,
17
who
in Holderlin's famous and inspired verse has "one eye
too many") to avoid the traps set by fatc.
18
That idea
docs not squarc wcll with thc carlier decree of a human
naturc superior to thc average, unless this supcriority is
to be deprived of any moral or intellectual dimension.
which would be rathcr incompatible with thc ordinary
meaning of the adjectivc beltio11, as we have seen. An-
othcr examplc is Aristotle's requirement that thc action
be capable of arousing fear and pity regardless of
whether it is shown on stage or merely narrated (1453
b). Here he ccrtainly seems to admit that the tragic sub-
jcct can be dissociatcd from the dramatic modc and en-
trusted simply to narration, without thcrcby bccoming
an cpic subjcct.
17. Too beca use, like Laius befo re him, 1110 we/1
(by the oracle). And so, in any case, and
too that is thc m a in themc, tragic hcrc beca use thc issue
is dcath, but comic in othcr works (L'Ecole des Jenmres, Le Bar-
bier de Sl'ille) whcrc thc issuc is only thc mortification of an
old fool or thc "uselcss" prccaution-uselcss and cvcn
or. to put it in tcrms more appropriatc in this contcxt. dis.ts-
trOIIS or fatal.
18. Tire Complete Plays of ]ean Racine, trans. Samucl Sol-
omon (New York: Random Housc, 1967), 1:141 (Andro-
maque), 1:289 (Britamricus). Friedrich Holderlin. "In lieblichcr
Blauc," lincs 75-76.
An ltltroduction 19
So the tragic can exist apart from tragedy, just as
thcrc are doubtlcss tragcdies that lack thc tragic or that
in any case are less tragic than others. Robortello, in his
Commentary of 1548, is of the opinion that the con-
ditions laid clown in the Poetics are rcalized only in Oe-
dipus Rex, and he resolves this doctrinal difficulty by
maintaining that sorne of those conditions are necessary
not to the nature of a tragcdy but only to its perfcction:
9
This jesuitical distinction would perhaps have satisfied
Aristotlc, for it maintains the apparent unity of the con-
ccpt of tragedy across the variable gcomctry of its dcf-
initions. Actually, of coursc, thcrc are two distinct real-
ities here. One, laid clown in the opening pages of the
Poetics, is simultancously modal and thematic: it is the
high or serious drama, in contrast to the high narrative
19. Reponed by Corncillc in his Discours de la tragde
(1660, in (Eiwres, 1 :59). Seven pagcs latcr, he applies that dis-
tinction to two of thc Aristotclian rcquircments: thc scmi-
innocence of thc hero and thc existencc of close tics betwecn
the antagonists. "When 1 say," he adds, "that these two con-
ditions are only for pcrfcct tragcdics, 1 do not mean that trag-
edics in which thcy do not obtain are impcrfcct; that would
amount to making thcse two conditions an absolute rcquire-
mcnt, and 1 would be contradicting mysclf. But by 'pcrfect
tragcdies' 1 mean those of thc most sublime and affccting
kind. so that tragcdics lacking in onc or thc othcr. or both. of
thesc two conditions, evcn if they are regular in all other re-
spects, do not fall short of perfcction for their kind, although
thcy remain at a lcss clevatcd rank and do not approach the
beauty and brilliancc of thc others." Here we ha ve a fine ex-
amplc of those quibblcs by which, for a short pcriod, onc
compromiscd with (s'accommodat)-thc phrasc is Corncillc's
own (60)-an orthodoxy onc was alrcady daring to disrupt in
fact, although not yet in words.
20 The Architext
(thc cpic) and to the low, or mirthful, drama (comcdy).
This gcncric reality, which embraces thc Persians as wcll
as Oedip11s Rex, is traditionally dcsignatcd and
Aristotlc obviously docs not considcr qucstioning that
dcsignation. The other rcality is purcly thematic and of
an anthropological, rathcr than poetic, naturc: it is thc
is, thc sense of thc irony of fatc or thc cru-
clty of the gods; this is what chaptcrs 6-19, for thc most
part, havc in view. Thcsc two rcalitics intcrscct, and the
an:a whcrc thcy ovcrlap is that of tragedy in thc strict
(Aristotclian) scnsc, or tragcdy par cxccllcncc, fulfilling
al1 the conditions (coincidcncc, reversa), rccognition,
etc.) for producing fcar and pity, or rathcr that spccific
blend of fcar and pity that in thc thcatcr is arouscd by
thc cruel manifestation of tate.
high drama
tragrdy
thc tragic
In tcrms of a systcm of gcnrcs. tragcdy is thcrcforc a
thcmatically dcfincd catcgory within high drama, justas
for us vaudcvillc is a thcmatical1y defincd catcgory
within comcdy, or the detective novel a thcmatical1y de-
fmcd catcgory within the novd. This distinction has
bccn obvious to cvcryonc sincc Didcrot, Lessing, or
Schlcgcl. but for ccnturies it was conccalcd by thc am-
An lntrod1ution 21
biguity of thc word tragedy, with its two scnscs, broad
and narrow. Certainly Aristotlc cspouscd both scnscs in
succession without paying much attention to the differ-
ence betwccn thcm-and without suspecting, 1 hope,
the theorctical imbroglio into which, many centuries
later, his casualness would throw sorne literary theo-
rists, cntrappcd by thc confusion and naivcly bcnt on
applying and having others apply to thc wholc of a
genre the norms he had elucidatcd for one of its spccies.
III
But let us go back to the initial systcm, which that
memorable digrcssion on the tragic transcends but ap-
parcntly docs not rcpudiate. As wc havc sccn, thc sys-
tem did not and by definition could not assign any place
to lyric poetry; but wc havc also sccn that thc system
overlooked, or sccmcd in passing to overlook, thc Pla-
tonic distinction between the pure narrative mode, il-
lustrated by dithyramb, and the mixed modc, illustrated
by epic. Or rather, 1 repeat, Aristotlc rccognized the
mixed nature of thc cpic mode perfcctly well-and put
a lzigher value on it. What disappears in his system is the
status of the dithyramb and, at the samc time, thc nced
to distinguish bctwccn purc narrativc and impurc nar-
rativc. From that point on, howcvcr wcak thc justifi-
cation, cpic will be rankcd among the narrative genres:
after all, a single word of introduction by the poet is ul-
timatcly enough to make it narrativc, cvcn if everything
that follows is dialogue (just as, sorne twcnty-fivc cen-
turies later, the absence of such an introduction will be
enough to establish the "interior monologue"-a pro-
ceeding almost as old as narrativc-as a full-ftcdged
novelistic "form"). In short, if for Plato epic bclongcd
.,.,
--
The Architext
to thc mixed mode, for Aristotle it belongs to the nar-
rativc mode evm t l z o u ~ l it is basically mixed or impure,
which obviously means that the criterion of purity is no
longer rclevant.
Something happens therc-bctween Plato and Aris-
totle-that wc havc trouble appreciating fully because,
for one thing, the dithyrambic corpus is, sadly, missing.
But thc dcvastation wrought by time undoubtcdly does
not bcar solc responsibility: Aristotlc spcaks of that
genre as if it is airead y a thing of the past, and he surely
has rcasons for overlooking it altiJOugl! it is uarrative, and
not only, from pro-mimctic prcjudice, because it is purely
11arratil'e. And wc know well from cxperience that pure
narrative (telling without showifiJ! in the language of
American criticism) is pure possibilily, with almost no
attempt made to actualize it at the lcvel of a whole work
and, a fortiori, at thc lcvel of a genrc; wc would be hard
put to name a novclla without dialogue, and for the cpic
or thc novel, pure narrativc is out of the question.
20
lf
thc dithyramb is a phantom gcnre, purc narrative is a
fictitious modc, or at lcast a purcly "thcorctical" one,
and Aristotlc's abandoning it is also a charactcristic
cxprcssion of cmpiricism.
20. [Translator's note.] In Nou!'eau discours du rcit (pub-
lished four years after Iutroductiou a l'architexte), Genette wrotc:
"[1 takc this] opportunity to corn:ct a blunder 1 made in thc
Architexte, wherc 1 complctely excluded the possibility of a
long narrative (epic or novel) without dialogue. The possi-
bility is. howcver, obvious; and Buffon's principie ('evcry-
thing that may be, is') should encouragc one to be prudent;
and (barring a new error) there is not a single line of dialogue
in Mmoires d' Hadric11" (Nou!'eau discours du rcit [Pars: Seuil,
1983 ]. 28; tr. Narrati1'e Discourse Rel'isited, trans. Jane E. Lewin
[lthaca: Cornell University Press. 1988]. 42).
An Imroduction 23
What remains, however, if wc compare Plato's sys-
tcm of modes with Aristotlc's, is thc fact that onc slot
on the chart has been vacated (and promptly lost) along
thc way. The Platonic triad
narra uve
[ narrarif)
mixcd drama tic
has bccn rcplaced by the Aristotelian pair
--r-------y--------,
narran ve
[ narratifl
dramatic
-------....1...------....L..-------'
but not by oustcr of thc mixcd; rathcr, thc purc narra-
tive disappears bccause it is noncxistcnt, and the
mixed-thc only narrative left-establishes itself in the
place rcscrved for narrative.
So, thc pcrspicacious rcadcr will say, thcrc is a slot to
be fillcd, and it's casy to gucss what happens next, cs-
pecially when we already know the outcome. But let's
not skip too many steps.
IV
For severa} centurics, thc Platonic-Aristotelian rcstric-
tion of poetics to the representative will weigh heavily
on the theory of gcnres and kecp the theory's adherents
in a statc of malaisc or confusion.
21
Thc idea of lyric po-
21. For thc most part, thc historical information that fol-
lows is takcn from Edmond Faral, Les Arts potiques d11 Xlle et
dr1 XII/e siecle: rccherchts et documellts sur la teclmiqr1e littraire du
24 Tlu A.rchitext
ctry is obviously not unknown to rhc Alcxandrian crit-
ics, but it is not madc part of thc paradigm alongsidc the
ideas of cpic and dramatic poctry, and its definition is
still purcly tcchnical (pocms with lyrc accompanimcnt)
and rcstrictivc. Aristarchus, in thc third to sccond ccn-
tury B. c., draws up a list of ninc lyric pocts (including
Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, and Pindar), which will
long rcmain canonical and cxcludcs, for cxamplc, thc
iambic and thc clcgiac distich. Horacc, although himsclf
a l yricist and satirist, limits thc Art of Poetry, in tcrms of
gcnrc, to praising Homer and setting forth thc rules of
dramatic poctry. In the list of rcadings in Grcck and
Latn thar Quintilian recommcnds to thc futurc orator,
he mcntions, bcsides history, philosophy, and of course
rhctoric, sevcn poetic genres: epic (which here com-
priscs all kinds of narra ti ve, dcscriptivc, or didactic
pocms, including thosc of Hcsiod, Theocritus, and Lu-
crctius), tragcdy, comedy, elcgy (Callimachus, thc Latin
moym (Paris: Champion, 1 924); Bc:hrcns, l.drre I'OII der
Wdlck and Warrcn, TIJcory of Utcratrrre; M. H.
Abrams, Tilc lvlirror a11d thc Lamp: Romalltic Tlzcory a11d rile
Critica/ Traditio11 (Oxford: Oxford Univcrsity Prcss. 1 953);
Mario Fubini, "Gcncsi e storia dci gcncri littcrari" ( 1951 ). in
Critiw e poesa: saggi 1' discorsi di teora lcttcraria (Bari: Latcrza,
1 %6); Rc:n Wcllck. ''Gc:nrc: Thcory, thc Lyric. and Erlt'lmis"
(1967), in Discrimi11atio11s: Frrrtila Co11cepts t?f Criticism (Ncw
Havcn: Yale University Press, 1970): Pcter Szondi, "La Tho-
rie des genres potiques chcz F. Schlegel" (1968), in Posie et
potiqrre de l'idalismt' trans. Jcan Uollack, Uarbara
Cassin, ct al. (Pars: Minuit, 1975); Wolfgang V. Ruttkowski,
Die liter<lrisclretr Gattrmge11: iiba ei11e rtwd!fizierte
Fmrdamelltaip<letik ( Bcrn: Franckc, 1968); Claudio Guilln,
"Litcraturc: as Systc:m" (1 970), in Litcratllrt' as Systcm: Essays
toward thc Thtory 4 Litcrary History (Princcton: Princcton
Univcrsity Prcss, 1971).
An lntroduction 25
clegists), iambic (Archilochus, Horace), satire ("tora
nostra": Lucilius and Horacc), and lyric poctry-this
last illustrated by, among others, Pindar, Alcaeus, and
Horacc. In other words, here the lyric is simply one of
several nonnarrative and nondramatic gcnres and comes
clown in fact to onc form, which is thc ocle.
But Quintilian's list is obviously not an art of poetry,
sincc it includcs works in prosc. Thc latcr attcmpts at
systcmatization, at thc cnd of antiquity and in thc Mid-
dle Ages, make grcat cfforts to integrare lyric poetry
into thc systcms of Plato or Aristotlc without modify-
ing thcir catcgorics. Thus Diomcdcs (late fourrh ccn-
tury) rechristcns thc thrcc Platonic modcs "genres"
(.geuera) and, after a fashion, apportions among them
the "species" (speccs) that we would call gcnres: the ge-
11115 imitativum (dramatic), in which only the charactcrs
speak, comprises the tragic, comic, and satiric species
{thc last-namcd is thc satiric drama of thc carly Grcek
tctralogics, not mcntioncd by Plato or Aristotlc); thc te-
1/1/S emwrativum (narrativc), in which only che poct
speaks, comprises che propcrly narrative, the scntcn-
tious (gnomic?), and the didactic spccics; thc JJCmts com-
mrme (mixcd), in which poct and characters spcak in
turn, compriscs the spccies that are heroic (thc epic) and
... lyric (Archilochus and Horace). Proclus (fifth ccn-
tury) omits thc mixed catcgory, as Aristotle did, and in
thc narrativc gcnrc he puts-alongsidc cpic-iambic, cl-
egy, and mlos (lyricism). John of Garland (thirtecnth
century) goes back to Diomcdcs' systcm.
Thc sixtecnth-ccntury authors of ares of poctry gcn-
crally forgo constructing systcms and are contcnt in-
secad simply to juxtaposc spccics. Thus Pclctier du
Mans (1555): epigram, sonnet, ocle, epistlc, clcgy, sat-
irc, comcdy, tragcdy, "hcroic work"; or Vauquclin de
La Frcsnayc (1605): cpic, ckgy, sonnct, iambic, song,
26 The Architext
odc, comcdy, tragcdy, satirc, idyll, pastoral; or Sir
Philip Sidncy (Au Apologie for Poctrie, about 1580): hc-
roic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, clcgiac, pas-
toral, etc. The main arts of poetry of the classical tra-
dition, from Vida to Rapin, are basically, as we know,
commentarics on Aristotlc, in which the incxhaustiblc
debate about thc comparativc mcrits of tragcdy and cpic
goes on and on, whilc thc cmcrgcncc in thc sixtccnth
century of new genres (like thc hcroical-romantic
pocm, the pastoral novel, the dramatic pastoral, or the
tragicomcdy, cach too casily reducible to thc narrativc
or the dramatic modc) ncvcr really altcrs thc picturc. In
the classical vulgate, the de facto rccognition of thc var-
ious nonrcprescntational forms is rcconcilcd, aftcr a
fashion, with thc maintcnancc of Aristotclian ortho-
doxy by mcans of a convenicnt distinction bctwccn "thc
major gcnrcs" and . . . thc othcrs-a distinction to
which the arrangcmcnt of Boileau's Art potiquc (1674)
perfectly (albcit implicitly) attests: canto 3 dcals with
tragcdy, cpic, and comcdy, whilc canto 2, likc its
sixtccnth-ccntury predcccssors, strings togcthcr idyll,
elcgy, odc, sonnet, cpigram, rondcau, madrigal. bailad,
satirc, vaudcvillc. and song, without any comprchcn-
sivc classification.
22
In thc samc ycar, Rapin spcaks
opcnly of thc distinction and pushcs it furthcr:
22. Wc should rcmembcr that cantos 1 and 4 are devotcd to
transgcncric considcrations. And, in passing. that certain mis-
understandings. not to say misinterpretations, of "classical
doctrine" are duc to an improper gcneralization of specific
"preccpts" that havc become provcrbs without contcxt and
thus without rdcvancc. For examplc. cvcryonc knows that
"un beau dsordre cst un effct de l"art" (a fine disordcr is ,m
eflcct of art). but this is a five-foot alexandrinc that pcople
readily complete with a "Souvent" (ofttimes) as apocryphal as
Att Introductiotl 27
Poetics as a wholc can be dividcd into thrcc differ-
cnt spccics of pcrfcct Pocm-Epic, Tragcdy, and
Comcdy-and thcsc thrcc spccics can be rcduced
to only two, one of which consists of action and
the other of narration. AH thc other species that
Aristotle mcntions [?) can be reduced to those two:
Comcdy to dramatic Poctry, Satirc to Comedy,
Ode and Eclogue to heroic Poetry. The Sonnet,
the Madrigal, the Epigram, the Rondeau, and the
Ballad are but spccies of imperfect Poetry.
23
In short, the nonrepresentational genres may choosc
only bctwccn an annexation that enhances thcir value
(satirc annexed to comedy and thus to dramatic poetry,
ode and eclogue to cpic) or a dismissal to outer darkness
or, if one prefcrs, to the limbo of "imperfection." Therc
is undoubtedly no bettcr commc:nt on this scgrcgative
assessment than the discouragcd avowal Ren Bray
makes whcn, having studicd the classical thcories of the
"major gcnrcs" and thcn tricd to bring together some
information on bucolic poctry, clcgy, ode, cpigram, and
satire, he abruptly brcaks off: "But Jet us stop sifting
through so barren a doctrine. The thcorists wcre too
contcmptuous of cvcrything outsidc thc majar gcnrcs.
Tragcdy and thc hcroic pocm wcrc all they paid atten-
tion to. "
24
Bcsidc-or rathcr, thcrcforc, bcncath-thc major
narrativc and drantatic gcnrcs is a cloud of small forrns,
it is evasivc. Thc: real bc:ginning of thc: linc: is "Chez elle"
(with hcr). With whom? The answer is in canto 2, lim.-s 58-
72.
23. Rijlexions sur la potique (Pars, 1674); part 2, chapter
1.
24. La Fonnatilm de la doctrine classique en Frauce (1927; rpt.
Paris: Nizet. 1966), 354.
28 Tire /irclritext
whosc infcriority or lack of poctic status is duc some-
whac co chcir littlcncss (real in che case of chcir dimcn-
sions, allcged in the case of thcir subjects) and much
more co che centurics-old exclusion applicd co cvery-
ching thac is not "an imication of mcn in accion." Ocles,
elegies, sonnets, etc., "imitate" no action, bccause thc-
orecically all thcy do. like a speech ora prayer, is cxpress
thcir authors' ideas or fcelings, real or ficcicious. Con-
sequently, there are only cwo conceivable ways of pro-
moting them to poetic dignity. The first way is to up-
hold, while somewhat expanding, che classical dogma
of i u ~ s i s and scrive to show that that type of statement
is scill, in its own fashion, an "imitation." The second
and more radical way is to break with che dogma and
proclaim che cqual poetic dignicy of a nonrcpresema-
tional utterance. Todav those cwo movemencs seem an-
,
tithetical and logically incompatible. But in fact onc will
succeed che other and link up wich ic almosc unnocicc-
ably. che former paving che way for che latter while
cloaking ic, as rcforms somecimes break che ground for
revolutions.
V
The idea of federacing all che kinds of nonmimecic po-
etry to escablish them as a third parcy under che com-
mon na me of lyric poetry is noc wholly unknown to che
classical period: ic is mcrcly marginal and, so co spcak,
heterodox. The tlrsc occurrence of it chat Irene Behrens
naced is in che work of the Icalian Minturno, for whom
"poctry is divided into thrce pares, onc of which is
called thcatrical, thc sccond lyrical, che chird epical."
Cervantes, in chapter 47 of Do11 Quixote, has his Canon
A11 llltroductio11 29
spcak of a fourfold division, with dramatic poctry split
into two parts: "Thc unrcstrictcd rangc 1 of books of
chivalry] enablcs the author to show his powers, epic,
lyric, tragic, or comic." Mil ton claims to find in Aris-
totlc, Horace, "and thc ltalian commcnraries of Castel-
vetro, Tasso, Mazzoni, and othcrs ... thc laws ... of
a true epic ... , dramatic .... [or]lyric" pocm-the
earliest cxamplc. to my knowlcdgc, of our impropcr at-
tribution. Dryden distinguishcs thrce "ways": dramatic,
epic, lyric. Gravina devores one chapter of his Ragio11
poerica ( 1708) to cpic and dramatic poetry and thc next
chaptcr to lyric poctry. Houdar de la Motte, a "mod-
ern" in thc contcxt of the Quarrd of the Ancients and
Modcrns, compares thc threc catcgorics and describes
himsclf as "at once an epic, dramatic, and lyric poct."
Finally, llaumgarten, in a 1735 tcxt that outlines or pre-
figures his Aesthetica, evokes "the lyrical, the cpical. thc
dramatic and thcir gen cric su bdivisions. "
25
And m y
cnumcration lays no claim to cxhaustivcncss.
But none of thost: propositions is truly wdl
grounded and wcll cxplaincd. Thc carlicst cffort in that
25. Minturno, De Poet11 (Venice, 155l)); bis Arte p<ctiC<I of
1563, in ltalian, has thc saml' division. Miguel de Cervantes,
D''" Quixote, trans. John Ormsby (New York: W. W. Norton
:md Co .. Norton Critica! Editions. I'JHI). 375. John Milton.
Of Edu(lltion ( 1644). in Complete Poems aud lHajor Prost, ed.
Merritt Y. Hughcs (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Odys-
sey Press, 1957), 637. John Dryden, A11 Essay of Dramatic
Poesy (1668), in Selectcd Works jo/m cd. William
Frost (New York: Holt, Rinchart and Winston, 1953), 326.
Houdar de la Mottc, sur/, iritique, 2d ed. (Pars: Du
Puis, 1716), 166. Baumgartcn, .\lcclitt!IItrcs plrilosoplliiae de
nomwllis 11d pot'ma pertineutibus (1735), section 106.
30 The Architext
dircction scems to have been madc by the Spaniard
Francisco Cascales, in his Tablas poeticas (1617) and Car-
tas (1634): lyric poctry, says Cascales apro-
pos of thc sonnct, has for its "plot" not an action, as
cpic and dramatc poetry do, bur a thought (concepto).
This distortion of orthodoxy is signficant: the term
plot (fbula) is Aristotclian, and the term could
corrcspond to thc cqually Aristotclian tcrm dianoia. But
thc idea that a thought can serve as the plot of anything
whatsoevcr s totally alen to thc spirit of thc Poetics,
which explicitly defines plot (mutlzos) as "the arrangc-
ment of thc incidents" (1450 a)
26
and in which dianoia
{"thc faculty of saying what is possible and pcrtinent
in given circumstanccs," 1450b) covcrs scarccly more
than thc charactcrs' tcchniqucs of argumcntation; vcry
logically, thcrcforc, Arstotlc dismisscs thc topic, rcfer-
ring to his study of it in "thc Rhetoric, to which in-
quiry thc subjcct more strictly bclongs" (1456 a). E ven
though sorne critics, like Northrop Fryc/
7
cxtcnd the
dcfinition to include the thought of the poet himsdf,
obviously all of that cannot constitutc a plot in thc Ar-
istotclan scnsc. Cascalcs is using a vocabulary that is
still orthodox to covcr an idea that is alrcadv as far
'
from orthodox as possiblc, namcly. thc idea that a
poem, likc a discourse or a letter, may havc as its sub-
jcct a thought or fccling that it simply cxposcs or cx-
prcsscs. Uttcrly banal today, for ccnturics this idea rc-
maincd not unthought of, surely (no litcrary theorist
could be unawarc of thc immensc corpus it covcrs), but
almost systcmatically represscd bccausc it could not be
26. Cf. 1451 b: "The poet or 'maker' should be the maker
of plots rather than of verses; sin ce he is a poet be cause he im-
itates. and what he imitates are actions ...
?7 A -? -3
_ . natomy. =>--:> .
Att Imroductiott 31
integrated into the system of a poetics founded on the
dogma of "imitation."
Batteux's cffort-thc last cffort classical poetics
makes to survivc by opcning itsclf up to what ir has
ncvcr managcd cithcr to ignore or to acknowlcdgc-
thcrefore consists of attempting the impossible: retain-
ing imitation as thc solc law of all poetry (as of all thc
arts} but cxtcnding this law to lyric poctry itsclf. That
is his aim in chaptcr 13, "Sur la posie lyriquc." llattcux
begins by admitting that, lookcd at supcrficially, lyric
poctry "sccms to lend itsclf lcss than thc othcr spccics
to the gcnerallaw that reduces cvcrything to imitation."
Thus, it is said, thc psalms of David, thc ocles of Pindar
and Horacc are only "firc, cmotion, intoxication ... a
song inspircd by joy, admiration, thankfulncss ... a cri
de coeur, an outburst in which naturc docs cvcrything
and are nothing." The poet, therefore, is cxpressing his
fcclings and imitating nothing. "Which makcs two
things true: first, that lyric pocms are truc pocms; scc-
ond, that thcsc poems are not charactcrized by imita-
tion." But actually, answcrs Battcux, this purc cxprcs-
sion, this truc poctry without imitation, is found only
in thc biblical hymns. God himsclf dictatcd thcm, and
God "has no nccd to imita te; he crea tes." Pocts, on thc
contrary. who are only human bcings.
havc nowhcrc to turn but to thcir natural gift, an
imagination cxcitcd by art, a fcigncd rapture. That
they may have really felt gladness is somcthing to
sing about, but for only onc or two couplets. If
something more cxtcnsivc is wantcd, it is up to art
to stitch to that first cloth ncw feelings resembling
the earlier oncs. Let nature light thc fire; art must
at least nourish and sustain it. So thc examplc of
32 The Architext
the prophets, who sang without imitating. provcs
nothing against poets as imitators.
At least in part, thercforc, the feclings cxpresscd by
pocts are fcdings pretended through art, and this part
carries thc whole, since it shows the possibility of cx-
prcssing fictitious fcclings-which, morcover, drama
and cpic have done right from thc start:
So long as the action [in cpic or drama J m oves for-
ward, thc poctry is epic or dramatic; when the ac-
tion stops and the poetry portrays nothing except
thc uniquc statc of the soul, the purc fceling it is
cxpericncing, thc poetry in itsdf is lyric: to be set
to song, it necd only he givcn thc appropriatc
form. Thc monologues of Polyeuctc, Camillc,
and Chimcne are lyric fragmcnts: and in that case,
why should feeling, which is susceptible of imi-
tation in a drama, not be susceptible of it in an
ode? Why can passion be imitated on a stage but
not in a song? So thcre is no cxccption. All pocts
havc thc samc objcct. which is to imitar<: naturc,
and all havc to procccd in thc samc manner to im-
itare it.
Thcreforc lyric poetry. too. is imitation: ir imitares
fcelings.
Onc could considcr [ it] a specics apart. without vi-
olating thc law that govcrns thc othcr spccics. But
thcrc is no nccd to separare thcm; lyric poctry cn-
tcrs naturally and cvcn necessarily into imitation,
with but onc diffcrcncc to charactcrizc and distin-
guish it: its particular objcct. Thc main ohjcct of
thc othcr spccics of poetry is actions; lyric poctry
focuscs complctcly on fcclings: thcy are its thcmc.
its chicf objcct.
A11 lmroductiotl 33
So now lyric poctry is integratcd into classical port-
ies. But, as rcadcrs may havc obscrvcd, that intcgration
entailed two vcry noticeable distortions in oppositc di-
rcctions. On thc onc hand, Batteux had to slip silcntly
from a mere possibility of fictitious cxprcssion to an cs-
selltial fictitiousncss of the fcclings cxprcssed, had to re-
duce all lyric poctry to the reassuring modcl of thc
tragic monologue, so that he could admit into the heart
of alllyric creation that screen of fiction without which
the idea of imitation could not be applied to lyric. On
the other hand, he had to slip. as Cascalcs had alrcady
done, from thc orthodox term imitathm of actio11s to a
broadcr tcrm: imitclti(lll, pcriod. As Batteux himsclf
says. "In epic and dramatic poetry. onc imitatcs actions
and customs; in the lyric. one sings of imitated feelings
or passions. "
2
" Thc asymmctry rcmains obvious, and
with it thc surrcptitious betrayal of Aristotlc. Thus, a
supplcmentary guarantec (or prccaution) is indccd ncc-
cssary in this dircction, and that is what les behind Bat-
tcux 's addition of thc chaptcr cntitlcd "Que ccttc doc-
trine cst conforme a celle di\ristotc ...
Thc principie of thc operation is simple and already
familiar to us: it consists first of deriving from a fairly
marginal stylistic commcnt a tripartition of the poctic
gcnrcs into dithyramb. epic, and drama, which brings
Aristotle to thc Platonic point of departure; then of in-
tcrprcting dithyramb as an cxamplc of thc lyric gcnrc,
which allows one to attributc to thc Poetics a triad that
neither Plato nor Aristotlc had ever considered. But we
28. Thc chapter "Sur la posic lyriquc ... at the cnd. lnci-
dcntally. thc changc from che <ollcepttl {thought) of Cascalcs to
thc Sl'lltimems (fcclings) of Battcux-skipping ovcr thc clas-
sical silcncc-is a good mcasun of thc distancc bctwccn ha-
roque intcllcctualism and prcromantic scntimcntalism.
34 Tire Arclzitcxt
must immcdiatcly add that this gcncric misappropria-
tion has something to be said for it on thc lcvel of modc:
the initial definition of thc pure narrative mode, wc
should rcmcmbcr, was that thc poct constitutcs thc only
enunciating subjcct, monopolizing speech without cver
turning it ovcr to any of his charactcrs. In principie this
is what happcns in the lyric pocm also, cxccpt that in
lyric, thc spccch in qucstion is not inhercntly narrativc.
If wc ovcrlook this proviso and go on to define thc thrcc
Platonic modcs purcly in tcrms of cnunciation, wc get
the following tripartition:
. .
altcrnating
. .
CI1Uilt'l3tl011 enunnauon
rcscrved for thc enunnauon n:servcd for
poct thc dtaractcrs
Defined in this way, thc first position can cqually wdl
be purdy narrativc or purely "exprcssive" or can blend
the two functions in any proportion at all. Sincc, as we
notcd earlicr, no purcly narrativc genrc cxists, thc first
position is just thc right place for any kind of gcnn: dc-
voted chiefly to expressing, sincerely or not, ideas or
fcelings: ir is a negative catchall (for cvcrything that is
ncithcr narra ti ve nor dramatic) ,
29
on which thc na me
29. Mario Fubini, "Gcncsi e storia," quotcs this rcvcaling
sentencc from an ltalian adaptation of Hugh l31air's Lccturcs (111
Rlworic mul Belles Lmm (17H3; compendiare dal P. Soave,
Parma, IH35, 211): "Plople commonly distinguish thrl'l'
gcnrcs of poctry: cpic, dramatic, and lyric. with thc lattcr in-
cluding cvcrything that docs not bdong ro thc first two." Un-
lcss 1 am mistakcn, that rcduction docs not appcar in thc work
of I31air himsclf, who. bcing closcr to classical orthodoxy,
distinguishcd poetry as dramatic, epic. lyric, pastoral. didac-
tic. dcscriptivc, and ... Hcbraic.
Imroduction 35
lyric will bcstow its hegemony and its prestigc. Hence
the expected chart:
lyrical epi cal dramatic
Onc will rightly objcct to such an "accommodation"
by pointing out that this modal definition of lyric can-
not be applicd to thc so-callcd lyric monologues in the
theater, in the style of Rodrigue's cclcbrated "stances, "
30
to which Batteux attributes so much importance for the
reason we have seen and in which the enunciating sub-
ject is not the poet. But we must rcmember that this
modal dcfinition is not Battcux's doing, for he pays no
attention to modcs (any more than his romantic succes-
sors do). That (trans)historic compromisc, continuing
to slither along, so to spcak, comes out into the open
only in thc twentieth century. whcn the enunciating
situation again gains promincncc for thc more general
reasons wc are all awarc of. In thc intcrim, thc ticklish
mattcr of thc "lyric monologue" rcccded into thc back-
ground. lt rcmains intact, of course, and dcmonstratcs,
if nothing dse, that modal and generic definitions do
not always coincide: modally, it is always Rodrigue
who speaks, whcther to sing of his love or to provokc
Don Gormas; gcncrically. thc provoking is "dramatic,"
whereas the !ove song (with or without the formal
markers of meter or strophe) is "lyric," and thc distinc-
tion, once again, is (partly) thematic in nature: not cvery
30. [Translator's note.) Corneillc, Le Cid, 1.6. The Petit
Robert dictiomwire de la laugue fran{aise defines as "thc
namc givcn since the sixtccnth century to lyric pocms of sc-
rious inspiration (rcligious, moral, dcgiac) composed in a
variable number of strophcs customarily of the same typc."
36 Tht .4 rch ittxt
monologue is pcrccivcd as lyric (Augustc's in thc fifth
act of Cimw is not, although it is no more integrated
dramatically than Rodriguc's, both of which indccd lcad
to a decision), and convcrscly. a dialogue on !ove ("O
miracle of )ove! 1 O crowning woe! ... ")
31
can casi) y
be so perceivcd.
VI
The new systcm thcrcforc carne to rcplace the old
through a subtlc intcrplay of unconscious or unac-
knowlcdgcd shifts, substitutions, and reintcrprctations
that allow the ncw ro be prescntcd, not without error
but without scandal, as "in kecping" with classical thc-
ory-a typical example of a transitional move or, as is
said elsewhere, of "revision," or "change within con-
tinuity." A sign of the next stagc, which \vill mark thc
authcntic (and apparcntly dcfinitivc) abandonment of
classical orthodoxy. comes right on Battcux's hcds, in
thc objcctions made to his system by his own Gcrman
translator, Johann Adolf Schlcgcl, who is also-fclici-
tous conjunction-the father of the two great romantic
theorists. The terms in which Batteux himself sum-
marizcs and thcn refutes Schlegel's objections are thcse:
"Mr. Schlcgel claims that thc law of imitation is not
universal in poetry .... Here, briefly, is Mr. Schlegel's
reasoning. Imitation of nature is not thc sole law in mat-
tcrs of poctry, if naturc itsclf, without imitation, can be
thc objcct of poctry .... " And furthcr on:
31. Le Cid. in Pierre Comeil/e: Tire Cid, Cirma, Tire Thc-
atrical Illusion, trans. John Cairncross (Harmondsworth: Pcn-
guin, 1975), 3.4.985-86.
A11 l11troductio11
Mr. Schlcgcl cannot undcrstand how the ode or
lyric poetry can claim to participare in che univer-
sallaw of imitation: that is his main objection. He
would have it that in a wholc host of cases thc poct
sings of his real feclings rathcr than of imitated
fcelings. That may be. and 1 acknowledge as much
evcn in thc chaptcr he attacks. In that chapter 1 had
to provc only two things: First, that feelings may
be pretended. likc actions; that, bcing part of na-
turc. they can be imitatcd likc cverything clse. 1
think Mr. Schlegel will agrce to the truth of chis.
Second, that all che fcdings cxprcsscd in lyric, pre-
tended or real, must be bound by che rules of po-
ctic imitation, that is, they must be probable, ap-
propriate, sustained, as perfect as they can be in
their gcnrc, and finally, expresscd with all thc
charms and all the vigor of poctic utterance. This
is the meaning of thc law of imitation; chis is its
spirit.
32
37
As we see, che basic rupture is exprcssed here with a
tiny shift in balance. Batteux and Schlegel manifestly
(and necessarily) agree in recognizing that the "feelings"
cxprcssed in a lyric pocm can be either pretended or
genuine. To Batteux. thc fact that these feelings cm1 l1e
pretc11ded is enough to subject che entire lyric genre to
the law of imitation (for in Batteux's view-and we
should remember that this view was shared by thc
whole classical tradition-imitation is not reproduction
but is in reality fiction: to imitareis to prcte11d). To Schle-
gcl, che fact that thcy ca11 be ,{!CIIIIitzc is cnough to free thc
cntirc lyric genrc from that law, which therefore im-
32. Schlcgd, Einschrankmzg dcr sclzoncu Kiinstc auf einen cirz-
z(ten Gnmdsat;; (1751 ); Batteux 's response is in thc 1764 re-
print, in notes to thc chaptcr "Sur la posic lyrique."
38 Tlze Arclzitext
mcdiatdy loses its role as "sol e law." Thus hangs in the
balance a wholc poetics, and a wholc acsthctics.
Thc illustrious triad will domnate all the litcrary thc-
ory of Gcrman romanticism (and thcrcforc wcll bc-
yond), but not without undergoing. in turn, ncw rcin-
tcrprctations and interna! mutations. Fricdrich Schlcgd,
who apparently f!res thc f!rst shot, rctains or rediscovers
thc Platonic division. but he gives it new mcaning: in
1797 he claims, roughly speaking (1 will rcturn in a mo-
mcnt to thc cxact contcnt of this note), that thc lyric
"form" is subjective, thc drama tic is objectit1e, thc cpic is
subjectiJie-olljeaive. Thesc are indced thc tcrms of thc Pla-
tonic division (cnunciation by thc poct, by his charac-
tcrs, by both poct and charactcrs). but thc choice of ad-
jcctivcs obviously displaces thc critcrion from thc planc
of thc cnunciating situation, which in thcory is purcly
tcchnical, toward a somcwhat psychological or existen-
tia) planc. Furthcrmorc, thc ancicnt division did not in-
volvc any diachronic dimcnsion: to both Plato and Ar-
istotle, nonc of thc modcs sccmed, de facto or de jure,
historically carlicr than thc othcrs; nor did thc ancicnt
division intrinsically involvc any indication of highcr
valuc: in thcory nonc of the modcs was superior to the
others, and in fact. as we airead y know, within thc samc
systcm thc biases of Plato and Aristotlc wcre diamct-
rically opposcd. On both counts Schlcgcl dcparts from
the ancients. For him thc mixcd "form," in any case, is
manifestly more rcccnt than thc other t\\'0: "Natural
poetry is eithcr subjecti ve or clsc objcctive; thc same
mixturc is not yct possibk for man in a statc of na-
turc. "
33
Thereforc, wc cannot be dcaling with an origi-
33. Kritischc Fricdrich-Schlcgcl Ausga!Jc, cd. Ernst Bchlcr
(Munich: Schoningh. 195R), 16:111 (frag. 322). Thc dating of
che Schlcgcl notes is Rcn Wcllck's.
Atz llltroduction 39
nal syncrctic stace from which simpler or purer forms
allegedly brokc away at a lacer time.
14
On che contrary,
thc mixcd state is explicitly given high value as such:
"There exist an cpical, a lyrical, a dramacic form, with-
ouc che fiavor of the early poctic gcnrcs chac borc those
namcs, but scparated among thcmselvcs by a definitc
and eternal diffcrcnce.-As form, the cpical manifcstly
has che bese of it. It is subjeccivc-objcctive. The lyrical
is subjective only; thc dramatic, objectil'c only. "
35
Anothcr
note, from 1 BOO, confirms this: "E pie = subjcctivc-
objective, drama = objcctivc, lyric = subjective. "
36
But
Schlegcl seems to have hcsitatcd somcwhat ovcr this di-
vision, for a chird note, from 1799, attributcd thc mixcd
state to drama: "Epic = objectivc poetry. lyric = sub-
jeccivc poctry, drama = objcctive-subjective poecry.
37
34. As Blair. for cxamplc. assumcd (Lccwres 011 Rlzetoric,
cd. Harold F. Harding [Carbondalc: Southern Illinois Uni-
vcrsity Prcss, 1965), 2:320-21). For him, "During the infancy
of Poctry, all the diffcrent kinds of it la y confuscd, and werc
minglcd in thc same composition, according as inclination,
enthusiasm, or casual incidents. dirccted the Poet 's strain. In
thc progrcss of Socicty and Arts. thcy bcgan to assumc thosc
differcnt regular forms, and to be distinguished by those dif-
fcrent names undcr which wc now know them" (which does
not prevcnt him from immcdiately proposing that "ocles and
hymns of cvcry (lyric) sort, would naturally be among the
first compositions"). Wc know that Gocthc found bailad to be
thc Ur-Ei of genrcs, thc undiffercntiatcd matrix of all subse-
qucnt gcnrcs. and according to him, cvcn "in ancicnt Grcck
tragedy, wc find the threc genres combined; only after a cer-
tain period of time do thcy draw apart frorn each other" (note
to West-i:istliclrer Divan; scc n. 68 below).
35. Kritische Aus.l!abt, ed. Behler, 16:111 (frag. 322).
36. Literary Notebooks, 1797-1801, ed. Hans Eichner (To-
ronto: University of Toronto Prcss, 1957), no. 2065.
37. !bid., no. 1750.
40 Tlu: Arclritexr
According to Peter Szondi, thc hcsitation ariscs bccausc
at times Schlegel has in mind a limited diachrony-that
of the evolution of Greek poetry. which culminares in
Attic tragedy; and at times a much broader diachrony-
that of the cvolution of Wcstern poetry, which culmi-
nares in an "epic" understood as the (romantic) novel:'"
In Schlcgcl the dominant valuation seems indeed to
lie with the lattcr (the epic), which is not surprising. But
Holdcrlin. in the fragmcnts he devores at about the
samc timc
3
" to thc qucstion of gcnrcs, does not sharc
that valuation: "Thc lyric [poem ). " he notes, "in ap-
pearance idealistic ... , is naive in its significance. lt is
a continuous metaphor of a fecling. The epi e [ poem ]. in
appearancc naivc ... , is hcroic in its significance. It is
the metaphor of grcat aspirations. The tragic 1 pocm ], in
appearancc heroic ... , is idcalistic in its significance. lt
is the metaphor of an intcllcctual intuition ... ..., Here
again. the order chosen would seem to indicare a gra-
3H. P<1sic l't potiquc, 131-33. Yct Schlcgd rcintroduccs thc
basic tripartitc division at lcast once, within thc gcnrc of thc
no\d and in kccping with :m cndlcssly multiplying structurc
that wc willmcct in orhcr writcrs: he distinguishcs "in novcls
a lyric gcnrc, an cpic gcnrc. and a drama tic gcnrc" (Littrary
SMebooks. no. 1063. quotcd by Szondi. 261). Onc cannot
safcly infcr from that scqucncc, howcvcr, thc prcscncc of a
tlC\\' diachronic schcma-onc that in this instancc (as wc will
scc) would anticipare thc schcma to be proposcd by Schdling
and rctaincd by thc vulgatc.
3Y. During his stay in Hamburg, bctwccn Scptcmblr 17!)8
and J une 1 HOO.
40. Siimtlicht IJ'Crkc, cd. Fricdrich Bcissncr (Snmgart:
Kohlhammcr. 1946) 4:266 (quotcd by Szondi, 24H. and tr.
Fricdrich Hi:ildaliu: Essa}'S mrd Lctttrs 011 Tllcory. trans. and cd.
Thomas Pfau (Aibany: Statc Univcrsity of Ncw York Prcss,
1988]. 83).
Atl Introductiotl 41
dation, in this case favorable to the dramatic ("the tragic
[poem)''), but of course thc Holdcrlinian contcxt sug-
gcsts rather thc highcr valuc of thc lyric, which, in the
form of the Pindaric ode, Holderlin explicitly desig-
nares as carly as 1790 as thc link bctwccn cpic expositiou
and tragic passion
41
-and anothcr fragment from the
Hamburg period rejccts all hicrarchy and even all sc-
qucnce, cstablishing among che threc gcnrcs an cndlcss
chain, in a ring or a spiral, with cach gcnre alternatcly
leading and following: "The tragic poet gains by study-
ing thc lyric poet, the lyric poet the epic poct, the cpic
poet the tragic poct. For in thc tragic les the completion
of the epic, in the lyric the complction of the tragic, in
the epic thc completion of the lyric. "
42
Actually, all of Schlegel's and Holdcrlin's successors
agree that drama is thc form that is mixcd or, rathcr (the
word is becoming a muse), syntlletic, and thus unavoid-
ably superior. This starts with August Wilhclm Schlc-
gel, who writes in a note from about 1801: "The Pla-
tonic division of genres is invalid. No truc poctic
principie in that division. Epical, lyrical, dramatic: the-
sis, antithcsis, synthcsis. Light dcnsity, energetic sin-
gularity, harmonic totality .... Thc cpical, pure objec-
tivity in thc human spirit. The lyrical, purc subjectivity.
Thc dramatic, the interpenetration of che two. "H The
41. lbid., 4:202 (Szondi, 269).
42. Ibid., 4:273 (Szondi, 266).
43. Kritische Schriften und Briefe, ed. Edgar Lohncr (Stutt-
gart: Kohlhammcr, 1963), 2:305-6 (onc would obviously Jike
to know more about thc rcproach lcvclcd at thc "Piatonic divi-
sion"). This arrangcmcnt is also thc onc Novalis most oftcn
adopted, with a clearly synthcsizing intcrprctation of the ter m
dramatic: in frag. 196, cpical, lyrical, dramatic = sculpturc, mu-
sic, poctry (this is airead y Hcgcl's Aesthetics in twce); in frag. 219,
42 The Architext
"dialcctical" pattern is now in place, and it works to the
advantage of drama-which, incidentally, revives (and
by an unexpectcd route) thc Aristotclian attribution of
valuc. Thc scquencc, which Fricdrich Schlegcl lcft
partly in doubt, is now clear: epic-lyric-dramatic. But
Schelling reverses the order of the first two terms: art
bcgins with lyric subjectivity, then riscs to epic objcc-
tivity, and finally attains dramatic synthesis, or "iden-
tification."44 Hegel rcturns to August Wilhclm's pattern:
at thc beginning, epic poetry, thc first cxpression of the
"childlike consciousness of a peoplc"; thcn "the con-
verse," "when the individual's spirit beco mes discntan-
gled from the nation's concrete whole"-lyric poetry;
and finally dramatic poetry, which "conjoins the two
previous [ modes of presentation] into a new whole in
which we sce in front of us both an objective devclop-
ment and also its origin in the hearts of individuals. "
45
= phlegmatic, rousing, a wholesomc mixture; in frag. 294,
body, soul, mind; so also in frag. 276. Only frag. 160 gives the
order (Schelling's, then Hugo's, then canonical) lyrical-epical-
dramatic (Novalis, Schrifteu, vol. 2, ed. Richard Samuel et al.,
3d cd. 1 Stuttgarr: Kohlhammcr, 1981 ). 564, 573, 592, 589, 560).
44. Philosopl!ie der Kuust (1802-1805, pub1ished posthu-
mously in 1859). Thus: "Lyricism = molding of thc infinitc
into thc finitc = thc particular" (Frcnch translation in Phi-
lippc Lacouc-Labarthc andjcan-Luc Nancy, L'Absoi11 littraire,
tl!orie de la littraire du romarrtisme allemaud [Pars: Seuil, 1 978),
45). [Translator's note: Although L'Absolu littraire has bccn
translatcd into English, thc translators did not includc-as thc
French authors did-translations of thc main Gcrman tcxts
discusscd in thc book.]
45. Aestl!etics: Lectures 011 Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox (Ox-
ford: Clarcndon Pn:ss, 1975), 2:1045, 1037, 1046, 1038; cf.
1053 and, cvcn carlicr, 627, 634. The romantic triad governs
all the visible architecturc of Hegel's "Poctics"-but not its
Atl lntroductiotl 43
Ir is, however, Schelling's sequence that holds the
lead in thc nincteenth and twentieth centuries. For in-
stance, to Hugo, who deliberately cstablishes a broad
diachrony that is more anthropological than poetic, lyr-
icism is the utterance of primeva} times, when "man
awakcns into a world that has just sprung up"; thc cp-
ical (which, it must be added, embraces Grcek tragedy)
is the uttcrance of ancient times, whcn "everything
comes to a complete standstill"; and drama is the utter-
ancc of modern times, marked by Christianity and thc
sundcring of body and soul.'"' To Joycc, whom we have
already encountered,
Thc lyrical form is in fact the simplcst verbal ves-
turc of an instant of emotion, a rhythmical cry
such as ages ago chcercd on thc man who pulled at
the oar or dragged stoncs up a slopc .... The sim-
plest epical form is seen emerging out of lyricallit-
erature when the artist prolongs and broods upon
himsclf as the centre of an epical event .... The
dramatic form is reached when the vitality which
has fiowed and eddied round each person fills
every person with such vital force that he or she
assumes a proper and intangible esthetic life. Thc
personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence
or a mood and then a fluid and lambcnt narrative,
finally refines itsclf out of existence, impersonal-
ises itself, soto speak .... Thc artist, likc thc God
real contcnt, which crystallizcs into the phcnomenology of
somc spccific gcnrcs (Homcric epic. novel, odc, song, Greck
tragcdy, ancicnt comcdy, modcrn tragcdy), thcmselvcs ex-
trapolatcd from sorne paradigmatic works or authors (the 11-
iad, Wilhclm Meister, Pindar, Gocthc, Aristophancs,
Shakcspcarc).
46. Prcfacc to Cromwel/ (1827).
44
The Arclritext
of thc crcation, remains within or bchind or bc-
yond or above his handiwork, invisible, rcfined
out of existence, indifferent, paring his finger-
nails.47
Let us note, incidcntally, that hcre thc evolutionary pat-
tern has cntircly lost its "dialectical" aspcct: from the
lyric cry to the godlike impersonality of drama therc is
now only a linear and unequivocal advancement toward
objectivity, with no trace of an "overthrowing of thc
pro by the con." The same in Staigcr, for whom the
transition "inspiration" (Er;gr!{feulleit) to epi e
"panorama" (UberscllaH) and then to dramatic "tension"
(Spamumg) marks a sustained proccss of objectivization,
or of progrcssivc dissociation bctwccn "subjcct" and
.. b" t ""'
8
o .
It would be casy, and rathcr pointless, to wax ironic
about this taxonomic kalcidoscope in which the too-
scductive pattern of the triad
49
-a form receptive to any
mcaning at all-passcs through cndless metamorpho-
scs, surviving on the crest of dubious reckonings (no
onc can be certain which genrc historically preceded thc
others, supposing that such a question can be askcd) and
intcrchangcablc attributions. Givcn thc hardly surpris-
ing observation that the most "subjective" mode is
lyric, then "objectivity" must pcrforce be assigned to
47. A Ptlrlrait ojthe Artist, 214-15.
48. Grrmdbegr!ffe der Poetik (Zurich: Atlantis, 1946): tr. B<l-
sic Co11cepts of Poetics, trans. Jancttc C. Hudson and Luannc T.
Frank (Univcrsity Park: Pcnn Statc Prcss, IY91).
49. On this scductivcncss, cf. Guilln, '"Litcraturc as
Systcm."
An lntroductiotz 45
onc of the othcr two, with thc middlc tcrm nccessarily
going to thc onc that is kft; but bccausc hcrc no cvi-
dence can support any claim, the choice remains basi-
cally dctcrmined by implicit-or explicit-rcspcct for
the value inhering in "progress," linear or dialcctical.
The whole history of the thcory of genrcs is imprinted
with these f.1scinating patterns that inform and deform
thc oftcn irregular rcality of thc litcrary ficld-pattcrns
whosc designcrs claim to have discovered a natural
"systcm" prcciscly whcrc they are constructing a fac-
titious symmctry with thc hclp of a copious supply of
false windows.
These straincd configurations are not always use-
less-quite the contrary. Likc all provisional classifica-
tions, providcd thcy are takcn as such, thcy often serve
an unquestionable heuristic function. In any given case,
thc falsc window may open onto a truc light and rcveal
thc importancc of an unappreciatcd term; the slot lcft
empty or laboriously filled may, much later, fmd a le-
gitimate occupant. When Aristotlc, noting the cxistencc
of a high narrative, a high drama, and a low drama, de-
duces, through abhorrence of a vacuum and a tastc for
balance, the existence of a low narrative that he provi-
sionally identifies with the parodie epic, little does he
know he is saving a place for the realistic novel. When
Frye, anothcr great craftsman of fearful symmctrics,
notes thc cxistcncc of duce kinds of ''ftction"-intro-
vertcd-personal (the romance), cxtrovcrted-pcrsonal
(thc rcalistic novel), and introverted-intellectual (thc
confession)-and deduces the cxistcncc of a genrc of
extroverted-intcllcctual fiction that he christens atzatom}'
and that draws together and promotes some misfits of
allcgorical-fantastic narration, such as Lucian, Varro,
Pctronius, Apulcius, Rabclais, Burton, Swift, and
46 The Architext
Sternc, the proccdurc can no doubt be challengcd, but
not thc benefit that accrues.
50
When Robert Scholes,
adapting Fryc's theory of thc five "modcs" (myth, ro-
mance, thc high mimctic, thc low mimctic, irony) to
give it a somewhat more orderly arrangement, offcrs us
his breathtaking chart of the subgenres of fiction and
their ncccssary cvolution,
51
wc no doubt havc a hard
time taking it completcly litcrally, but wc havc an cvcn
harder time drawing no inspiration from it. The same is
true of thc cumbcrsomc but enduring triad, only sorne
of whose many pcrformanccs 1 havc cvokcd hcrc.
One of thc triad's most curious performances, per-
haps, consists of thc various attempts madc to pair it
with anothcr venerable trio, that of thc thrcc aspccts of
mc:: past, prc:scnt, and futurc. Thcrc havc bccn many
such attempts, but herc it will sufficc to compare ninc
examples mentioned by Austin Warrcn and Ren Wcl-
lck.52 As an ovcrvicw, 1 offcr this comparison in thc
form of two doublc-cntry charts. Thc first shows which
tense each author attributcd to each "gcnrc":
50. A11atomy, 303-14.
51. in Literature, 129-38.
52. Warren, "Literary Genres"; Wellek, "Genre Theory."
The texts rcferred to are thc following: Wilhclm von Hum-
boldt, ber Goethes Herma1111 1111d Dorothta (1799); Schelling,
Pllilosopllie der K1111st (1802-1805); Jcan Paul, Vorsclmle der As-
thetik (1813); Hegel, Vorlesrmge11 iiber Asthetik (Acsthetics,
2: 1136-about 1820); E. S. Dalias, Porties ( 1852); Fricdrich
..
Thcodor Vischcr, Astllctik (vol. 5-1857); John Erskinc, Thc
Kinds of Poctry (1920); Romanjakobson, "Randbcmcrkungcn
zur Prosa des Dichtcrs Pastcrnak" ("Marginal Notes on thc
Prosc of thc Poct Pasternak," in in Literatrm:-1935);
Staigcr, Gnmdbegr!ffe der Poetik (1946).
Au lutroductiou 47

Lyrical Epi cal Drama tic
S
Humboldt past present
Schelling prcsent past
Jean Paul prcsent past futurc
Hegel present past
Dalias future past present
Vischer prescnt past future
Erskine prcscnt futurc past
Jakobson prcscnt past
Staiger past prcsent futurc
Thc sccond (clcarly just a differcnt prcscntation of thc
first) givcs thc namcs and thus the numbcr of authors
illustrating cach of thcsc attributions (scc ncxt page).
As with the famous "color of thc vowcls," it would
be of limitcd relcvance to note simply that every tense
was attributcd successively to each of thc thrce genres.
53
In fact, two chief characteristics are clear: the affinity
scnsed bctwccn cpic and the past and betwecn lyric
and the prescnt. Drama, obviously "prescnt" in form
(rcprcscntation) and traditionally "past" in subject,
53. We note that sorne of thc lists are defective, which,
given thc tcmptation to systematizc, is on the whole rathcr
commendable. In particular, Humboldt contrasts the epical
(past) with thc tragie (prcscnt) within a broadcr catcgory that
he designares plastic and contrasts in its cntirety with the lyr-
ical. It would be a bit cavalier for us to deduce in his name the
equivalence lyrical = future and to complete in a similar way
the divisions made by Hegel, Jakobson, and Schelling.
48
The :1rchitcxt

Past Present Future
S
Schelling
jcan Paul
Lvrical Staiger
Hlgd
Dalias

Vischer
Erskim:
Jakobson
Humboldt
Schelling
Jcan Paul
E piral
Hegel
Staiger Erskinc
Dalias
Vischlr
Jakobson
Humboldt
Jcan Paul
Drama tic Erskine
Vischer
Dalias
Staiglr
rcmaincd hardcr to match up. Thc wiscst coursc would
pcrhaps havc bccn to labcl it "mixcd" or "synthetic"
and stop thcrc. Unfortunatcly, a third tense cxistcd,
cr<:ating thc irresistible tcmptation to attributc it to a
genre-whence the somcwhat sophistic equivalence bc:-
tween drama and thc future, as well as two or thrce
othcr straincd fancics. One can 't win evcry timc,
54
and
54. Another cquivalcncc, this onc between gcnrcs and
grammatical pcrsons, has becn proposed, at lcast by Dalias
and jakobson, who (although diverging on tenses) agrce in at-
tributing the first-person singular to the lyrical and thc third-
pcrson singular to thc cpical. Dalias adds, quite logically, that
thc dramatic cquatcs with thc second-pcrson singular. This di-
vision is fairly intriguing; but what do we do with thc plural?
A11 llltrodllction 49
if an excuse for these dubious undertakings is nccded, I
will tlnd it, perversely, in the frustration we fcd with an
ingcnuous enumcration like Jollcs's ninc simple fonns-
an cnumcration that is ccrtainly ncithcr his only short-
coming nor his only merit. Nine simple forms? No kid-
ding!55 Likc thc nine muses? Bccause of threc times
threc? Because he forgot one? And so on. How hard it
is for us to admit that Jolles simply found ninc, neither
more nor fewer, and scorned thc facilc-by which 1
mean thc chcap-plcasurc of justifying that numbcr!
True cmpiricism always shocks us as bcing unseemly.
VII
All the theories evoked so far, from Batteux's to Stai-
ger's, constitutcd so many all-embracing, hierarchical
systems, like Aristotle's in that the various poetic gcnres
without exception were distributed among the thrce ha-
sic categories Jikc so many subclasses. Undcr thc cpical
went epic, novel, novclla, etc.; under the drama tic went
tragedy, comedy, bourgeois drama, cte.; under the lyr-
ical wcnt ode, hymn, cpigram, etc. But such a classifi-
cation rcmains very clcmcntary bccausc, within cach of
thc tcrms of thc well-groundcd tripartition, che partic-
ular genn:s still come togcther in a cunfu:;ed way or at
lcast (again as in Aristotlc) are organizcd by a principie
55. For thc corrcctional cxcrciscs imposcd on jollcs's list
(Andr Jollcs, Eiufachc Formen [Tubingcn: Max Nicmcycr,
1930)), scc thc "Note de l'diteur" in the Frcnch translation,
Formes simples, trans. Antoine Maric Buguct (Paris: Scuil.
1972), 8-9; and Todorov. Dictiouary, 155.
50 Tlu: Architext
of diffcrcntiation wholly unlikc thc onc on which thc
tripartition itsclf is based: heroic cpic versus sentimental
or "prosaic" novel, long novel versus short novclla,
high tragcdy versus domcstic comedy, and so forth.
Thus, one somctimcs fcels thc necd for a more rigorous
taxonomy that cxtcnds thc samc principie of arrangc-
mcnt to thc distribution of all thc spccics.
The most common way of doing this consists vcry
simply of rcintroducing the triad within each of its
tcrms. Thus Hartmann propases distinguishing pure
lyrical, cpical-lyrical, dramatic-lyrical; pure dramatic,
lyrical-dramatic, epical-dramatic; pure epical, lyrical-
cpical, dramatic-cpical
56
-with cach of thc nine rcsult-
ing classcs obviously dcfincd by onc dominant and onc
sccondary fcaturc, for othcrwisc thc invcrtcd mixcd
terms (like lyrical-epical and epical-lyrical) would be
cquivalcnts and thc system would boil clown to six
tcrms, thrcc pure and thrce mixcd. Albert Gurard ap-
plics this principie, illustrating cach tcrm with onc or
scveral cxamplcs: for purc lyrical, thc Wanderers Nacht-
lieder of Goethc; for dramatic-lyrical, Robert Brown-
ing; for epical-lyrical, thc bailad (in the Germanic
sensc); for purc epical, Homer; for lyrical-cpical. The
Faeric Quecne; for dramatic-cpical, thc Infemo or Thc
Hunclzback of Notrc Dame; for purc dramatic, Moliere;
for lyrical-dramatic, A Midsummer Niglzt's Dream; for
epical-dramatic, Aeschylus or Tete d'or.
57
56. Philosophie des Schiinm, 2d cd. (Berlin, 1924), 697-738;
Gnmdriss der Astlzctik, vol. 8 of System der Philosophie im Gruud-
riss (Bad Sachsa im Harz, 1909); cf. Ruttkowski. Die litcra-
rischctz Gattzmge11, 37-38.
57. Albert Lon Gurard, r ~ { a c e to U
1
orld Litaatun (New
York: H. Holt and Co., 1940), chapter 11, "The Theory of
Genres"; cf. Ruttkowski. Die littrarisclzcu GattiiiJ.I!CII, 38. We
Arz lntroduction 51
But this embedding of triads not only endlcssly mul-
tiplies the basic division, it also unintentionally dcm-
onstratcs thc cxistencc of intermediary statcs between the
pure typcs, with the wholc looping back on itself in a
trianglc or circlc. This idea of a sort of unbrokcn and
cyclcal spectrum of the genres had been proposed by
Gocthe:
One can combine these thrcc clcmcnts llyrical, ep-
ical, dramatic] and get infinite variations on the
poetic gcnrcs; that is why it is so hard to find an
arder by which to classify thcm side by side or in
succcssion. One can, howevcr, extricatc oneself
from thc difficulty by setting thc thrcc main ele-
mcnts on a circlc, cquidistant from onc anothcr,
and sccking cxcmplary works in which cach elc-
mcnt predominares scparatcly. Thcn onc can as-
scmblc examplcs that tcnd in onc dircction or thc
other, until finally the three come togcthcr and thc
circlc is complctely closed.
58
The idea was takcn up in the twcntieth ccntury by the
Gcrman acsthctician Julius Petcrscn, whose system of
genres is bascd on an apparcntly vcry homogcneous
find a less systematic use of this principie in Wolfgang Kay-
ser's handbook, Das spraclrliche Krmstwerk: eit1e Eirifiilmmg in
die Literaturwisscnscll(lft (Bcrn: Franckc, 1 94H). Thtrc thc three
"basic attitudes" (Gnmdlraltmrgen) can in turn be subdivided
into pure lyrical, epical-lyrical, etc., according to cither (for
the lyrical) thc form of cnunciation or "prescntation" (iiusserc
Darbiewngsfomr) or (for thc cpical and thc dramatic) the an-
thropological contcnt. Hcrc wc find both thc triad within thc
triad and thc ambiguity of its principie (modal and/or
thcmatic).
58. Note to West-iistlicller Divan, 1819, trans. Henri Lich-
tcnbcrgcr (Pars: Aubicr, 1940), 378. Sce bclow, n. 68.
,_
The Architext
group of dcfinitions: cpic is thc narration (Beridrt) in a
monologue of an action (HatrdlutiJ!); drama, thc rcprc-
scntation in dialogue of an action; lyricism,
thc rcprcscntation in a monologue of a situation (Zu-
Thcsc rclationships can be depictcd initially by
a trianglc, cach angle bearing a basic gcnrc labclcd with
its spccific fcaturc and each sidc indicating thc fcaturc
common to thc two types it links. Linking lyricism and
drama is representation-that is. the direct expression,
eithcr by thc poct or by rhe characters, of thoughts or
fcclings. Linking lyricism and cpic is monologue. Link-
ing epic and drama is action.
DRAMA
dialogue
f:PIC LYRICISM
narrauon monologue
. .
snuatJon
This modcl rcveals a dissymmcrry that is troubling
and perhaps inevitable (it was already present in Goethe,
59. "Zur Lehrc von der Dichtungsgattungcn," in Fest-
schrifi AII.'111St Sm1er {Stuttgart: Mctzler, 1925), 72-116; Peter-
scn refines the system and modcl in Die Wissenscllafi 11011 der
System 1111d MetllodenleiiTt! der LiteraturwisseiiScllafi
(Bcrlin: Junhr und Dunnhaupt, 1939), 1: 119-26; cf. Fubini,
Critic.1 e poesa, 261-69.
At1 Iutr(lductiou 53
as wc will sce). Whercas for cpic and drama the spccific
feature is formal (narration, dialogue), lyricism is de-
fincd hcrc by a thcmatic fcaturc: only lyricism trcats not
an action but a situation. Conscqucntly rhc fcaturc com-
mon to drama and cpic is thematic (action), whcrcas
both of thc fcaturcs lyricism sharcs with its ncighbors
are formal (monologue and rcprcscntation). But this
unstcady trianglc is only thc starting point for a more
complcx system whosc purposc is, on thc onc hand, to
indicare the proper location on cach sidc for sorne mixed
or intermediare gcnres (such as lyric drama, the idyll, or
the novel in dialogue) and, on the othcr hand, to ac-
count for thc cvolution of litcrary forms from an orig-
inal Ur-Diclztutl,\? (also inheritcd from Goethe) to the
most highly dcvclopcd "claboratcd forms." Thcreupon
the trianglc becomcs, in kccping with Gocthe's suggcs-
tion, a whecl at whose hub lies the Ur-Dichtrm,\? and
whose thrce spokes are the three basic genres, whilc the
thrcc scctions that rcmain, fillcd in by thc intcrmcdiary
forms, are thcmselves sectioned into conccntric rings
showing thc evolution of forms, moving outward in
layers from thc center toward thc periphery (sec next
pagc).
On this diagram 1 leave the German gcncric tcrms
uscd by Pctcrscn, oftcn without cxamplcs; thcir refer-
cnts and Frcnch [or English] cquivalents are not always
obvious. lt would be a mistakc to try tu translatc Ur-
Diclztrmg. For thc others, moving clockwise from cpic,
let us venture, on the first ring, bailad, tale, dirge,
mime, antiphonal choral chant, hymn, dance song.
madrigal, work song, prayer, magic incantation, epic
song. On the second ring, first-person narrative,
cmbedded narrative, epistolary novel, novel in dia-
logue, dramatic tablcau, lyric drama, idyll in dialogue,
54
5
- .::
'w

.:;
...
...
l!.hmcn-

Fcstspicl
<
,;
<
"'
"
Allc:orischc Erzahlun:
The Arcllitext
lyric dialogue, monodrama (c.g., Rousscau's
lion); Rolletliied is a lyric poem attributed to a historical
or a mythological charactcr (Branger's Les Adieux de
Atfarie Stuart or Gocthc's Prometheus); lyric cyclc
(Gocthc's Roma11 cpistlc, vision (thc Di11ine
Comedy), narrative idyll. lyric novel (the first part of
Werther; the sccond part, according to Petcrsen, bclongs
under thc On thc last ring, verse chron-
icle, didactic poem, philosophical dialogue, festivc play,
dialogue among the dead, satire, epigram, gnomic
pocm, allcgorical narrativc, and fablc.
As wc sec, the innermost circlc is filled with genrcs
An Imroduction 55
that in theory are more spontancous and popular, ap-
proaching Jolles's "simple forms," which, morcovcr,
Pe tersen explicitly mcntions; thc next circle is that of the
canonical forms; the last one is tantamount to "applied"
forms, forms in which the poetic discourse is put at the
scrvicc of a message, whether moral, philosophical, or
other. In each circle, the genres are obviously arranged
according to their dcgrce of affinity with or rclationship
to the three basic types. Manifcstly satisficd with his
diagram, Pctersen affirms that it can serve "as a compass
for finding one's bcarings among thc various paths that
traverse the systcm of genres." The morc-cautious Fu-
bini prcfers to compare this structurc to "thosc sailboats
made of cork insidc a bottlc, which adorn ccrtain
houses in Liguria": one admires thcir ingeniousness
without discerning their function. Truc compass or false
vesscl, Pctersen's rose window of gcnres is perhaps nci-
ther so valuablc as the formcr nor so usclcss as thc lattcr.
Moreovcr, and despite the claims he makes for it, it by
no means covers the whole rangc of cxisting genrcs: its
systcm of representation provides no clear-cut place for
the most canonical "pure" genres, like thc ocle, the epic,
or tragedy. And because its dcfining critcria are mainly
formal, it cannot makc thcmatic distinctions, such as
thosc contrasting tragedy with comedy, or romance
(heroic or sentimental novel) with the novel (realistic
novel of manners). For that, pcrhaps anothcr compass
would be ncedcd, or even a third dimension, and un-
doubtcdly relating the two to each other would be as
difficult as fitting togethcr thc severa! concurrent-and
not always compatiblc-grids composing Northrop
Fryc's "system." Herc, too, suggcstivc power far tran-
sccnds explanatory-or cvcn simply dcscriptive-ca-
pacity. We can (only) pondcr such things ... That is no
56 Tlle Arcllitext
doubt what ships in bottlcs are good for-and some-
times antique compasses as wcll.
But befare leaving the curios department, we will
glance at one final system, this one purely "historical,"
bascd on thc romantic tripartition: thc system of Ernest
Bovct, a man who is quite forgotten today but who, as
wc havc alrcady scen, did not escape Irene Bchrens's at-
tcntion. Thc title of his work, published in 1911, is,
preciscly, Lyrismc, pope, drame: U11c loi de l'volutio11 lit-
traire explique par l'volution ~ n r l e (Lyricism, Epic,
Drama: A Law of Literary Evolution Explaincd by
General Evolution). His starting point is Hugo's Prcfacc
to Cromrvell, in which Hugo himsclf suggests that thc
lyrical-cpical-dramatic law of succession can be ap-
plied-here, as befare, in endless reduplication-to each
phase in the evolution of each nacional literature: thus,
for the Bible, Genesis-Kings-Job; for Greck poetry, Or-
phcus-Homer-Aeschylus; for thc birth of Frcnch clas-
sicism, Malhcrbc-Chapelain-Corncille. To Bovet, as to
Hugo and thc German romantics, thc thrcc "chief
gcnrcs" are not mcrcly forms (the most formalist of
thcse thcorists is Pctcrscn) but rathcr "thrcc basic ways
of imagining life and the universc," which corrcspond
to thrcc stagcs of cvolution, as much ontogcnctic as
phylogenetic, and which therefore function at any lcvcl
of unit. The examplc Bovet chooses is French litcra-
ture,60 which he carvcs into three majar eras, subdivid-
ing each into three periods (the obsession with trinitics
rcachcs ncw hcights). But Bovct skcws his systcm from
60. The cvolution of ltalian literaturc, blockcd by thc lack
of national unity, serves as a counterexamplc. No mention is
madc of othcr national literatun:s.
Atr brtroduction 57
the start by projccting the evolutionary principie only
onto periods, not onto eras. The first era, from thc be-
ginnings until about 1520, is feudal and Catholic. Its
first pcriod, which lasts until early in the twdfth ccn-
tury, is mainly lyric (obviously this was an oral, popular
lyricism, almost all trace of which is now lost); its scc-
ond pcriod, from 1100 to about 1328, is mainly epic
(chansons de geste, tales of chivalry; lyricism is in de-
cline, drama still cmbryonic); in its third pcriod (1328-
1520) drama flourishes with the mystcry plays and Patlre-
liu, whilc thc cpic degenerares into prosc, and lyricism
(Villon the cxception that proves the rule) into Grande
Rhtoriquc. Thc sccond era, from 1520 to the Revolu-
tion, is that of thc absolure monarchy. lts lyric period
(1520-1610) is exemplificd by Rabdais, thc Pliadc, and
thc csscntially lyric tragcdies of Jodelle and Montchres-
tian (the epics of Ronsard and Du Bartas are abortcd or
unsucccssful, while Aubign's is lyric). lts epic pcriod
(1610-1715) is cxemplified not by its official cpic (Cha-
pclain), which is worthless, but by the nor,ef, which
dominares this entire cpoch and is illustrated by ...
Corneille (Racine, whose genius is not novelistic, is an-
othcr cxception, and furthermorc, at that time his work
was not wcll reccivcd); Moliere presagcs the flourishing
of drama in the third pcriod (1715-1789), thc pcriod of
Ttmaret, Fgaro, Le Ncr,eu de Ramea11. Rousscau presages
thc next pcriod, thc Iyric pcriod of thc third cra-an era
extending from 1789 to thc prescnt day and dominated
until 1840 by romantic lyricism. Stendhal inaugurares
the epic period (1840-1885), dominatcd by the realistic
and naturalistic novel ata time whcn (Parnassian) poctry
has lost its lyric vein. Dumas fils and Hcnry Bccque
initiate thc splendid flowering of drama in the third pe-
riod, which starts in 1885-a period markcd forever-
58 The Architext
more by the theater of Daudet and, of course, La vedan,
Bernstcin, and othcr giants of the stagc. Lyric poetry,
howcver, declines into symbolist dccadcncc-witncss
Mallarm .h
VIII
The romantic rcinterpretation of the systcm of modes
as a system of genres is neithcr de facto nor de jure thc
epilogue of this long story. Thus Kate Hamburger,
taking note, as it wcre, of the fact that it is impossible
to divide thc two opposing terms Sllbjccti11ity and
til'ity among thc thrcc gcnrcs, dccidcd somc ycars ago
to reduce thc triad to two tcrms: lyric (thc old "lyric
genre," supplementcd by othcr forms of personal
expression like autobiography and evcn thc "first-
person novel"), distinguishcd by the lclz-Origo of its
cnunciation; and .fictioll (which combines the old epic
and dramatic genres and adds ccrtain forms of narra ti ve
poetry, like the hallad), dcfined by an cnunciation that
revcals no trace of its source.
62
As wc see, thc major out-
61. Erncst Bovct taught at thc Uniwrsity of Zurich. His
book is dcdicatcd to his tcachcrs Henri Morf and Joscph B-
dicr. He declares himsdf to be in full intellectual communion
with the antipositivism of Bergson. Vosslcr, and (despite the
controversy over the rclevance of thc idea of genre) Croce. He
daims not to have read a single line of Hegel and a fortiori,
we may assume, of Schelling; thus can a caricature be igno-
rant of its model.
(>2. Die Lo.(!ik der Diclzt111zg (Stuttgart, llJ57): tr. Tlze
of Literature, trans. Marilynn J. Rose, 2d rev. ed. (Blooming-
ton: Indiana Univcrsity Prcss, llJ73). Henri Bonnct proposed
a comparable two-part division: "Thcrc are two genrcs. And
A11 Introduction 59
cast of the Poetcs-a sweet revenge-now occupies half
the fiel d. True, the field itself is no longer the samc, be-
cause it now encompasses allliterature, including prosc.
But in reality, what do we mean today-we post-
romantics-by poctry? Most often, 1 think, we mean
what the preromantics mcant by lyricism. Words-
worth's formulation,
63
which defines all poetry more or
less as Batteux's translator defincd only lyric poetry,
somcwhat compromises itsclf by putting so much faith
in emotion and spontaneity, unlikc John Stuart Mill's
definition. For Mill, lyric poctry is "more cminently
and peculiarly poetry than any othcr"; he considers any
narration, dcscription, or didactic statcment to be anti-
poetic and, in passing, asserts that every epic poem "in
so far as it is epic ... is not poetry at all. "
64
Via Poe and
Baudclaire, this idea passed into our symbolist and
"modern" vulgate undcr thc catchword (today a littlc
tarnishcd but still effective) of "pure poetry": to Poc,
there are only two, for everything that is real can be cnvisaged
from cither a subjectivc or an objectivc point of view ....
Thosc two gcnres are grounded in the nature of things. We
call them poctry and novel" (Roma11 et posic: Essai sur /'estil-
tique des genres [Paris: Nizct, 19511. 139-40). And for Gilbcrt
Durand, the two basic gcnres (groundcd in the two "re-
gimes"-diurnal and nocturnal-o[ the imaginary) are the
cpical and thc lyrical, or mystical; the novelistic is but a "mo-
mcnt" that marks the transition from the first to the sccond
(Le Dcor mytllique de la Chartreuse de Parme: ColllrihlllOII a
l'estlttique du romat1esque [Pars: Corti, 1%1 1).
63. "Poetry is thc spontaneous overflow of powcrful fccl-
ings" (Preface to thc Lyrical Ballads [ 1800]).
64. John Stuart Mili, "Thc Two Kinds of Poetry" and
"What ls Poctry?" (1833), in Mill's Essays 011 Literature at1d So-
ciety, ed. J. B. Schnecwind (New York: Collier Books, 1965),
123, 113.
60 Thc Arcllito:t
who took up or shan:d Mill's vie\v, "a long poem does
not exist." and Baudelairc's "Furthcr Notes on Edgar
Poc" cxplicitly and absolutcly condcmncd cpic and di-
dactic poctry.
65
lnsof.1r as all distinction among gcnrcs,
cvcn bctween poctry and prosc, has not yct bccn oblit-
erated from thc vulgatc, our implicit concept of poetry
docs indccd mcrgc with thc old conccpt of lyric poctry.
Thc outdatcd or inconvcnicnt connotations of the term
poctry will no doubt cause this point to be challcngcd or
givcn only a cool rcccption, but in my opinion thc more
one writcs and, cspccially, rcads contcmporary poctry,
thc more obvious my point becomcs. In othcr words:
for more than a ccntury, wc havc considcrcd as "more
cmincntly and pcculiarly poctry" ... cxactly thc typc
of poctry that Aristotlc cxcludcd from his Porties.""
A rcversal so absolutc is pcrhaps not thc sign of a truc
. .
cmanCipauon.
IX
1 !uve tricd to show how :md whv thcorists rcached thc
-
point of dcvising, and thcn (as a supplcmcntary consid-
cration) of attributing to Plato and Aristotlc, a division
of thc "literary gcnrcs" that thc wholc "unconscious po-
ctics" of both philosophcrs rcjects. To gct a firmcr grip
65. Edgar Allan Poc, "Thc Poctic Principie" (posthumous
cdition, 1 HSO); Baudclairc, "Furthcr Notes on Edgar Poc"
(1 H57), in Charles Bauddaire: Thc Paintcr Modem Lije aud
Othcr Essays, trans. and cd. Jonathan Maync (London: Phai-
don Prcss, 1964; rpt. Ncw York: Da Capo Prcss, n.d.), 93-
11 O.
66. Sce also Jean Cohen. Le Haut tfu:oric de /t1 po-
ticit (Pars: Flammarion, 1979).
Atr Imroduction 61
on the historical reality, wc should no doubt makc clcar
that the attribution passed duough two periods and
stemmed from two very distinct motives. At the end of
classicism, it stcmmcd from a still dccpscatcd respcct for
orthodoxy and a need to treat it with care. In the twcn-
ticth century, a better rcason for thc attribution is rct-
rospcctivc illusion (thc vulgatc is so wcll cstablishcd that
imagining a time whcn it did not cxist is very difficult)
and also (as is cvident in Fryc, for cxamplc) thc legiti-
mare rcncwal of intercst in a modal intcrprctation of thc
phenomcna of gcnre-that is, an intcrprctation bascd on
the cnunciating situation. Bctween the two periods, the
romantics and postromantics were not overly concerncd
about dragging Plato and Aristotle into all thcsc mattcrs.
But the prescnt tclcscoping of thcse various positions-
the fact, for cxamplc, that authority is claimed to derive
at onc and thc samc time from Aristotlc, Battcux, Schlc-
gcl (or, as wc will scc, Goethc), Jakobson, Bcnvcnistc,
and Anglo-American analytical philosophy-aggravatcs
thc thcorctical drawbacks of this crroncous attribution,
or (to define thc error itsclf in theoretical terms) this
confusion between modes and genrcs.
In Plato, and again in Aristotle, as we havc seen, the
basic division had a clcarly dcfincd status, for it borc cx-
plicitly on a text's modc of cmmciation. To thc extent that
gcnn:.s iu thc propcr .scnsc uf thc tcrm wcrc takcn into
considcration (very littlc in Plato, more so in Aristotlc),
thcy wcrc allocatcd among modcs inasmuch as thcy
carne undcr onc enunciating stance or anothcr: dithy-
ramb under pure narration, cpic undcr mixed narration,
tragcdy and comcdy undcr dramatic imitation. But this
inclusive rclationship did not prcvent the gencric and
modal critcria from being absolutcly dissimilar, as wcll
as radically different in status: each glnrc was dcfincd
62 The Archite;\:t
cssentially by a specification of contcnt that was in no
way prescribed by the definition of its mode. The ro-
mantic and postromantic division, in contrast, views the
lyrical, thc cpical, and the dramatic no longer simply as
modcs of cnunciation but as real gcnrcs, whosc dcfini-
tions already inevitably include thematic elements,
however vague. We see this in Hegel, among others: for
him thcrc cxists an cpic world dcfincd by a spccific type
of social aggregate and human relationship; a lyric con-
tent ("the individual subject"); a dramatic milieu "made
up of conflicts and collisions." We also sec it in Hugo,
for whom real drama, for cxample, is inseparable from
the Christian message (separation of body and soul). We
scc it, as wcll, in Karl Vctor, for whom thc thrce major
gcnrcs cxpress three "basic attitudes": the lyrical cx-
presscs fecling; thc cpical, knowlcdgc; thc dramatic, will
and action.
67
Vietor thus resurrects the distribution Hol-
derlin ventured at the end of the eighteenth century, but
modifics it by transposing epic and dramatic.
The transition from one status to the other is clearly,
if not intentionally, illustrated by a well-known text of
Goethe's, which we have mentioned in passing and
must now consider on its own account.
68
Here Goethe
contrasts thc ordinary "poetic species" (Dchtarten)-
particular genres, such as the novel, the hallad, or sat-
ire-with the "three genuine natural forms" (drei ecl!te
67. "Die Gcschichte literarischer Gattungen" (1931 ), in
vol. 9 of Deutscher Vierteljahrsschrifi .fr wrd
Geistesgescllicllte (rpt. in Geist und Form (Bern: Francke, 1952),
292-309); Frcnch translation in Potique 8, no. 32 (1977): 490-
506. Wc havc scen thc samc tcrm (Grundlraltrmg) in Kayscr and
thc samc conccpt in Bovct, who spoke of "basic ways of
vicwing lifc and the univcrse."
68. 1 am referring to two notes (Diclrtartm and Naturformetl
der Diclwmg) that were made part of the 1819 Divatt.
An Itrtroduction 63
Naturformm) of poctry: the epic, dcfincd as pure narra-
tion (klar erziihlmde); thc lyric, as a burst of rapturc (en-
thusiastisch mifgeregte); and thc drama, as lifclikc rcprc-
scntation (persiinlich lzandelnde).
69
"Thcse three poetic
modes [Dichtweisen]," he adds, "can function either
jointly or separately." Thc contrast between Diclztartetl
and Dichtweism clcarly cncompasscs thc distinction bc-
twecn genrcs and modcs, and it s rcinforccd by thc
purely modal definitions of epic and drama. The defi-
nition of lyric, howcvcr, is thcmatic, making thc term
Dichtrveisen irrelcvant and sending us to thc vagucr idea
of Naturfomr, which covers all interpretations and is for
that reason, no doubt, thc term commcntators havc
most frequcntly used.
But the whole point is, precisely, ro know whcther
the term 11atural Jorms can still be lcgitimatdy applied to
the triad lyrical!epical!dramatic once that triad has been
69. The lst of Diclrtartetr, delbcratcly put in (Gcrman] al-
phabetical order, is allegory, bailad, cantata, drama, elegy,
cpigram, cpistlc, epic, narrativc (Erziihbmg) fable, heroic
verse, idyll. didactic pocm, ode, parody, novel, romance, sat-
ire. In Lichtcnbcrgcr's bilingual cdition of thc Divatr, which
do es not includc the German tcxt of thc notes, thc translations
(377-78) of klar erziilrlende and persii11liclr lrat1delnde ("qui ra-
contc claircmcnt" [ who rccounts clcarly] and "qui agit pcr-
sonncllernent" [ who acts in person]) are n1ore cautious or eva-
s ve than my translations ("narraton purc" [purc narraton]
and "reprsentation vivante" [lifelike rcprcscntation]). Nevcr-
thcless, it scems to me that two othcr statcmcnts in that note
confirm the modal interprctation. First, "In Frcnch tragedy,
the exposition is cpical, thc middlc part dramatic"; and thcn,
with a strictly Aristotelian criterion, "The Homcric epic (Hel-
is purely epical: the rhapsodist is always in thc fore-
ground to rccount thc cvcnts; no onc may utter a word unlcss
thc rhapsodist first givcs him thc floor." In both cases "cpical"
clearly mcans narratil'e (11arratif].
64 The Architext
rcdcfined in gcncric terms. Thc modcs of cnunciation
can. in a pinch, be termed "natural forms," at lcast in
the scnsc in which wc spcak of "naturallanguagcs." Ex-
ccpt whcn using language for litcrary purposcs, thc lan-
guagc uscr is constantly required-cven (or espccially)
if unconsciously-to choosc bctween forms of uttcr-
ancc such as discourse and story (in Bcnvcnistc's scnsc),
direct quotation and indirect stylc, etc. Therein lics the
csscntial diffcrcncc of status bctwcen gcnres and modes:
gcnrcs are propcrly litcrary catcgorics/
0
whereas modes
are categories that bclong to linguistics, or (more ex-
actly) to what we now call They are "natural
forms," thercforc, in this wholly rclativc scnsc and only
to the extcnt that languagc and its use appear as facts of
naturc vis-a-vis thc conscious and dclibcratc claboration
of acsthetic forms. But the romantic triad and its sub-
scqucnt dcrivatives no longcr occupy that terrain: lyri-
cal, cpical. and dramatic contrast with Dichtartcll no
longer as modcs of verbal cnunciation that precede and
are externa! to any litcrary dcfinition but, rathcr, as
kinds of Archi-, bccausc each of them is sup-
poscd ro ovcrarch and include, rankcd by dcgrce of im-
portancc, a ccrtain number of cmpirical gcnres that-
whatcver their amplitudc. longevity, or potcntial for rc-
currcncc-arc apparently phcnomcna of culture and
history; but still (or already) bccause (as wc havc
scen) their defining critcria always involvc a thematic
clcment that eludes purely formal or linguistic dcscrip-
70. To be more precise. wc should say "propcrly acs-
thetic," for. as wc know, the fact of gcnre is cornmon to all
thc arts. Here, thercforc. "propcrly litcrary" mcans proper to
thc acsthctic levcl of literamrc. thc lcvclliteraturc sharcs with
thc othcr arts, as opposcd to the linguistic lcvel, which litcr-
aturc sharcs with the othcr typcs of discoursc.
At1 65
tion. This dual status is not peculiar to thcm, for a
"genre" like the novd or comcdy may also be subdi-
vided into more specific "species"-tale of chivalry.
picarcsque novel, etc.; comed y of humours, farcc,
vaudeville, etc.-with no limit sct a priori to chis series
of inclusions. We all know, for examplc, that che specics
detective tlOI'el may in turn be divided into severa! vari-
eties (police procedural, thriller, "rcalistic" detective
story a la Simcnon, etc.), that with a little ingenuity one
can always multiply che positions between the spccies
and the individual, and that no one can sct a limit on this
proliferation of species (the spy story would, 1 suppose,
have bccn complctcly unforeseeable toa literary theorist
of the eighteenth century, and many species yet to come
are still unimaginablc to us today). In short, any genre
can always contain severa! genres. and in rhar rcspect the
archigenres of the romantic triad are distinguished by
no natural privilege. At most thcy can be describcd as
the highest-thc most capacious-positions of thc clas-
sification then in use. But the example of Kate Ham-
burger shows us rhat a new rcduction is not to be ruled
out a priori (and it would not be unrcasonablc-quite
thc contrary-to cnvisage a fusion that would be the re-
verse of hcrs, a fusion bctwccn thc lyrical and the cpical
that would lcave thc dramatic as thc only form with a
rigorously "objective" enunciation). And the example
of W. V. Ruttkowski shows that onc can always, and
justas rcasonably, propose another ultimare position, in
chis case the didactic.
11
And so on. In thc classification of
literary spccics as in the classification of genres, no po-
sition is cssentially more "natural" or more "ideal"-
unless wc abandon thc literary criteria thcmsclvcs, as
71. Die literarscheu Gattuugetl, chaptcr 6, "Schlussfordc-
rungcn: cinc modifizicrtc Gattungspoctik."
66 Tl1e Architext
the ancients did implicitly with the modal pos1t1on.
Therc is no generic level that can be decrced more "the-
oretical," or that can be attained by a more "deductive"
mcthod, than the othcrs: all spccics and all subgcnrcs,
gcnrcs, or supergenres are cmpirical classcs, cstablished
by observation of the historical facts or, if nced be, by
cxtrapolation from those facts-that is, by a dcductivc
activity supcrimposed on an initial activity that is al-
ways inductive and analytical, as we have scen in the
charts (whethcr explicit or implicit) of Aristotlc and
Frye, wherc the cxistcnce of an cmpty compartmcnt
(comic narrative; extroverted-intellectual) helps one dis-
covcr a genre ("parody," "anatomy") othcrwisc con-
dcmncd to invisibility. Thc major ideal "typcs" that,
since Gocthc, havc so often bccn contrastcd with thc
minor forms and intcrmediate gcnres
72
are simply more
72. Typc is sometimcs one term of the opposition (Uim-
mert, Todorov in the Dictionary); other terminological couples
that have becn used are kitrdlgeme (Wcllek and Warrcn), mode!
getrre (Scholes). thcoretical .'?etrrellristorical gctrre (Todorov in The
Fantastic: A Stnutural Approach toa LiteraY)' Gmre, trans. Rich-
ard Howard [Ithaca: Cornell Univcrsity Press, 1 975]), basic at-
titudel,genre (Vctor), basic ~ e n r e or basic type!getrre (Peterscn),
or cvcn, with sorne slight differences, simplt fomrlreal form in
Jolles. Todorov's current position is closcr to thc onc 1 am up-
holding hcre:
In the past, attcmpts have been madc to distinguish
"natural" forms of poctry (for examplc, lyric, epic, or
dramatic poctry) from its convcntional forms (sonncts,
ballads, ocles), or cvcn to opposc (thc "natural" and thc
conventional]. We need to try to see on what level such
an asscrtion may still have some meaning. One possi-
bility is that lyric poetry, epic poctry, and so on, are uni-
An Introduction 67
capacious, less precisely defined classes; for that reason
they are more likely to have a broader cultural reach,
but thcir principie is ncither more ahistorical nor less.
The "epic type" is neither more ideal nor more natural
than the genres of novel and epic that it supposedly
cncompasses-unless we define it as the ensemble of
basically twrrative genres, which immediately brings us
back to the division by mode. For narrative, like dra-
matic dialogue, is a basic stance of enunciation-which
cannot be said of the cpical or the dramatic or, of
course, che lyrical, in the romantic sense of these terms.
In recalling these obvious but often disregarded facts,
1 by no means intend to deny to literary gcnres any sort
of "natural" and transhistorical foundation. On the
contrary, to me another obvious (albeit vague) fact is the
prcsence of an existencial attitude, of an "anthropolog-
ical structurc" (Durand), of a "mental disposition"
(Jolles), of an "imaginative design" (Mauron), or (in
everyday language) of a "feeling" that is properly epi-
cal, lyrical, dramatic-but also tragic, comic, elegiac,
fantastic, romantic, etc.-whose nature, origin, contin-
ued existence, and relation to history (among other
versal categories and thus belong to discourse . ... The
other possibility is that such terms are uscd with rcgard
to historical phenomena: thus the epic is what Homer's
I/iad cmbodies. In the second case, we are indccd dcal-
ing with genres, but these are not qualitatively differcnt
on the discursive level from a genre like the sonnet
(which for its part is based on constraints: thematic, ver-
bal, and so on). ("L'origine des genres" (1976), in Les
Genres du discours [Paris: Seuil, 1978], 50; tr. Genres in
Discourse, trans. Catherine Porter (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990), 18. Emphasis mine.)
68 Tlle Arcllitext
characterisrics) are srill to be studied.
73
For as gencric
conccprs, rhe tluee terms of thc traditional triad dcscrve
no spccial hicrarchical place: epical, for cxample, ovcr-
arches thc epc, rhc tlovel, rhc tlovella, thc tale, etc., only
if ir is mcant as modc ( = narrative [uarratif]); if it is
mcant as genrc ( = thc cpic) and givcn a spccific thcmatic
contcnt (as with Hegel), it no longcr collt,1IIS rhe nov-
distic, thc fantastic, etc., but is instcad at thcir lcvel.
Likcwisc for thc dramatic wirh respect to the tragic, rhe
comic, cte., and for rhe lyrcal with rcspccr ro thc cle-
giac, rhc sarirical, ctc.
7
' 1 dcny only that a final generic
posirion, and ir alone, can be defincd in tcrms rhat ex-
73. The problem of the rdationship between atemporal
archetypes and historical thcmatics is automatically raised (al-
though not rcsohed) when one rcads works like Gilbert Du-
rand's DcM mythiq11t', an anthropological analysis of a nov-
clistic manner that seemingly dates from Ariosto, or Charles
M a u ron 's du gmre a psychoanalytic
rcading of a gcnre that dates from Mcnander and thc Ncw
Comcdy (Aristophancs and thc Old Comcdy. for cxamplc,
do not quite bdong to thc samc "imaginative dcsign").
74. In chis case, terminology rcflccts and aggravatcs thc
theorctical confusion. To sct besidc drama [drame[ and epic
[popel (undcrstood as spccitic gcnres) wc can offcr in 1 En-
glish orj Frcnch only thc limp lyric poem [pocmc lyriqueJ. Epill
[ piquc J in thc modal sen se is not real! y idioma tic, and no one
willmiss it-it is a Germanism, and we gain nothing by sanc-
tioning it. As for dmmatic [dramatiquej, it truly, and unfortu-
natdy, denotes both conccpts, thc gcncric ( = charactcristic of
drama) and thc modal ( = charactcristic of thc theatcr). So at
the modal levcl, [in French] wc ha ve nothing to align in par-
adigm with che adjectivc 11arrat!f (the only univoca! ter m) [in
English, of coursc, not cvcn che word 11arrativc is univoca!]:
rcmains ambiguous, and thc third tcrm is totally
lacking.
Ar1 l11troduction 69
elude all historicity. For at whatevcr lcvd of gcnerality
onc placcs oncsclf, thc phcnomcnon of gcnrc incxtri-
cably mcrges thc phcnomcna-among others-of na-
ture and of culture. That thc proportions and the type
of rclationship itself can vary is, again, an observable
fact, but no position is totally thc product of naturc or
mind-as none is totally determined by history.
Somctimes a more cmpirical, and wholly relative,
dcfinition of ideal "types" is proposcd (for examplc, by
Lammcrt in his Bmiformerl des Erzahle11s), but thosc
would be only the most mduring gcncric forms. Such dif-
fcrcnccs of dcgrcc-for cxample, betwccn comedy and
vaudeville or betwccn thc novel in general and the
gothic novel-are undeniablc, and it stands to reason
that the broadcst historical range is bound up with thc
broadcst conceptual rangc. But thc argumcnt of dura-
tion must be handled carefully: thc longevity of the clas-
sical forms (epic, tragedy) is not a sure indication of
transhistoricity, givcn the conservatism of thc classical
tradition and its ability to sustain mummified forms for
severa) ccnturies. Compared with forms of such dura-
bility. the postclassical (or paraclassical) forms suffcr a
historical crosion that is less thcir own doing than that
of another historical rhythm. A more significant critc-
rion than longcvity would be the capacity for dispersion
(among divcrse cultures) and for spontaneous recur-
rencc (without thc stimulus of a tradition, reviva!, or
"retro" style). One could takc as an cxample the appar-
cntly spontaneous rcturn of the epical in the early chan-
sons de geste, in contrast to thc labored rcsurrcction of
thc classical cpic in the scvcntccnth ccntury. But in the
presencc of such subjccts, one quickly sizcs up the in-
sufficiency not only of our historical knowlcdge but
also, and more fundamcntally, of our thcorctical rc-
sourccs. For cxamplc: to what cxtcnt, in what manncr,
70 Tlle Arcllitext
and in what sense does the species chanson de geste be-
long to the epical genre? Another example: how can thc
epical be defined without any refercncc to the Homeric
model and tradition?
75
Now wc are in a position to spcll out the theoretical
drawback of a fallacious attribution that could at first
scem merely an unimportant (if not insignificant) his-
torical mistake. The fallacious attribution projccts thc
privilege of naturalness that inheres le._(!itimately in che
threc modcs pure 11arratio11/mixcd 11arratio111dramatic imi-
tatioll ("therc are and thcrc can be only three ways of
rcprcsenting actions in language," etc.) onto thc triad of
gcnrcs, or archigcnrcs, lyricism/epicldrama ("there are
and there can be only three basic poetic outlooks," etc.).
In surreptitiously (and unconsciously) backing both thc
modal dcfinition and the gencric definition,
7
'' the attri-
75. Cf. Daniel Poirion. "Chanson de geste ou pope?
Remarques sur la dfinition d'un genre," Traz,aux de lillguis-
tique et de littmture 10 (1972), part 2:7-20.
76. To my knowledge. Northrop Fryc is thc only-or
nearly thc only-modern litcrary theorist who maintains (in
his own way) the distinction betwcc:n modcs and genrcs. E ven
so, he namcs llhldes what wc ordinarily call gcnres (myth, ro-
mance, mimesis, irony), and getJres what 1 would lih to call
modcs (drama tic; narrativc [ 11arratif )-oral, or epos; narra ti ve
[llarratifl-\\'rittcn, or jictio11; sung to oncsclf, or lyric). In Fryc,
only thc sccond division is bascd cxplicitly on Aristotlc and
Plato and takcs as its critcrion thc "radical of prcscmation,"
that is, of communication with thc public (scc A11atomy, 246-
51. cspccially 247). Claudio Guilln (Litcrature as System, 386-
88). for his part, distinguishes thrce sorts of classes: genres
properly so callcd, metrical forms, and (refcrring to Frye with
a fclicicous substitution of terms) "prescntational modes. likc
Atz IntroductiotJ 71
bution sets up these archigenres as ideal or natural typcs,
which thcy are not and cannot be: no archigcnrc could
totally escape historicity whilc at the same time a
dtjiuitiotz.
77
Thcre are modes (for example, the
narrative); there are genres (for example, the novel); the
relationship between genres and modcs is complex and
doubtless not, as Aristotle suggcsts, one of simple in-
clusion. Genres can cut across modes (Oedipus re-
counted is still tragic), perhaps thc way individual
works cut across genres-pcrhaps diffcrently; but wc do
know that a novel is not solely a narrative and, there-
fore, that it is not a spccics of narrativc or cvcn a kind
of narrativc. In this arca, indeed, that is all we know,
and undoubtedly even that is too much. Poetics is a very
old and very young "science": the little it "knows" it
would pcrhaps somctimcs be bctter off forgctting. In a
'11arrative' and 'dramatic.'" But he adds, not without rcason,
that "unlike Frye, 1 do not think that these modes constitute
the central principie of all generic differcntiation, and that the
specific gen res are forms or instan ces q( these modes."
77. The italicized phrase is no doubt the only point on
which 1 part company with Philippe Lejcune's criticism of the
idea of "type" (Le Pacte 326-34). Like Le-
jeune, 1 believe that type is "an idealized projection" ("natu-
ralized," 1 would more readily call it) of genre. Like Todorov,
howevcr, 1 think that thcrt. cxist a priori forms. lct us c:tll
them, of literary exprcssion. But in my view thesc a priori
forms are to be found only in modcs, which are linguistic and
preliterary categorics. And then, of course, thcre is subjcct
matter, which is also largely cxtralitcrary and transhistorical.
1 say "largely," not "wholly": 1 unhcsitatingly concede to Lc-
jeune that autobiography, likc all genrcs. is a historical fact,
but 1 maintain that its thematic commitmcnts are not cntircly
so and that "bourgeois consciousness" does not explain cvery-
thing about thcm.
72 The Architext
sense, that is all 1 wanted to say-and that too, of
course, is still too much.
X
All that precedes is a slightly refincd and cxpanded vcr-
sion of an article published in Potique in November
1977 under the title "Genres, 'Types,' Modcs." As Phi-
lippe Lcjcunc immcdiatcly lct me know, its conclusion
was excessivcly ftippant, or figurative. lf, then, it is nec-
cssary (but is it?) to be literal, what poetics has to do is
not "forgct" its past (or prcsent) errors but, naturally,
understand them better to avoid falling into them all
ovcr again. To thc cxtcnt that attributing thc thcory of
thc "thrce basic gcnres" to Plato and Aristotlc is a his-
torical error that guarantees and places a premium on
thcoretical confusion, 1 obviously bclicvc that this (too)
significant mishap should be both shaken off and, as a
lesson, borne in mind.
But then again, my evasive conclusion masked,
badly and somcwhat unwittingly, a theoretical difficulty
1 will now try to confront by way of this detail: "The
rclationship between genres and modes," 1 said, was
"doubtlcss not, as Aristotlc suggests, one of simple in-
clusion." "As Aristotle suggests" is, 1 rcalize, equivoca]:
does Aristotlc suggest that it is or that it is not? lt
secmed to me thcn that he said it is. but undoubtcdly 1
was nonc too surc, hcncc thc prudcnt "suggcsts" and
the ambiguous construction. What is thc situation in
fact, or how do I now vicw it?
I would now contend that in Aristotlc-and contrary
to what wc find in most of thc later literary theorists,
classical or modern-thc rclationship betwcen the cat-
egory of genre and thc category of what I, in his namc,
call "modc" (the term "genre," aftcr all, docs not ap-
A11 lntrodrwio11 73
pcar in thc Poetics) is not onc of mere inclusiotl, or more
precisely is not one of mere/y sill,(!le inclusion. Thcre is
and is not inclusion, or rathcr there is {at least) double
inclusion-that is, intersection. As the first chart in this
book (pagc 14), constructcd according to the tcxt of the
Poetics, makcs vcry clear-and this, too, 1 realize only
after the fact-the category of genre (for instance, trag-
cdy) is includcd in both thc catcgory of mode (dramatic)
and thc catcgory of object (superior), whcre it bdongs
for a different reason but to the samc degrec. The struc-
tural diffcrence betwecn Aristotlc's systcm and the sys-
tcms of the romantic and modcrn thcorics is that thcsc
latter generally come clown to an arrangement of
univoca] and hicrarchical inclusions (individual works
undcr spccics, spccics undcr gcnrcs, gcnrcs under
"types"), whcrcas thc Aristotclian systcm, however ru-
dimcntary in other respects, is implicitly tabular, im-
plicitly prcsupposcs a table that is (at least) doublc entry,
with cach gcnrc bdonging to both (at lcast) one modal
catcgory and one thematic category. Tragedy, for
cxamplc, is dcfined (at this level) as both this-sort-
of-work-with-a-noblc-subjcct-that-is-prcscntcd-on-thc-
stagc and this-sort-of-work-prcsentcd-on-the-stagc-
whosc-subjcct-is-noblc, and cpic as both a-hcroic-
action-rccountcd and thc-narrativc-of-a-hcroic-action,
etc. The modal and thematic categorics are not related
to cach othcr in tcrms of subordination (modc ncithcr
includes nor implies theme; thcmc ncithcr includcs nor
implics modc), and it neccssarily follows rhat thc spatial
prescntation of thc table could be invcrted, with thc ob-
jccts along thc abscissa and thc modcs along thc ordi-
natc. But modes and themes, intersccting, jointly in-
elude and determine genrcs.
It sccms tome today that iJ a system is 11ecessar}' (is it?},
then by a11d large Aristotle's systcm (once again, tomiamo
74 Tlu:
all'autico . . ), despite its no longer justifiable exclusion
of the nonreprcsentational gcnres, is i11 its structure
somewhat superior to (meaning, of course, more ef-
fectivc than) most of those that have come after, fun-
damcntally flawcd as thcy are by thcir inclusive and
hierarchical taxonomy, which each time immcdiately
brings the whole gamc to a standstill and produces an
.
1mpassc.
1 find a ncw examplc of this in the recent work of
Klaus Hcmpfer, Gattungstlreorie,
7
" which claims to be a
synthetic clarification of thc main cxisting rhcorics. Un-
dcr the modcst yct ambitious hcading of "systcmatic
tcrminology." Hempfer propases an implicitly hierar-
chical systcm whose inclusive classes, going from the
broadest to the narrowest, would be "modcs of writ-
ing" (Schreibweiscn), based on thc cnunciating situation
(these are our modes-for cxamplc, narrativc versus dra-
matic); "types" (Typeu), which are specifications of the
modes-within thc narrativc mode, for example, "first-
pcrson" (homodicgctic) narration versus "authorial"
(hctcrodicgetic) narration; "genres" which
are the concrete historical realizations (novel, novclla,
cpic, cte.); and "subgenrcs" ( which are
thc more limitcd specifications within gcnres (like the
picaresque novel within the genre of novel).
At first glancc this system is attractivc (to those who
are attracted by that kind of thing), initially bccause it
placcs at thc apex of the pyramid the catcgory of mode,
which in my vicw is thc most undcniably universal cat-
cgory inasmuch as it is bascd on thc transhistorical and
translinguistic fact of pragmatic situations. Ncxt, be-
cause the category of type authorizes submodal specifi-
cations such as thosc thc study of narrativc forms has
78. (Munich: W. Fink, 1973), 26-27.
An Introductiotz 75
been highlighting for a century (if the narrative mode is
a lcgitimatc transgcncric catcgory, it sccms obvious that
an overall theory of genres has to incorporare the sub-
modal specifications of narratology, and of course thc
same holds true for any specifications there may be of
the dramatic mode). Similarly, it is indisputable (and
this 1 have already acknowledgcd) that a gcncric cate-
gory like the novel can be subdivided into specifications
that are less extensive but more dctailed, such as pica-
rcsque novel, sentimental novel, detective novel, cte. In
other words, the categories of both mode and genre un-
avoidably call for their own subdivisions, and naturally
nothing prcvcnts thcsc lattcr from bcing christencd
"types" and "subgcnrcs," rcspectivcly (although one
would scarcely rccommend the term type eithcr for its
transparency or for its congruence with the paradigm:
submode would be both clearer and more "systematic"-
that is, in this case, symmetrical).
But, as we see, the shoe pinches when we try to draw
together in an inclusive rclationship thc categories of
"genre" and "type." For whereas the narrative mode in-
eludes in sorne way, for examplc, the genrc of novel, thc
novel cannot possibly be subordinatcd to a particular
specification of thc narrativc modc: if wc subdivide chis
modc into homodiegctic and hctcrodiegctic, clcarly the
gcnrc of novel cannot go wholly undcr either of thcsc
two typcs, for thcrc are both "farst-pcrson" novcls and
"third-person" novels.
79
In short, whereas type is a sub-
79. Let us note in passing that these "formal"-that is,
(sub)modal-specifications do not ordiriarily have the status
of subgenres, or of spccics, as do the picaresque, sentimental,
and other novels referred to above. The properly (sub)generic
catcgorics are apparcntly always connected to thematic spcc-
ifications. But that question requires closer examination.
76 Thc Architcxt
mode, genre is not a subrype, and the chain of inclu-
sions breaks apart right there.
Bur this systematisclre Terminologie creares difficulries
on yet another point, one that until now 1 havc avoided
bringing up: the highest category of Sclrrcibweisen is not
so homogcncous (so purcly modal) as 1 havc suggestcd,
for it includcs orher "ahistorical constanrs" bcsides thc
narrative and dramatic modes. Actually, Hempfcr mcn-
tions only one other, but irs presence is enough to un-
balance thc wholc class: thc "satiric" modc, whosc dc-
rcrmination is obviously thematic in naturc-and which
is therefore closer to t ~ Aristotclian catcgory of objects
than to that of modes.
This criticism, 1 hasren to specify, is directed only at
thc taxonomic incoherencc of a class rhar is christcncd
"modcs of writing" but into which thcrc secms in fact
a tendency to pile indiscriminately all "constants," of
whatever kind. As 1 have said, I do indeed acknowlcdge
the cxistence (ar lcast the rclative existcnce) of "ahis-
torical," or rather transhistorical, constants, not only
with rcspcct to thc modcs of cnunciation but also with
rcspect to sorne major thcmatic carcgorics, such as thc
heroic, the sentimental, the comic, etc. An ultimare in-
ventory of these categories would perhaps serve only to
divcrsify and qualify (along thc lincs of Fryc's "modcs"
or othcrwisc) rhc clcmcntary antithcscs Aristotlc positcd
among superior, equal, and inferior "objects," without
necessarily compromising, for the moment, the prin-
cipie of a chart of rhc gcnrcs bascd on rhc inrersccring
of modal and thcmatic carcgorics. The categories would
simply be more numerous on borh sides than Aristotlc
pcrccived thcm to be: the thematic caregorics would ob-
viously increasc (and 1 recall rhar thc main parr of thc
Poetics is dcvotcd ro a more elaborare dcscriprion of thc
rragic subjccr, implicitly leaving thc lcss "cminently
78 Tlle Architext
dry's Axiane. So we would need a figure with three di-
mensions; the third, we should remember, was implic-
itly foresecn by Aristotle with the question in what? that
determines the choice of the formal "medium" of im-
itation (in what language, in what meter, etc.). 1 am
rather inclined to think that perhaps, through a fortu-
nate infirmity of thc human mind, the major imagin-
able paramctcrs of the gencric system come down to
those thrce kinds of "constants" (thcmatic, modal, and
formal) and that a sort of transluccnt cubc, no doubt less
manageablc (and lcss plcasing) than Pctcrscn's rose win-
dow, would givc us, at least for a while, thc illusion of
coping with and accounting for thcm. But 1 am not
quite surc, and 1 havc spcnt too much time handling (al-
bcit gingcrly) the various modcls and projcctions of m y
ingenious predeccssors to takc my turn at playing this
dangerous gamc. So for now, lct us simply suppose that
a certain numbcr of thematic, modal, and formal deter-
minations that are rclativcly cotrstant and transllistorical
(that is, whose rhythm of variation is pcrceptibly slowcr
than the rhythms that History-both "literary" and
"gencral"-must ordinarily be cognizant of) delineare,
as it were, the landscape in whch thc cvolution of thc
ficld of literature is set, and to a grcat extent determine
somcthing likc thc rescrvoir of gcneric potentialities
from which that evolution makes its selections-not, of
coursc, without occasional surprises, repetitions, capri-
cious dccisions, sudden mutations, or unprcdictablc
creat1ons.
1 am well awarc that such a vision of History may
sccm a poor caricature of the structuralist bugbcar,
holding cheap prcciscly what makes History irreducible
to this kind of chart, namely, thc cumulativc and the ir-
rcvcrsiblc-thc shccr fact ofgcneric mcmory, for cxamplc
(jemsalem Dcli11ered rccalls thc Aeneid, which recalls the
Atl Imroductiotl 79
Odyssey, which rccalls thc /liad), which is conducive not
only to imitation, and thcrcforc stagnation, but also to
differentiation (onc cannot, of course, repeat what one
imitates) and therefore to a mnimum of evolution. But
1 also pcrsist in thinking that absolutc rclativism is a
submarine with sails, that historicism kills History, and
that the study of transformations implies the examina-
tion, and thus thc taking into account, of continuities.
Thc course of history is obviously not detcrmined, but
it is to a great extcnt guided by the navigational lights
of thc combinatory chart: beforc the bourgcois era,
bourgcois drama was impossiblc; but as we havc sccn,
bourgeois drama can be satisfactorily defined as the di-
amctric oppositc of hcroic comcdy. And 1 note, too,
that Philippe Lejcunc, who views autobiography, no
doubt correctly, as a relativcly reccnt gcnre, defines it
("a retrospective prose narrative produced by a real per-
son concerning his own existence, focusing on his in-
dividual life, in particular on the devclopment of his
personality") in terms free of all historical determina-
tion.81 Undoubtcdly, autobiography is possiblc only in
the modern age, but this definition-combining fca-
tures that are thematic (the growth of a gcnuine indi-
vidual), modal (a rctrospcctive autodicgetic narration),
and formal (in prose)-is typically Aristotelian, and
strictly atcmporal.
82
81. "Le Pacte autobiographique," in Lr Pacte alltobiogra-
pllique (Pars: Seuil. 1975); tr. "The Autobiographical Con-
tract," in Fmul1 Literary Theory Toda)': A Reader, trans. R.
Cartcr, ed. Tzvetan Todorov (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
vcrsity Press, 1982), 193.
82. Historicity of coursc cntcrs thc picture as soon as
onc supposcs that the ideas of becoming and of personality
are inconceivablc bcforc thc scvcnteenth ccntury; but this
80 Tl1e Arcllitext
XI
"Noncthclcss," onc will object, "this cavalicr linking it-
self is wholly rctrospcctive, and whilc Lcjcunc may rc-
call Aristotle, Aristotlc docs not forctcll Lcjcunc and
never defined autobiography."
"Agrccd. But wc havc already notcd that, somc ccn-
turies befare Fielding, unknowingly and except for onc
dctail (prosc), he did define thc modcrn novel from So-
rel to Joyce: 'low narrative.' Since thcn, have we come
up with anything much berter?"
"In short, fairly slow progrcss in poctics. Maybc
wc'd be bcttcr off abandoning an cntcrprisc that's so
marginal (in thc cconomic scnsc) and lctting litcrary his-
torians (it's their job, ccrtainly) do thc emprica! studics
of gcnrcs-or maybc subgcnrcs-as sociohistorical in-
stitutions: thc Roman clcgy, thc chanson de geste, che
picaresque novel, the sentimental comed y. etc."
"That would be a prctty good way out, and sccm-
ingly a good bargain for cveryone, although not all thc
itcms you'vc named are cxactly of prime importancc.
But I doubt that onc can vcry casily, or vcry pcrtinently,
writc thc history of an institution without first dcfining
it: in picaresq11e 11ovel there is 110l'cl, and assuming that thc
picaro is a social given of thc pcriod for whch ltcrature
bcars no rcsponsibility (a supposition that s a little cx-
ccssivc), we must still defmc that spccics in terms of thc
(hypo)thcsis rcmains cxtcrnal to thc dcfinition propcr. And in
fact 1 am not sure that with autobiography 1 havc choscn thc
most dfficult cxample; it would no doubt be harder to imag-
ine Aristotlc dcfining the wcstcrn, the space opera. or cven,
as Cervantes already noted, the tale of chivalry. Ccrtain the-
matic specifications inevitably bear the mark of thcir terminus
a quo.
An lntroduction 81
nearest genre, the genre itself in terms of something
else, and here we are (again) in the thick of poetics: what
is thc novel?"
"A uscless question. What counts is this novel, and
don't forget that the demonstrative spares us the need
for definition. Lct's focus on what exists-that is, single
works. Let's do criticism; criticism gets along vcry
nicely without universals."
"It gets along very poorly, since ir resorts to them
without being aware of it and without rccognizing
thcm and at thc very moment whcn it claims to be
doing without thcm: you said 'this novel.'"
"Lct's say 'this text,' and be done with it."
''I'm not surc thc changc docs you much good. At
best, you've jumped from poetics to phenomenology:
what is a text?"
"1 don't much carc: whatcver it is, 1 can always shut
myself up inside it and comment on it in m y own way."
"You are, then, shutting yourself up inside a genre."
"What gcnrc?"
"Textual commentary, for hcavcn's sake, and cven, to
be exact, textual-commentary-that-doesn 't-care-about-
genrcs: that's a subgenrc. Frankly, your discoursc intcr-
csts me.
"
"Yours intereses me, too. I'd like to know where you
gct this ragc for gettillg out: of thc tcxt by way of genre,
of thc genrc by way of modc, of the mode ... "
"By way of thc tcxt, from time to time and just for
a change or, at another level, just to get out of the way
out. But it is truc that for the moment thc text intereses
me (only) in its textual trarzscendetrce-namcly, evcry-
thing that brings it into rclation (manifcst or hidden)
with other texts. 1 call that transtextuality, and 1 nclude
undcr it intertexwality in the strict (and, sin ce Julia Kris-
teva, the "classical") scnsc-that is, thc literal prcscncc
82 The .4rchitext
(more or less literal, whether integral or not) of one text
within another. Quotation-that is, the cxplicit sum-
moning up of a tcxt that is both prescntcd and distanccd
by quotation marks-is the most obvious example of
this type of function, which comprises many others as
wcll. Under transtextuality 1 also includc-using the
oblgatory tcrm metatextuality, modcled on
metalanguage-the transtextual relatonshp that lnks a
commentary to the text it comments on. All literary
critics, for centuries, have been producing metatext
without knowing it."
"Thcy'll know it as of tomorrow: what a staggering
disclosurc and invaluable promotion. 1 thank you on
their behalf."
"Nothing to it-it's merely terminological fallout,
and you know how 1 Jike to be helpful if it doesn't take
much. But lct me finish: under transtcxtuality 1 put still
othcr kinds of relationships-chicfiy, 1 think, rclation-
ships of imitation and transformation, which pastiche
and parody can give us an idea of, or rather two ideas,
for thcy'rc very diffcrcnt, although too often confuscd
with each other or incorrectly differentiated. For lack of
a better term, I'll christen them paratextuality (which to
my mind is transtcxtuality par cxccllencc), and pcrhaps
someday, God willing, 1'11 look into it. Finally (unlcss
l've left something out), 1 put under transtcxtuality that
rclationship of inclusion that links each text to the var-
ious types of discourse it bclongs to. Hcrc wc havc the
genres, with their determinations that we've already
glimpsed: thematic, modal, formal, and other (?). lt
stands to rcason that wc should call this the architext, and
arclzitextuality, or simply architexwre ... "
"Your simpleness is a bit cloddish. Jokes on the word
text forma genre that seems tome indeed overworked."
An ltJtroductiotJ 83
"1 agrcc. So 1 would gladly proposc to stop with this
one.
,
"1 would ha ve preferred ... "
"So would 1, but after all, pcople can 't change their
ways and, taking everything into account, l'm making
no promises. So let's call architextuality the relationship
between the text and its architext.lll That transcendence
is omnipresent, whatever Croce and others may have
said about the lack of validity of the generic viewpoint
in literature and elsewhere. We can dismiss the objection
by remcmbering that cver since the lliad, quite a few
works have rallied to the generic viewpoint; that quite
a few others, like the Diviue Comedy, have at first hung
back from it; that the contrast between these two groups
in itself skctchcs out a system of genres-one could say,
more simply, that the blending or scorning of genres is
one gcnre among others; and that no one can either
avoid this very crude schema or be satisfied with it. So
one is caught up in thc systcm."
"lt's okay with me that you're caught up in it."
"You're wrong: it's my system, and you're the one
who's caught up in it. The architcxt is, then, cvery-
where-above, beneath, around the text, which spins
its web only by hooking it here and therc onto that net-
work of architexture. What we call theory of genres, or
ge11ology (Van Tieghcm); thcory of modes (1 propose
modistics; and twrratics, or narratology, the thcory of nar-
rativc, is part of it); thcory of figures-no, not rhctoric,
83. The term architexlllre and the adjective architextual have
bcen used by Mary Ann Caws, "Le Passagc du pocme" (Ca-
hiers de l' Association internatiouale des tudes .francaises, M ay
1978, no. 30: 225-43), in a wholly different scnsc, which es-
capes me.
84 The Arclzitext
or theory of discoursc, which ovcrarchcs evcrything
way liP high-and l was once stllck with; what
would you say to Aeurology?"
'' '1
''l'm not forcing yoll to say it; theory of stylcs, or
transcendcut stylistics ... "
"Why transcendent?"
"To be stylish, and to contrast it with stylistic criti-
cism a la Spitzer, \Vhich aims more often than not to be
immanent in the text; theory of forms, or morpholo.ey (a
little neglected today, but that could change; it includes,
among othcrs, metrics, meaning, as Mazaleyrat pro-
poses, the general study of poetic forms); theory of
themes, or tlzematics (criticism known by that name
would be simply an application of the theory to indi-
vidual works): all thosc disciplines ... "
''I'm not too happy with that idea."
"So there we have something in common! But a 'dis-
cipline' (let's use quotation marks of protcst) isn't, or at
lcast shouldn't be, an institution, but only an instru-
mcnt, a transitional mcans that's abolishcd at once in
achieving its goal-which may very well be only an-
othcr mcans (another 'discipline'), which in turn ...
and so on: the whole point is to move ahcad. Wc have
alrcady uscd up some disciplines, whose necrology 1
will spare yo u."
"One good turn deserves another: you didn't finish
your scntencc.
"
"1' d collntcd on not having to, but yo u don 't miss a
thing. All these 'disciplines,' then, and others still to be
discovered and scrapped in their turn-thc whole cnd-
lcssly forming and re-forming poetics, whosc object, let
liS firmly state, is 1101 the text, but the architext-can, faute
de mieux, hdp liS explore that architcxtual, or architcx-
tural, transcendence. Or, more modestly, navigate in it.
A11
85
Or, still more modestly, fl.oat in it, somewhcre out be-
yond thc text."
"Your modesty scems prctty venturesome: fl.oating
in a transcendencc on board a 'discipline' bound for the
scrap heap (or for re-formation) ... Sir Poetician, l'd
say yo u 're starting out badly."
"M y dear Frdric,"
4
did 1 say 1 was starting out?"
84. [Translator's note. J "Frdric" is thc author's nick-
namc.
Index
Abrams, M. !:f., 24n
Les Adieu."l: de ,\-farie St110rl ( Bran-
ger), 5.4
Aeneid, 28
Aeschylus, fQ. 56
Alcaeus, 24, 25
Anacreon, :M
Andromaque (Hacine), lR
Amigone (Sophocb), 43n
A11 Apologie for Poctrie (Sidncy), 2Q
Apulcius, :1.5
Archigenres, 64-65, 70-71
Archilochus. 25
Architextuality, 82-83, !H
Ariosto, 68n
Aristarchus. :M
Aristophancs, 43n, 68n
Aristotlc: Homeric Problrms, 1. Po-
rtia: sce Portits (Aristotlc);
Riletoric, 10. 30
Arte poetica (Minturno), 29n
Art of Poetry (Horace), 2:1
L'Art poliq11t (Boileau), 2!i
Aubign, Thodore-Agrippa d',
51
Autobiography, 7ln, 29.
Axia11e (Scudry). Zll
Bakhtin, Mikhail, i=5
Le Barbier de S1ille (Bcaumar-
chais). 18n
Bartas, Guillaume de Sallustc du,
51
Balracilomyomacilie, U
Battcux, Charles (abh), 5-7 31-
36-37. :!2
Baudclairc, Charles, 59-60
Baumgartcn, Alcxander Gottlieh,
2.2
Bcaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin
Caron de, 18n, 51
Les Beaux-Arts ridllits a 1m meme
prncipe. Ser Batteux, Charles
Bccquc, Hcnry, 51
Behrcns, Irene, 1-2, 24n. 28, 56
llcnvcnistc, Emilc, 61, 6:1
Branger, Pierrc-Jt':ln de, 5.4
Hcnri. 5Rn
Bcrnstcin, Henry, Sll
Bible, M
Blair, Hugh, 34n. 39n
Boileau-Despraux, Nicobs, 2!i
Bonnet, Henri. 58-59n
Bovet, Erncst, 1-2, 56, SHn, 62
Bray, Rcn, 21.
Britarmicus (Hacine), 11!
Browning, Robert, 50
Burton, Roben, :1.5
88
Callimachus, 2,l
Cartas plrilolo,(!icas (Cascalcs), 30.
.ll
Cascalcs. Francisco. 30 . .ll
Caws, Mary Ann, ll3n
Cervantes, Miguel de, 28-29. 80n
Chapclain. Jcan. 5{!. 51
Le Cid (Curneillc), 3
Cimra (Corncillc) . .16
Cixous, Hlcnc, :1.
Classifications: analyzcd by Gc-
nctlc, 34-35, 45 49-50 55, 61-
72; extended by past theorists,
50-55, 56-58, 74 76
Claudcl, Paul, 5!.!
Cohcn, Jcan, On
Corneillc:, Picrrc, 13n, 19n, 32.
JS, 36, 56, 51
Cresplrontrs. 11
Crili{{J e pot'Sol (Fubini), 24n, 52n
Crocc, Bcncdctto, 58n, !U
Cromue/1, Prcfacc 10 (Hugo), 43n,
56
Dalias. E. S., :!l. :1.8
Dante, 50, 5.:1. !U
Daudct, Alphonse, 5.8
Delia pottca (Gravina), 29.
Dr Port,r (Minturno), 29n
Diachronic schcmas. 3H 44
Didactic literaturl, lli, 24. 55, 5')-
60
Didcrot, Dcnis. 20, 51
Diomcdcs, :!.. 2.5
Discour.< d<' /.1 tragMi<' (Corncillc).
19n
Discours du P<'bne drama tique (Cor-
ncillc), 13n
Dithyramb, 6-7 2.1
Tlle Dirin<' Comcdy, 50. 54. !i3
Don Quixott', 2S-29
D1111 Sa11clre d'Ara.(!OII (Corncillc),
13n
Drydcn, John. 29
l11dex
Ducrot, Oswald, Sn
Dumas ji/s, Alcxandrc. 51
Dupunt-Roc, Rosclyne, 7n
Durand, Gilbcrr, 59n, (17, 68n
L'Ecole des (emmes (Moliere), 18n
Eightccnth-ccntury poctics. and
scventccnth-, 28-36
Empcdoclcs, l.U
Erskine, John, 47, :1.8
An Essay 11_( Dramatic Poesy (Dry-
dcn),
Euripcdcs, 11
Tlle Faerit Quwrr (Spenscr), 5!.!
Faral, Edmond. 23n
Fielding. Henry, Tl
La Formation de la doctmre dassique
m (llray). 2:1.
Fryc, Northrop, J, 30, 46 55, 61.
(16, 70n, 7JJ
Fubini, Mario, 24n, 34n, 52n, 5.5
Gem:tlc, Grard, 9n, 22n
Gcnres, division of, amibutcd to
Aristotlc: cightccnth ccntury.
5-7; twcntieth ccntury, 1.::5
Gcnrcs and modcs. 72-74, 76 7'1
Gcnrcs and "time," 46 49
Gocthc, Johann Wolfgang von,
43n, 50, 54; on gcnrc. . 39n,
(!1 6:>-63
Gravina, Giovanni Vinccnzo,
Grcck and Roman poctics, 24 25
Gurard, Albert L., 50
Guilln, Claudio, 24n, 44n, 7U-
71n
Hamburgcr, K:itc, 58, 6.5.
Hartmann, Eduard von, 5l.l
Hegel, Georg Wilhclm Fricdrich,
41n. :I]J :17-4_1!, (>2, 68.
Hcgcmon, U
Ht'mpfer, Klaus, 74, 76 77
Jndex
Hesiod, 2:!
Holderlin, Fric:drich, 18, 40-41,
62
Homcr, 2. 10, L-1. 14, 15n, 43n,
so. 56, 79, !U
Homeric Problems (Aristotlc), Z
Horacc. J. 24, 25, 31
Houdar de la Mottc, Antoine, 22
Hugo, Vctor, 42n, 43. 50, 5(. 62
Humboldt, Wilhclm von, 47, ;18
T!Je Hutrc!Jback C!f Notre
(Hugo), 5.U
U, 43n, ?2.. 1!3
lntertextuality, 8.1
Jakobson, Roman, :!, 47 4!l, l
jemsalem Ddil'crcd ("Iasso), 28
Jodellc:, Eticnnc, 51
John of Garland, 2.5
Jollcs, Amlr, 49, 66n, 67
Joycc, James L 43-44
Kayser, Wolfgang, 51 n, 62n
Kristcva, Julia, 8.1
Lacouc-Labarthe, Philippc, 42n
Lallot. Jcan, 15n
Ummert, Ebcrhart, 66n, 62
Lavcd.m, Hcnri, 58
Lmures 011 Rlretoric atrd Be/les
Lfllres (Blair). 34n, 3<Jn
Lcj<une, Philippe. l. 7ln.
Lcsagc, Alain-Rcnt', 51
Lcssing, Gotthold Ephraim. 2tl
Lucan, :15
Lucilius, 2.5
Lucrctius, 2:!
Malhcrbc. Fraru;ois de, 5f!
Mallarm, Stphanc, 58
(attributcd to 1-lomer),
U, 15n
Lt' Maria)le de F(11aro (Bcaumar-
dtais), 52
Mauron, Charles, 67. 68n
Mazalcyrat, Jcan, !H
89
Mmoires d'Hadrim (Yourcenar),
22n
Mcnandcr. 6Rn
Metatextuality, 82
.4 .Midsummer Niglrr's 5.U
Mili, John Stuart. 59-60
Milton, john, 29
Minturno, Antonio, 2H, 2<Jn
Modc:rn poctics, 58-60, 6.5
Modcs and gcnrcs, 72-74, 16:=1':).
Molitrc, 18n, 50, 57, TI
Montchrcstian. Antoinc de, 51
Nancy. Jean-Luc, 42n
Le .'Vtrell dt (Didcrot), 51
Nicocharcs, 1.1
Novalis, 41-42n
OJysscy, L1 7!:1
Ocdipus Rex, 17, 19-20
Of EJ11cariotr (Milton),
Paratextuality. 82
Parlrrli11, 51
Paul, Jean, fZ.. ;18
Pclcticr du Mans. Jacquc:s, 2.5
Persia11s (Aeschylus), 2Q
Petcrscn. Julius, 51-55. 66n
Petroniu<. :15
Pickard-Cambridgc, Anhur Wal-
lacc, 7n
Pindar, 7, 10. 24. 25, 31. 43n
Plato: Remblic, 7n. H-'J system
uf modcs, ll-9; system of
modcs, comparcd with Arisrot-
lc's systcm, 21-23, 61-62
Poe, Edgar Allan, 59-60
Poetics: Grcck and Roman, 24-
25; modcrn, 58-60, 65; roman-
tic, 36-45, 62-65; scvcntccnth-
90
Poctics (comirwed)
and cightccnth-ccntury. 2!!-36:
sixtc:cnth-cemury. 25-2!!. Sre
also Plato; f>oetics (Aristotlc)
Porties (Aristotlc): plot, dctinition
of, M!; poetry. dcfinition of. !_Q;
rcprcscntational poctry, catc-
gorics oC 10-1-t, 76, 77; reprc-
scntational poctry, catcgorics
oC comparcd with Platonic sys-
tcm, 21-21. 61-62_; tragcdy,
thcory of, 16-21; tragcdy ca m-
pared with cpic. 14-16
Poirion, Daniel. 70n
(Corncilh:) . .:U
A f>orrrait <!{thc /\rti.<r <1$ .r } illmg
Mmr (Joycc), L 41-44
Produs, 25
f>romethcus (Gocthc). 5,1
Pulclrrie (Corncillc), 13n
(Rousscau). 5,1
Quintilian, "4-25
Rabclais. Fran<;ois, 45, 51
Hacim-. Jcan. lli, 51
poetim (Gravina), 29
Hapin. Hcn. 26
R:tlrxi,ms sur la critiq11e (Houdar
de la Mottc), 29
Rt:flr.\i<>lls sur l.Jpohiqtll' (R.tpin).
21
Rtru/1/ic (Plato). 7n, l:i.=9
Rhetorii (Aristotlc), !Q. 3D
Hobortcllo. Francisco,
Romarr Elrgies (Gocthc), 54
Roman poctics, 24-25
Romantic poetks, 36-45 C.:>-5
Romilly, Jacquclinc de, 6n
Ronsard. Picrrc de, 51
Rousscau, Jcan-Jacqucs, 5-t, 51
Huttkowski, Wolfgang V .. 24n.
Slln, 65
lndex
Sappho, ?.... !Q, 24
Schelling. Fricdrich Wilhclm Jo-
scph von, -tOn, 42, 47. 48
Schlcgcl. August Wilhclm van,
41, :l2
Schlcgd, Fricdrich von, 3B-!O
Schlcgcl, Johann Adolf, 36-JH
Schok-s, Roben, :!. 46, 66n
Scudry. Gcorgcs de, 77-7'd
Scv.:ntecnth- and cightccnth-
ccntury poctics, 2!!-36
Shakcspc.m, William, 43n, 5ll
Sidncy, Philip, 26
Sixtccnth-ccntury poctics, 25 :>8
Sophoclcs. !l. 1 '.1-20, -t3n
Tlt!' S,>rrous of lthtlta
(Gocthc),
Spcmcr, .Edmund. SU
Staigcr, Emil. :!. 44, 47 4H, :1.9
Stendhal. 51
Supltm Hao (Joycc:). 1
Stcrnt, Laurcnce, :lb
Swift, Jonathan. ,D
Smndi. Pctcr, 24n, 4!.!
7a/>/.J.< l''ticas (Cascalcs) .. 33
Tasso, Torquato, Zl!
Tt'tc d'or (Claudcl). 5D
Th,ncritus, 24
Tilt' el Bt'rrrict (Corncillc), 13n
Toduro\', Tzvctan, :!.. Sn, 4')n,
66n, 67n, 71 n
Transtcxtuality. !ll-1:!2
1imaret (Lc:sagc). 51
Van Ticghcm, l'aul, l:!.3
Varru, :l5
Vauquclin de la Frcsnayc, Jcan, 2.5
Vida, Marco Girolamo, 2.6
Vietor, Karl, 62, 6n
Villon. Fran<;ois, 51
Virgil, 2H
Index
Vischc:r, Friedrich Theodor, 47,
,lli
Vossler, Karl, 58n
Warulcrers Nachtlieder (Goerhe), 5!!
Warren, Austin, 1 24n, 46, 66n
Wellek, Ren, 24n, 46, 66n
91
Wtrther (Goc:the), ~
West-iistlicher DitatJ (Goethc:), 39n,
51, 62n, 63n
IVi/lrelrrr Meisttr (Goerhe), 43n
Wordsworth, William, 52
Yourcenar, Marguerite, 22n
Compositor:
'Ji:xt:
1 )isplay:
Primer:
Bindcr:
i l ~ t c d & 'Jaylor
10.5/12. 5 lkmbo
Bc111ho
Thomsnn-Shor<, lnr.
Thom,on-Shor<, lnc.