How genre affects our appreciation.

Stanley Fish’s “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One” deals with the idea that people will look at a piece of literature in a certain way if they are told that it is of a certain type. While Chandler focused on genre, and how it can dictate responses from readers, Fish deals with the type of literature the work is. In this case, Fish presented a list of names as a poem to his class. His class, seeing the list as a poem began dissecting it in an attempt to determine the meaning. The style of literature and the genre that the work belongs to affects our way of interpreting it.

In “An introduction to genre theory: working within genres”, Chandler makes mention of the pleasures we receive from reading certain genres. “One pleasure may simply be the recognition of the features of a particular genre because of our familiarity with it.” In simple terms, if you expect action in an action movie, you will enjoy the movie. In class we were discussing the movie “scream”, the film is typically classified under horror, yet most enjoy the film when they view it as a comedy. Our expectations are based on the information we are given. Just as Fish’s students saw the list as a deep religious poem because they were told to, we see “Scream” as a poor horror film due to its inability to adhere to one simple rule of a horror film, which is to be scary. If we were told that “Scream” was supposed to be a comedy, perhaps we would enjoy it more. Just as a list is just a list, until someone says it’s supposed to be a poem.

Terry Eagleton also touches upon the idea that our knowledge of the work affects our interpretations of it. He mentions a study that A. Richards preformed. He assigned poems to his class, but he withheld the names of the poet and the poems. “Time-honored poets were marked down and obscure authors were celebrated…” A poor choice in title, whether it is of a book or poem, can easily affect the reader’s interpretation and appreciation of the work. While we are told to never judge a book by its cover, many of us often do. Some of us are slaves to certain authors and read all of his/her work regardless of quality. By reading the poems without titles and names gave the students a rare chance to see the work freely.

Eagleton asked the question “What is literature.” What separates certain writings from literature? The answer seems to be that it depends on the reader. If a list of names could be regarded as a deep religious poem, who’s to say that it isn’t? If we look at “Scream” as a comedy and enjoy it, does that make it a comedy? I believe it does. I see this as the problem with Genres and defining work. Our expectations end up warping our appreciation of the work.