-
4. Historical Kinds and theGeneric Repertoire
Many attempts to clarify literary genre founder in the confusion
of treat-ing all generic types as belonging to the same category.
If there is onlyone range of generic types, the critic faces an
impossible task in distrib-uting works among them. As he well
knows, most works combine manytypes. This is a different problem
from the one presented by genericchange; but the two are linked, as
later chapters will argue. First we haveto distinguish (he various
sorts of generic types.
Categories
Literary v.!orks can always be grouped in different ways. Thus,
Tom Stop-pard's ROJencranz and Gui/dens/ern Are Dead might
represent several SOrtSof genre. Like Waiting/or Godot, it could be
taken as a modern morality.At the same time, like Gilbert and
Sullivan's ROJeneranz and Guildenstern,it could be taken as an
epicyclic work extending the fictive world ofHamlet. It is a
serious comedy, but it has also been called an absurdistdrama. And
in much the same way The Winter's Tale has been treated ascomedy,
rragicomedy, near-tragedy, and romance. Part is pastoral;
al-though, eV,en in this, Autolycus embodies the contrasting values
of whatis variously termed "Hesiodic" (Rosenmeyer) and rogue or
"boisterouspastoral" (Taylor).t Again, we recognize a structural
type, in which anal-ogous actions (the Hermione plot and the
Perdita plot) reflect upon oneanother. Finally, in the
sheep-shearing scene, The Winter's Tale hasmasque "elements," as we
say.
True, the genres identi~ed vary with the purpose and the
knowledge ofthe speaker. A hurried ticket agent may be contenr with
"comedy"; acritic may have time for agonizing about minuter
distinctions. Moreover,generic types vary in their definition: we
do not distinguish much where
HISTORICAL KINDS 55
we are not well informed. And some types may be inherently
indistinctand prone to overlap. But much the commonest-and least
under-stood-reason for "overlapping" of genres is their belonging
to differentcategories. A morality is simply not in the same range
of genre as an epi-cyclic work or an absurdist drama. And no
progress can be made withoutdifferentiating at least a few of these
categories. We shall attempt to dis-tinguish the following: kind or
historical genre, subgenre, mode, and COn-ftruetional type. Thus,
The Winter'f Tale is a tragicomedy in kind, withparts that are
pastoral or romantic in mode. But it is not a romance inkind.
Without distinguishing some such categories of genre, criticismmusr
sink into incoherent confusion. For analytic convenience we
candistinguish the categories in terms of the features making up
the genericrepertoire. Only kind and sub genre ever use anything
like a completerange of features.
The Generic Repertoire
1\_/ rbe repertoire is the whole range of potential points of
resemblance ..thata ge~_~e_'.ii_~iexhiblc Although the process
whereby we identify genre isobscure, retrospective analysis can
arrive at many characteristic features.Every genre has a unique
repertoire, from which its representatives selectcharacteristics.
These distinguishing features, it is worth nming, may beeither
formalor substantive. As Austin Warren says, generic groupingshould
be based "upon both outer form (specific metre or structure) and...
upon inner form (attitude, tone, purpose-more crudely, subject
andaudience).,,2 And Guillen cautions against the vagueness that
comesfrom concentrating exclusively on external features, or on
internal onessuch as "the 'essence' of tragedy, or the 'ideas' of
the Russian novel.,,3The best of the olde( theorists, in fact,
always kept external and internalforms together in discussing the
historical kinds. Thus, Aristotle's trag-edy is constituted by
realizations of certain elements (mere): namely,story (mythos);
character (flhe); dialogue (lexis); characters' thought(dianoia);
spectacle (opsis); and song, the lyrical element (melopoiia).'And
the best modern criticism concurs. We still think of Attic tragedy
ascharacterized by both subsrantive and formal features. The genre
is iden-tified n6t only by the presence of epeisodia and stasima,
of cerrain metricalpatterns and certain devices (for example,
stichomythia), but also of a seri-ous plot with reversals and
discoveries, a noble protagonist and emotionsof high intensity,
occasioned by a conflict of values. A !ortio'ri with lacer
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56 KINDS OF LITERATURE
/
tragedy and with other histOrical kinds. All have characteristic
internalforms. It would be wrong to defend genre by arguing that it
does not[estrin contents. Indeed, rhat line of thought may have
encouraged thenotion of genre as a merely formal encumbrance.
Nor all categories of genre combine internal and external
characteris-tics, however. As rhe broad term "genre" is used in
this book, it includesnor only rhe hisrorical kinds but also the
more or less unstructuredmodes, on the one hand, as well as purely
formal constructional types onthe other. These categories can be
distinguished by introducing the ideaof generic repertoire. In
subgenre we find the same external characteris-tics with the
corresponding kind, togethet with additional specificationof comem.
It adds an obligatory part-repertoire of substantive rules,
op-tional in the kind (to which it is related, therefor~, almost as
a subclass).Mode, by contrast, is a selection or abstracti~n' from
kind. Ie has few ifany external rules, but evokes a historical kind
through samples of its in-ternal repertoire. Compared with
historical genre, chen, the subgenre cat-egory adds features,
whereas the mode subtracts them. Amoretti 64, forexample, is
amatory in mode, Elizabethan sonner in kind, of the blazonsubgenre.
Again, what may be called "constructional types" ate purelyformal.
They occur in works of many differem kinds-as does the
widelydistributed catalogue type, used in the same sonnet. And rhe
composi-tion of sonnets to form the sequence Amoretti exemplifies
another con-structional type, the collection.
We have now to look at the generic categories in a litde more
detail.
//Kind
\
As I use the term, "kind" is equivalent to "historical genre,"
or the un-happily named "fixed genre." This pardy agrees with
recent criticalusage.5 But to use the currem general term is nor to
accept its meaningaltogether, or the whole nomenclature of
individual kinds. Some rermsin frequent use, such as "pastoral,"
really belong in an entirely differentcacegory. Nevercheless, there
is a substantial basis of agreement abommany historical kinds.
Uncil recendy, they received more anention thangenres of other
categories. Menander and other ancient rhetoricians de-scribed many
kinds (eide) quite minutely,6 and Greek descriptions wereoften
accepted by Latin writers and critics. But the lattet also
developed asense of cheir own definite, though changing, customs.
Horace may nocrefer ro genre when he wrices of his satires as
trespassing ultra legem,7 bur
.,
HISTORICAL KINDS
he is certainly aware of a kind that Lucilius originated: "Cum
est Luciliusausus / primus in hunc operis componere carmina morem"
(Satires2.1.62-63). Renaissance criticism often returns, similarly,
to a kind's his-torical originatOr. It reflects consciousness of
tradition, whether repre-senred by an authority (Aristode) or a
paradigmatic author (Horace, Pc-trarch). Somecimes in the Middle
Ages and often from rhe sixteenthcentury on, kinds are
traditionally named, often with the same labelsused in ancient
criticism. It is wort~ noting rhar ..rhe names of kinds(from which
most other gene~i~t~~"~~-t~ke their ori-gi~S
ar~inva~riablY!Lo!!.l}~.A proposition of the form "This work is a
Z" (to use Guillen'sformula) normally identifies a historical
genre.
KindS-roa.y_.iR this way give the impression of being fixed,
definiterhin.g~JQc;:~t~d in hisrory, whose description is a fairly
routine marrero Aswe shall see, there is something in the idea of
definiteness. But describingeven a familiat kind is no simple
matter. We may chink we know what asonner is, until we look into
the Elizabethan sonnet and are faced withguatorzain stanzas,
fourteen-line epigrams, sixteen-line sonnets, and"sonnet sequences"
mixing sonnets with complaints or Anacreonticodes. Besides such
historical changes within individual kinds, there arewider changes
in the literary model to be allowed for, with their repet-cussions
on rhe significance and even categorization of generic
features.Srricrly speaking, discussion of a generic repertoire
cakes for granted aprevious exploration of the range of constituent
features and of their' in-terrelation ("strarification") during the
active life of rhe kind. A theoryof possible constituents should be
worked out for the period in question.This is no easy undertaking,
when forms change so radically and rapidly.Even Roman Ingarden's
circumspect organon Das literarische Kumtwerk:Eine Untersuchung aUJ
dem Grmzgebiet der Ontologie, Logik und Literatur-wiJsemchajt
(1931) failed to take account of the radio play, with its
newbearing on the theory of side-text.
Moreover, the survey of the reperroire needs to cover as many
literaryconstituents as possible. In spire of its tide, Ingarden's
formidable workdeals mainly with the stratification common [0 all
discourse: it is by nomeans comprehensive from a literary point of
view. An adequace inven-[Ory would have to take historical
variations into account, and would in-clude not only {he linguistic
features commonly considered (presenta-tional mode, rhetOric,
lexis, and so on), but also superstructural featuresmore or less
confined to literary discourse (closure, metrical forms,
thymevocabularies, tOpics, and so on). All features arc subject [0
changes of
57
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58 HISTORICAL KINDS 59KINDS OF LITERATURE
function. Rhyme in Pope's literary world has a different content
fromrhyme in Chaucer's world, and this would have to be allowed for
intreating the generic function of rhyme in satire. Similarly, the
twelve-lineform of many Caroline epitaphs and elegies may have had
a generic force,rather than the number symbolism that would have
been felt in theifElizabethan predecessors. Almost any feature, it
seems, can becomegenre-linked and belong more or less regularly to
a kind's repertoire. Thisapplies equally w what used to be called
content, as opposed to form.Images, motifs, and topics in the
stratum of represented objects all formpart of a repertoire. And,
conversely, a work's genre can affeCt its constit-uents'
stratification. Thus, graphemes may have quite different
functionsin concrete poems and in elegies, and images of the
seasons are signifi-cant at different levels in georgics. haiku,
and Romantic odes. The exis-tence of such possibilities makes one
think that reducing literary kinds covery broad "discourse types"
must be a mistake.
The generic repertoire, as usually described, may be typified by
Guil-len's ilst of the features of picaresque. Guillen specifies
eight character-istics: the picaro, a distinctive character-type
seen in clearly defined situ-ations such as orphanhood; the
pseudoaucobiographical form, implyingan ironic double perspective;
rhe narrator's prejudiced view; his tendencyto generalize from
exemplary experience, so that the form is "closed"ideologically;
the stress on problems of earning and livelihood; the obser-vation
of many different social groups; the picaro'J movement
"horizon-tally through space and vertically through society"; and
the loosely epi-sodic narrative structure using recurrent motifs,
circular patterns,incremental processes, and embedded sub
narrations. Naturally, this baldsummary does little justice to
Guillen's sensitive treatment. Nevertheless, -'it may serve to
bring out limitations of method. Thus, the synchronicapproach must
ignore differences between early picaresque (Lazarillo)and modern
symbolic picaresgue (Felix Krull).8 Again, analysis is aban-doned
whenever a feature proves to be less than universally
distributed:the p!caro is "not always the servant of many masters"
and "The place ofsatire.. is not guite secure in the picaresgue."
At such points onc isbound to feel that a family resemblance theory
would have encouragedmore far-reaching exploration. For example, in
many early picaresguenovels, the p!caro's versatile servant role,
with its opportunity for altruis-tic identification, is a highly
significant feature. Nor does Guillen'smethod allow him to say
anything about picaresque's tenuous miJe-en-Jcene, the thinness of
almost aU its characters, or the picaro's own insecure
identity. Pursuing the chimera of universal characteristics
results, that is,in a much abbreviated inventory of the repertoire.
Finally, the merging ofkind and mode means that picaresque is
treated as a subclass of novel,whereas in fact it began as a
separate kind, with its own external StruC-cure. Nevertheless,
Guillen has made an invaluable survey of the picaresgue repertoire.
It has the right kind of variety, ranging as it does
oversubstantive and formal elements.
The guesrion naturally arises whether we have w think of such a
ge-neric repertoire as listing only "field marks" or special genre
linked fea-tures (which would thus be quite distinct from the far
greater number of"ordinary" features). Or are the kinds complete
organizations? And areall constituents whatsoever ordered
generically? Many literary features ofall sortS (topical allusions,
puns, half-rhymes) appear in several kinds-although nOt usually in
very many, or at random. A few, such as struc-cure, occur in all.
However, a great many features must be articulated ge-nerically, at
least in the broad sense of being suitable, for the kinds tohave
any existence. And certain features seem to be more closely
genre-linked (amoebean dialogue in eclogue, Hymen in
epithalamium).Spenser's lines
Hymen is awake,And long since ready forth his mask ro move,With
his bright tede that flames with many a flake
(Epithalamion 25-27)
have alliteration, common in some Elizabethan poetic genres;
inversions,consonant with an elevated style height; and the tede,
or pine-torch,epithalamic in a much more special way. Unless we
connect the torchwith the keroi (tapers) of epithalamium, the
passage would hardly be in-telligible. And we sh-o~ld certainly
miss the beauciful development of theconvention later, in the
"thousand rerches flaming bright" in the heav-ens, with its
suggestion that the spiritual gualities symbolized by tbe':kfroi
lead up to stellification. This is a brief example. But it is easy
re seethat if such generic indicarers are commonly missed, the kind
as a wholemust be misunderstood.
Within this nuclear family of generic indicators, we may further
dis-tinguish local features, such as incipitJ or closure types, and
more dis-persed features, such as emotional tonaliey or scale.
These latter may beelusive, but they exert a pervasive influence on
other constituents. Mostelusive of all are "absent features," that
is, features normally excluded
-
HISTORICAL KINDS
60 KINDS OF LITERATURE uS may once have had communicative or
"internal" value-as with nu-merological patterns. But for the
present purpose there is no need to goinra such quesdons. In
practice, the criterion of strUcture is not usuallyhard ra apply.
Aetic tragedy has manifestly some such strUcture as pro-Logue /
choraL song / episode / choral song .. / exode, whereas
neoclassicaltragedy has a five-act strUcture. Aristotle may hint at
the demonstrabilityof external structure when he speaks of the
"members into which tragedyis quantitatively divided,,,11 in a
passage that greatly influenced Parriliand other Renaissance
theorists. If each kind had a characteristic struC-ture that was
peculiar to it alone, this would almost suffice to distinguishie.
So Renaissance masque-one of the kinds that have a unique
struc-
ture-is very readily identified.But external structure is seldom
so exclusive. (Division into chapters,
[or example, occurs with many kinds.) Then we may look for a
moredistinctive strUcture in minuter details, or at a slightly
different level ofstratification. And we may nnd it-perhaps in
stanza forms (the ro-mance-six; the strophe), in rhetorical
divisions (the parts of a classicaloration; the invocatio,
principium, initium of epic), Of in the sections ofnarrative
(episodes in epic; interlaced segments in medieval romance).With
very short forms, the external StrUcture may reside in word
divisionor grammati~al patrern, as when a Renaissance impresa or
emblem mottocomprises a single word group. (William Drummond's
Short Discourseupon Impresa1 even argues that the best impre1a or
"word" should be "onlyof twO words, as gang warily; or it is good
of one only, as 1emper. The far-ther it is from tWO,it is the more
imperfecr.") And graffiti have elabo-rately structured sound
patterns. With larger kinds, division inca num-bered external parts
may be generically distinctive. Thus, Renaissancebrief epics and
biblical epics are commonly divided into four or six orseven books,
whereas classical epics are divided intO twelve or twenty-four
books--either in accordance with ancienc precedents or with num-ber
symbolisms (the hexaemeric six; -the encyclopedic twenty-four).
Inearlier literature, numerological strUcture regularly contributed
co ge-neric differentiation: triumphal poems usually had
symmetrical structureswith a central emphasis; epithalamia were
divided by temporal or nuptial
numbers.1l3. In ancient criticism, metrical 1tructure was
especially genre-linked.
Indeed, meters were so rigorously connected with particular
kinds as toprovide a basis of classification. Quintilian and others
probably regardedpastOral as "heroic" because it used the hexameter
line. But since then,
from a kind (puns, for example, from neoclassical epic and from
Vicro-rian hymns). In facr, it may well be chat the majority of
generic featuresoperate unconsciously, until, perhaps, some gross
infringement of ruledraws them to our attention. To understand the
kinds, therefore, wehave to take inca account a very wide range of
features.
It may help to glance at the variety of features that have been
generi-cally organized; mentioning a few of the commonest, some
familiar cocriticism, and others that have been passed over. The
arrangement is in-formal, since we are not in a position co say
what structured sequence orsystem (if any) generic features form
during cecognition.
9
1. Most kinds have a distinctive repre1entationaL aspect, such
as narrative,dramatic, discursive. They may have several. Thus,
English Renaissancetragedy, although predominantly dramatic, oft~!l
has subsidiary lyric ornarrative sections (songs, nuntiu1
speeches). In the English kind, the lyricelements are usually
motivated, or at least occasioned by the action; un-like ancient
tragedy, in which independent choruses occupy relativelyfixed
formal positions. Similarly, eighteench-centucy English georgic
maymingle descriptive, expository, and lyric aspects. And an
Elizabethansonnet sequence such as Astrophit and Stella is
primarily lyric (as C. S.Lewis said, "It is not a way of telling a
story"), and secondarily narrativeand dramatic. Renaissance critics
could regard the eclogue, with its dia-logue, as a dramatic form:
"The Poet devised the Eclog~e long after theother dramatic
poems."IO However, Renaissance eclogue differs from theancient type
in freer use of lyric and narrative.
2. Every kind is characterized by an external structure. This
point gainsforce from {he comparative definiteness of the feature.
True, the termstrucrure is sometimes applied ro rather doubtful
internal patterns (in-cluding some whose existence is not so
brilliantly elusive as to achieveincontestability), but that is not
so here. I mean "strucrure" simply inthe o~>tensible,obvious
sense: the linear sequence of parts. Structures ofthis crude order
can usually be demonstrated, so that factual disagree-ment about
them is rare. We may dispute the significance, but hardly thefact,
of such a sequence aspoetic induction / antima1que / mtnque /
epiLogue.This gives kind a certain palpability, by comparison with
mode, which isnot characterized by external struCture.
The idea of external struCture entails a few theoretical
complications.For instance, structure can be "external" in
different ways: whether byphysical division into chapters, stanzas,
and the like, or by conventionalorganization of the contents.
Moreover, structures that seem external to
61
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62 KINDS OF LITERATUREHISTORICAL KINDS 63
profound historical changes have loosened the old connections
that mayonce have existed between meters and kinds. From early
times, in fact,critics seem to have felt this tendency: Aristotle
writes of iambics as for-merly used for invective, but extended to
comedy.13 Some think of theform as prompcly "becoming neutralized
and abdicating its role as a ge-neric labd.,,14 This may be
something of an overstatement, but it is truethat 'over a longer
period-partly through expressive modifications,partly as a result
of domination by single forms (the Augustan couplet;Romantic and
Victorian blank verse)-metrical structure has lost mostof its
generic implication. Even meters that used to be limited co a
fewkinds are now available for many, if not all. Nevertheless,
triple rhythmsare still confined to a fairly narrow range of
kinds-as polysyllabic rhymesare, to satire and light verse
(Hudibra.s; Byron; Lehrer). D And many con-ventions, not all of
them .well underscood, still link certain stanzaic andmetrical
forms with single kinds. Everyone knows a ballad's or a
nurseryrhyme's rhythm, even modified by a de la Mare or a Causley.
Haiku, lim.erick, clerihew, and many other short forms have each a
unique metricalstructure. In one or two exceptional cases, meter is
actually more closelygenre-linked now than in former times. Common
Meter is mainly asso-ciated with the Christian hymn, whereas the
ancient hymn lacked a met-rical form.16
4. As every kind has a formal structure, so it must have a
.size. Thiscorollary 6f the doctrine of quanritative parts is by no
means trivial. In-deed, size counts as a critical factor from a
generic point of view. Hereliterary and linguistic organizations
diverge. There are no linguistic con-straints on the length of an
utterance, whereas genre often determineslength precisely (sonnet;
computisric verse) and always exerts constraintson it. From
Callimachus on (Epigrammata 13), writers have expressedkeen
awareness of this. Wordsworth twice voiced his sense of the
son-net's restricred scale: finding it compatible with variety and
solace, lav-ishing on it images of possibility ("hermit's cell,"
"key,,).17 But with afew honorable exceptions such as Paul Zumthor,
critics have shown littleappreciation of the point. AristOtle
merely speaks of tragedy's action as"of a cereain magnitude"
("meden echon megethos"), the length beingfixed by the limits of
the competitive occasion and of the audience's abil.ity ro grasp
the work as a whole. His Renaissance exponenrs went intothe
dimensions somewhat more closely. In fan, Renaissance treatmenrsof
most kinds touch on size. Chapelain, a little later, srill sees the
lengthof the Adom as raising serious problems of kind. Bu t modern
theorists
tend ro speak rather dismissively of wordage limirs for novel,
novella, andshan srory. 18 The guestion is nor an idle one:
differences of size havemany repercussions on the nature of the
reading experience.Kinds may be considered short, medium, or long.
Variarion of reading
habits counts against much finer graduation, although in
particular in-stances it may be useful: Puttenham distinguishes
elegy from epigram bysizc. Shore kinds include many sranzaically
defined forms (strambotta;sestina), most songs (madrigal; blues),
odes, elegies, many ill-defined"lyric" kinds (confessional poem;
imagist poem), various epigraphickinds (cpitaph; motto), sayings
(proverb; aphorism; maxim; modernepigram), literary riddles
(acrostics; charades-as we know from Emma)"such things in general
cannot be too shore"), prose forms of a few para-graphs (prose
poem; character), shore narratives (parable; "short shoresrory").
More than one of a short kind can be read or performed on asingle
occasion. Hence, they may aim ae effects of variety or contrast
withother items in a series.Medium works can also be completed at a
sirring, but nOt more than
twO or three at most would usually be attempted. Exisring
indcpen-dendy, they tend to have a more comprehensive, balanced
content. POSt-Renaissance dramatic and orarorical kinds (sermon;
declamaeion) aremostly of medium length. So are the shorr story,
fairy tale, brief epic,essay, and tracr. Medium verse kinds include
eclogue, descriptive sketch,verse satire. Poe may have overstressed
the single sirring as a threshold.But we can agree that extension
of the reading experience beyond it hasmany formal
implications.Works in long kinds normally reguire more than one
sitting. They are
regularly divided, indecd~ into parts of no more than medium
length thatreflect the duration of n~)Ci.~nalreading sessions.
Discontinuiries betweenthe parts have a profound effect on the
total impression. In epic, ro-mance, novelistic kinds, biography,
journal-all kinds of long narra.tives-a sense of time's lapse is
vitaL A reader is to feel that he has notonly visited but inhabited
the fictive world. All long kinds, whether nar-rative or not, share
cerrain fearures. Among these the transition is nota-ble: external
and internal divisions lend themselves to exploitation, byway of
closure, lead-in, suspense, entrelacementJ or other narrative or
ex-posirory effects.
A specific magnitude, then, is a sine qua non of every kind.
Each fallsinto one of the ranges of size mentioned above. Anomalies
have a way ofproving this rule. For example, the immensely long
Satire 0/ the Three EJ.
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HISTORICAL KINDS
taW is closely reiaced to medieval morality, and in any case was
per-formed in special circumstances: Renaissance critics were
actually muchexercised abour the stamina of audiences, which they
put at three hoursor so. Again, several kinds straddle the division
between short and me-dium (episcle; ballad; fabliau; fable). But
these terms may cover morethan one kind, ro say nothing of
mixtures. This is certainly true of epic(brief; classical), on borh
sides of rhe border between medium and long.Similarly with satire.
There is at first some plausibility in GilbertHighet'S idea that
its protean diversity, so baffling to genre theorists, im-plies a
specially free, mecamorphic, passe-partout form. But sarire
turnsout not to be a kind, but a whole group of genres, well
characterized byHighet himself. such as monologue, parodic satire,
and narrative satire.In parodic satire, any literary (or
nonliterary) .eype can be parodied, in-cluding forms of various
length. from hy~~ t'o dictionary and scholarlyedition (Bierce's
Devil's Dictionary; Pope's Dunciad). However, this isobviously a
mixed genre (and as such will be considered in a later chap-ter).
None of the unmixed satiric kinds has a comparably elastic size.And
with Menippean or narrative satires there seems to be a fairly
strictlimit, about the length of Gulliver's Travels. Longer satires
seem [Q workagainst the generic grain. A brillianc success in this
direction might con-sritute a new kind; as it is, we must call The
Apes of God and Giles Goatboygenerically inept, as well as coo
long.
le follows that a genre not characterized by any definite size
is not a
kind, in the present sense.5. Closely related to size is scale.
Scale, when combined with other fea-
cures, may serve as rather a sensitive generic indicator. In a
first reading ofCranford, for example, the abrupt dispatch of
Captain Brown may be oneof the places where we begin to idencify
the kind. If promising charactersgo down at chis rate, we feel, the
book is more likely to be a composite ofskerches than, say, a
Richardsonian novel. Similarly, picaresque's frequentchanges of
setting establish a scale that is enough co rule out several
fea-
tures chara.cteristic of other kinds of narrative.6. We have
inherited a strong suspicion of the idea that subject may be
limited generically. It has become a dogma that no subject is
poetic orunpoetic. But if subject is properly understood, there
really are unpoetiC
subjects.In ancient and again in neoclassical literature, a firm
decorum related
subjects with kinds and so with external forms. Time and again,
Horaceand other critics said, or implied, as much: "In what measure
[that is,hexameter] the exploits of kings and captains and the
sorrowS of war
may be written, Homer has shown" (ArJ Poetica 7,-74); "A theme
forcomedy refuses to be set forth in verses of tragedy; so the
feast ofThyestes scorns to be tOld in everyday cones that almost
suit the comicstage" (I\. 89-91). In the Middle: Ages, the little
secular genre theory thatexisted stressed subject more than form,
as in the rota Vergiliana. Renais-sance critics resumed the ancient
assumption: "Toute sorte de Poesie al'argument prapre a song
subject," says Ronsard.19 Indeed, "mattersheroical and pastoral"
(Sidney) were distinguished so sharply thac theycould be
consciously mingled.20 Nevertheless, Rosalie Colic is righc todraw
special attention to the great Scaliger's constant use of "matter
asthe definer of kind.,,21 The assured comprehensivenes with which
he as-signs a whole range of topics to each kind-always it is
"harum materiamultiplex"-certainly astonishes. It leads Rosenmeyer
to smile at the"divisionary ardour" with which Scaliger "merrily
scramble[s] formaland substantive criteria." But most critics of
that time would have accepted the scrambling in principle, even if
they themselves lacked versa-tility and learning to perform it as
powerfully as Scaliger.
More recently, decorum of subject has been obscured through the
mu-tability of kinds. The skeptic can say, "It is now clear that no
such line isto be easily drawn, or is perhaps to be drawn at
all.,,22 George Watsonrefers to the old error of supposing that
only great men could have tragicfates-Ibsen has shown us that
tragedy is not about kings. But we shouldnot conclude from changes
in tragedy's maeter thac it has none. Tragedyis not a "treatment"
chat might be applied to any subject. The problemof subject is toO
often approached via tragedy, a kind that happens tooffer special
difficulties in this regard. Even so, we can say that some
sub-jects are inherently so somber that any but a grave, tragic
presentation ofthem would be inconceivable in good literature.
Decorum of subject is also misunderstood because "subject"
haschanged in meaning. Of course many aCtions can be treated
indifferentlyas comedy or tragedy-so long as "action" is left vague
enough, or de-fined selectively. But subjects need to be allowed
their ordinary specificityof associated actions and topics. The
broad situation of bedroom farcecould doubtless be treated with
tragic solemnity-but then the subject,in its full sense, would be
different. With some shan kinds, subject isgenerally agreed to be
constant. Epiraphs are normally about the deedsand qualities of a
particular deceased person and their claim on our at-tention;
funeral elegies are about the thoughts and feelings of rhose
whomourn; proverbs are about common shared experiences.It is a
half-truth chat literature has been liberated from decorum of
64 KINOS OF LITERATURE
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KINDS OF LITERATUREHISTORICAL KINDS 67
subject. Certain individual constraints on subject have
undoubtedly re-laxed. However, their place has simply been taken by
ochers, althoughthese remain unformulated. Anti-intentionalism has
concealc:d this, byconfusing subject with intention. So Valery (or
Robert Creeley) willdeny writing about a subject. Then, if ever, is
the time to suspect an in-tentional fallacy. He may have intended,
only, not to have a subject. Butin any case, writing about "no
subject" itself implies a choice of genre.There is a subtype of
process poem characterized by ostensible avoidanceof subject and by
concealed preference for a very narrow range of topicsindeed,
mostly trivia or rudimentary universal experiences. A
characteris-tic subjeCt is, in a word, the unmarked form. If there
is no appropriatematter, or very various matter, this itself
becomes a characteristic pecu-liarity-as with 1630 epigram or
epistle. Without pretending that everykind has a precise range of
subjects all its own, we can claim the obverse:that no kind is
indifferent to subject.
7. Closely related are the values inherent in all kinds. These
have beenamong the themes of several fine studies, such as
Rosenmeyer's GreenCabinet, with its account of the epicurean values
in certain pastoral kinds.A kind's values tend to elude brief
treatment, but they are nonethelesshighly characteristic. They
operate in very different ways. Thus, proverbs
! impart a relatively unformulated wisdom. B"ut the values of
epic and ro-mance constitute definite,systems: one thinks of the
rank-ordered virtuesof classical and of Christian epic, contrasted
in Paradise Lost; or the chi-valric codes of medieval romance; or
the partly pre-Christian values ofNorse saga.23 In such kinds, much
of the meaning may lie in a modifica-'tion of the value-system.
Elusive though generic values may be to the theorist bent on
formula-tion, they seem accessible enough to the reader. We soon
begin to recog-nize the moral world of the sagas. Such intuitions
take us some way. Buta kind's values are not quite co be identified
with the values of the moral"world" it portrays. The vernacular
homeliness of 1580 eclogue; the inti-macy of Augustan satiric verse
epistle; the professional precision of 1970thriller-all these
communicate values that figure littk in the life theyrepresent. For
the values of a literary kind are often deeply hidden. Satiremay
seem chaotic or nihilistic, but in reality it is more often
traditional,if nOt conservative. Its positive values are so
implicit, are offered withsuch elaborate obliguity of surprise and
such sudden denouement, that inorder co communicate themselves they
must be venerably familiar.(Postmodern underground satire proves
the rule: it is addressed to true
believers who already share the satirist's views.) A distinctive
value of sat-ire is its strangely secure candor-as if confident
that truth exposed isbetter than truth colored or made
bearable.
8. Each kind has an emotional coloration, which may be called
mood-almost in the sense of Milton's "That strain I heard was of a
highermood," where he raises Lycidas in generic pitch. Mood plays a
speciallyvital part in gothic romance, where it often colors
character, atmosphere,and natural description in an unmistakable
way. But even when moodhas been a conscious preoccupation of the
writer, it remains notoriouslyineffable to the critic. Some of the
theorists ridiculed for their fatuoushypostatizations ("the tragic
spirit"; "the essence of comedy") may havehad chis feature in mind.
However that may be, mood seems undoubt-edly to belong among the
features of kind. Sometimes, it can be asso-ciated with local
indicators of genre-a point to which we shall return ina later
chapter.9. Many kinds used to have a characteristic occasion, at
least initially. In
these occasional kinds (epithalamium; epicede; genethliacon),
relationswith ritual and custom were particularly intimate and
rich-as Scaligerwas fond of demonstrating. Puttenham jocosely
refused to call songsperformed at supper epithalamies, since rhe
kind's first part had properlyto coincide with the bedding, whereas
the second covered the bride's in-expert "shrieking and outcry."
But occasion has been a feature of otherkinds too. Attic tragedy
was partly determined by festival requirements;and several of
Shakespeare's plays have a'large festal element. In TwelfthNight!
much in the action and the ~haracters would once have been
rec-ognized as appropriate to the Twelfth Night festivities.24
Some kinds depend heavily on the original occasion. Occasion and
setting controlled so IT"!-a~yof the motifs, images, and ideas of
masque chatthe form survives only 'in a- ghostly way without them.
With such forms,information may have to be supplied by annotation,
or by addition of atitie. An epigraph that explained itself on
stone must in print be entitled:"Written over a Study" or "Epitaph.
On Sir William Trumbull."
Changes in the social function of literature have made occasion
lessimportant. But it still operates: some contemporary poetic
kinds are cal-culated to answer reguirements of the poetry
reading.
10. Occasion, in its imaginary, attenuated form, coalesces with
the Sty-listic feature attitude, which is often characteristic in
the shorr poetickinds.2~ Ancient lyrical forms, for example, often
seem to imply actualinterpersonal relations; and these may remain
associated with equivalent
I
I!II
I,
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HISTORICAL KINDS 6968 KINDS OF LITERATURE
later kinds. Thus, the propernptikon or valedicrion of equal to
equal, char-acterized by affection, may reflect the relation of
fellow pupils at rhetoricschoo1.26And Donne's "A Valediction:
Forbidding Mourning" adopes asimilarly intimate stance (not
unmixed, though, with the didactic atci-tude of the
superior-to-inferior propernptikon). In the same way, the poemof
patronage presupposes the special ani tude, deferential yet
advisory, ofpoet to patron. And even the contemporary confessional
poem has itsdistinctive attitude. This is not, as one might expect,
spontaneously inti-mate. Ir is more deliberately staged-almost like
the attitude of one inthe act of adding to a public personality or
"image." Thus, confessionalpoems convey gratuitous information that
would be out of place in an"overheard" meditation by Yeats or
Eliot. Lowell will tell us the namesof his summer cottage's
"owners, Miss Barnard, .and Mrs. Curtis," or re-mark: "Our cookbook
is bound like Whitman's Leaves of GraJs- / goldtitle on green." The
confessional attitude here contrasts with that of theverse epistle,
whose intimate direct address limits informativeness.
11. Narrative kinds may have a distinctive mise-en-scene. This
is a highlydeveloped feature with romance, science fiction, the
gothic short story,and the psychological novel. With certain types
of verisimilar novel,however, setting may be insignificant.27
Similarly in poetry: the 1915-18war poem has an elaborately
conventional realistic mise-en-JCene, whereasthe pastoral eclogue,
through a.11historical periods, is with few excep-tions set in
country lacking any detailed realization wh}tsoever.
12. Character is the focus of much existing genre theory. This
usuallyinvolves much fine-drawn moral analysis, since character is
ehe personalform of such values. In epic, the generic protagonist
has gone through a
I long course of development, bur has always had a strategic
moral signifi-cance, Spenser sketched its generic context when he
relared his Arthur toprevious examples of "a good governor and a
virtuous man": Homer's,Virgil's, Ariosto's, and Tasso's "dissevered
... parts in twO persons.,,28 Inhis own multiple heroes he plays on
this convention by many differen-tiations, as when he craps the
reader into accepcing various respectablyheroic forms of pride (the
Redcross Knight's spiritual pride; Guyon'saristocratic disdain).
And Milton, similarly, experts readers to recognizehis Satan as
hero of the pagan epic that Paradise Lost as a whole is not.
Inother kinds, coo, character has long been treated as
genre-linked. AristO-tle says that the tragic protagonist should be
"a man not preeminenrlyvirtuous and just," whose misfortunes are
brought on "not by vice anddepravity but by some error of judgment"
(Poetics 1453a). The Aristote-lian re9uirement chac the tragic hero
should be a "man of note" is altered
in the Renaissance, so that the stress falls on rank rather than
prosperity.Rank becomes a means of distinguishing tragic and comic
characters-aconvention from which Shakespeare effectively departs.
Lacer still, charac-ter, in the sense of personality, is a main
focus of genre criticism. In de-bating whether Pepita Jimenez is a
"religious novel," Patmore discusses italmost exclusively in terms
of charaCter. Today Bradleian character analy-sis is officially out
of favor. But we stili smuggle something very like itinto criticism
of novels, where many words are spent determiningwhether a narrator
i$ "reliable" or nOt (or some fine shade, as with TheGood Soldier,
in between). Only we are not used to thinking of this asrelated to
hismcical kind.
Of the relatively small number of literary character types,
criticism hasmosrly confined itself to one: the hero--or, since his
"decline," the anti-hero.29 Other types, wich the partial exception
of the Fool, have receivedlittle extended attention.~o This has
obscured the association of severalkinds with distinctive
characters, who may nevertheless be vital to theirgeneric
communication. As Rosenmeyer has shown, much of the effectof ehe
Theocritean and Virgilian pastoral eclogues has to do with
shad-ings of the shepherd character. The ancient shepherds are
youthful andsimple, unlearned and innocent. The same is largely
true of Elizabethaneclogue (Sidney; Drayton; Browne); excepr rhar a
few shepherds havelearned from the Petrarchan tradition to be
relatively experienced. Still,the pastoral cast includes no
character remotely like the pedam of com-edy: indeed, it properly
excludes even the georgic types, who are given todidacticism and
necessarily bener supplied with precise information.Even without
formulating such differences, we are unlikely to miss them.The
lines and limits of pastoral 'character are still recognizable in
complexmixtures, as when Shakespeare's Perdita becomes involved in
debace withPolixenes. From a similar point of view, the engage
intellectuals inSpenser's Shepherd's Calendar, if not without
Continental precedent, con-stitute a striking enough instance of
generic mixture.
In addition to character types, there are also types of
character. Charac-ter scale may be genre-linked. So picaresque has
"thin" characters,whereas the verisimilar novel commonly has more
or less solid ones. AndCommedia dell'Arte comedy is distinguished
by Cjuasi-permanent charac-ters, who belong as much to the
performer's world as 1:0 the fictionaL
13. Neoclassical theorists early discovered that the action of a
kind mayhave a characteristic structure. So "entanglement" or
entrelacement andmultiplicity of episodes typefied romance. In this
it contrasted with epic.Chapelain pronounces chac "uniey of action,
among the general rules that
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KINDS OF LITERATUREHISTORICAL KINDS
every epic poem must observe, is in especial the principal one
wichoutwhich the poem is not [an epic] poem but a romance.,,31
Romancesconsequently lack perfection, since "they pile adventure
upon adventure,and include fights, loveaffairs, disasters and other
things, of which onewell treated would make a laudable effect,
whereas together they destroyeach other." He failed ro see how a
reader could be moved by an actionthat did not give a "continuous"
impression.32 Some Renaissance criticsvalued mtrelacement
differently, but they would not have disagreed aboutits being a
distinguishing feature of romance.
Discontinuous action also characterizes several modern kinds,
such asthe mosaic novel (Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer; Doctorow's
Ragtime)and the "work-inprogress' novel. Much of the latter's
action is concernedwith the writing of a book-sometimes the novel
itself--or some otherarristic enterprise that symbolizes the
literary one (Sterne's TristramShandy; Lessing's Golden Notebook;
Nabokov's Pale Fire). The discontinuous action of the kind is
pretty regularly reflected in an external divisioninto very shorr
sections.
In a somewhat different way, a([ions may be related to moral
patterns.So Northrop Frye has described the action of Elizabethan
comedy as char.acterized by the pattern of entering, responding to,
and leaving a "greenworld." There are several other comic
structures, however, such as that ofillusion and enlightenment
(Much Ach; Twelfth Night). Kinds seldomhave a single, defining
action.
14. Every kind has its range of appropriate Jtyle: indeed, some
havetheir being mainly through rhetorical organization. Their
rhetorical se-lections follow in parr from the subject matter of
the genre. Medievalcritics linked the three ancient style heights
with Virgil's three paradig.matic works, and hence with other
matters and kinds of equivalent dig.nity. And they specified
figures appropriate to these "styles" in some de.tail-for example,
Geoffrey de Vinsaufs ornatus dijJiciiiJ, consisting of tenhighstyle
tropes.33This seems a mechanical system; but the adjustmentof style
came co be governed, in the Renaissance, by a subtle decorum,which
went far beyond mere distribution of kinds among styles:34
Rosemond Tuve and other scholars have explored the criterion of
decorum in terms of subject constraint. But it might also be
considered aspare of the organization of the genres themselves.
We may distinguish at least two ways whereby style matches
genre.First, cereain kinds and groups of kinds may have their own
lexical range.Within the literary diction of the period, individual
kinds often havespecial preferences, both positive and negative.
The latter have sometimesbeen absolute, as with Cowley'S
unguestioning assumption that "spoUJeisnot an heroical word,,,n or
Elijah Fenton's similar feeling about cow.heel(which in Pope's
Homer has to become "That sinewy fragment... / Where to the
pastern.bone, by nerves combined, / The wellhornedfoot indissolubly
joined,,).36 But a kind's congenial words are JUSt as spe.cific.
Aureate diction was right for late medieval encomium. Tudor
loveelegy liked sighs to be "smoky." And around 1595 "sweet" had a
specialgeneric force in the amatory epigram and epigramsonnet. But
the classi.cally inspired epigram boasted its capacity to admit all
styles and subjects.And literature has increasingly come to rely on
such kinds as are capableof a broad stylistic range.
More subtly, style can match kind by varying the proportions
betweenrhererical figures. Besides the three seyle.height
proportions, Renaissanceand neoclassical critics again recognized
others of a specific nature. Somefigures (such as hyperbole) were
prominent in encomiastic kinds, somein devotional elegy (paradox,
meiosis), some in pa~tOral.ki~ds (a;;ph-ura..),scirnc" in Aug'ustan
georgic or locodescriptive poems (periphrasis);although there was
never a tidy system distributing the figures amongkinds
exhaustive1y.:n Such conventions allowed for countless special
ef.fects, when the expected rhetorical preferences were carried
unusually far,perhaps, or mixed with .th?se of another kind, or
dropped altOgether.The intimate effect of Astrophil and Stella, for
example, partly comes fromirs diction, which falls below the level
its psychomachic personificationslead us to expect, as the
antilover sinks to epigram. Such mixture becameincreasingly common
in the early seventeenth century and again in theninereenth-a
matter we will return to in Chapter 10.During the nineteenth
century, radical and exciting innovations in
style unhappily coincided with a decline in rhetoric reaching.
The ideabecame sertled that generic rules oppress free creativity.
Simultaneously,the rise of the novelistic kinds further obscured
style'S relation to genre.For in several kinds of novel, words have
relatively litrle formal value.38This does not mean that style has
lost its generic function. (To ~seethat,
Highepictragedyhymnetc.
l>!~ddlegeorgicromantic comedyeleilYetc.
Lowpastoral ecloguesatiric comedyverse epistleetc.
71
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72 KINDS OF LITERATURE HISTORICAL KINDS
onc has only ro review the violent imagery and nervous anaphora
of theconcemporary protest poem: the asyndeton and anacoluthon of
the canfessional lyric; or the rhetorical bravura of the
work-tn-progress novel.)Only it is less well undersrood. This
miscomprehension shows in bookson srylistics thar contrive to
ignore genre altogether. It also appears inmany false generic
identifications-reviewers treated John Fuller's Epistlesto Several
Persons as liglH verse, for example, missing the satiric
episde'suse of informal seyle for serious matter.
Consrrtls(s of the generic and the actual Style are stili" among
the mostprominent of poetic effects. To take a famous instance,
much of the eclatof John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
has ro do with his be-ginning with the epigram-derived style and
matter of the poem-about-a-painting-its suave easiness of
connoisseurship" -authoritatively laconic,endlessly knowing ("As
Parmigianino did it, the right hand / Biggerthan the head"),
exhaustively descriptive-but then cutting in with"sawroothed
fragments" of life itself, the uncharted, whose explorationcalls
tor a more temative, so ro speak elegiac approach (and is in fact
ac-corded it in suitably abstract or hesiram passages, as in
"supposition ofpromises"), but which meld imperceptibly with
renewed art-historicalmannerisms, so thar the reader may easily
have the illusion of authorita-tive statement extending to the
larger questions of the longer poem.
15. Besides the traditional genre-linked constituents, there are
Qchersmore recently distinguished, such as the reader's task. Frank
Kermode hasdeveloped the idea of a hermeneutic task in the reading
of a detectivestory. Requiring as it does the elucidation of a
problem---often posed atthe outset-it involves "interplay between
narrative and hermeneuticprocesses." This peculiar double task
makes the detective story excep-tional among (he novelistic kinds:
"although all have hermeneutic con-tent, only the detective story
makes it preeminent."'? But in another waythe concept can be
generalized. Many kinds (and by no means all ofthem narrative ones)
entail characteristic tasks. Indeed, one of the plea-sures of
reading is that hermeneutic activity differs with kind. This
kindwill entice the reader into labyrinchs of moral analysis; mar
kind will re-quire exquisite discriminations between 'events which
actually "oc-curred" in the author's fiction and those thar ace
merely fictions of a narrator. Often the reader will be called on
to discover an arcane structuralscheme: no easy task with
numerologically patterned medieval and Re-naissance poems.
Interlaced romance, again, involves the task of correlat-ing widely
separate episodes.
In every case, communication depends on the task's completion.
Chil-dren who cannot apply prove,rbs co their own experience will
not appreci-ate them.
The above are some initial letters of a kind's typical
reperroire. Butwhat I want to insist on here is that almost any
feature, however minor,however elusive, may become genre-linked.
Thus, parcicular SOrts of ex-ordium, closure, inset (digression;
play within a play), symmetry, andother structural forms may be
characteristic; and so may represencationalmanners (naturalistic;
surrealistic), besides qualities harder to categorize,such as the
encyclopedic comprehensiveness of epic or anatomy. Any rel-atively
infrequent or noticeable feature may be regarded for a time
asgeneric.
Only for a time, perhaps. Always the features distinguished are
liableto change with the interests of writers and critics. So
literary form under-goes continual recategorization, as new parts
of literature, and new waysof dividing the old, are introduced. Add
to these the possibilities openedup through obsolescence of generic
rules, and the kinds may well seeminexhaustible.
However, generic repertoires are not endlessly renewable. Every
charac-teristic feature, as a means of communiction, must be
recognizable, andthis limits the relevant possibilities at any
particular {ime. Even the fig-ures of rhetoric do not exceed a
hundred or two---and some of these aretOO common to have much
generic potential. Far from dealing with aninfinite set of
features, then, we may find that a few striking traits effec-tively
characterize a genre.
There is a view that the kinds have undergone so many variations
andhistorical changes as to be indeterminate. Or; if they have any
consis-tency, they fail to include most works of any great literary
interest. Thisview is wrong. The kinds, however elusive,
objectively exist. Theirboundaries may not be hard-edged, but they
can non'echeless exclude.This is shown by the facc that features
are often characteristic throughtheir absence. Thus, Renaissance
pastoral eclogue excludes plot and phil-osophical content; the
Regency novel of manners excludes politics andviolent acrion. And
in identifying genre, we can often be sure (hac atleast the work
does nO{ belong to this or that particular kind. The skep-tical
view reflects the obvious need for a revised genre theory
applicableto modern literature. Bur with older literatute, too,
there are many prob-lems of identification. A work may noc resemble
any previously labeledkind, or it may seem to realize more than
one. These are problems we
",
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74 KINDS OF LITERATURE
shall return to, in connection with nomenclature and generic
mixture.In principle, however, the normal case remains membership
of a deter-minate though temporary kind. The kinds are subject to
change; butthat does not destroy their coherence, any more than
that of otherinstitutions.
Are the kinds organizations, or only assemblages of features?
This is aquestion we shall not be in a position to approach until
we know moreabout how they are recognized, and how they interact in
generic systems.We can only say that a kind is a type of literary
work of a definite size,marked by a complex of substantive and
formal features that always in-clude a distinctive (though not
usually unique) external structure. Somekinds are recognizable by
every competent reader. But the means of rec-ognition remain
obscure.
5. Generic Names
Of all the generic repertoire, single words seem to be the
simplest featurero study. Anq of all sores of word, it is almost
inevitably names that wechoose for separate treatmenc. Not only
have names great evocativepower nnd hence a special place in
literature, but they seem to have a spe-cifically generic
function.
Characteristic Names
of
Many kinds and groups of kinds have characteristic personal
names, orforms of name, that are recognizable by a competent
reader. (Others,such as 1600 elegy, tend to exclude personal names
altogether.) This wasnoticed in early treatmen ts of genre, such as
John of Garland's Poetria)where the Wheel of Virgil sets out Hector
and Ajax as heroic or high-style names; Triptolemus and Coelius as
georgic; and Tityrus and Me1i-boeus as pastoral.l
The names of satire' are particularly conspicuous and have
received agood deal of attentio.n.2 Highet, who examines the use of
denigracorynames by Marier, G6g~I,"and others, goes so far as JO
say that "distOrtedor ridiculous names are always a sure sign of
satire. ,,3 As we shall see, thisis slightly overstated.
Nevertheless, it is easy to think of other examplesto put beside
Gogol's Hlopov ("Bedbug") and LyapkinTyapkin ("Bungle-Steal").
Joseph Heller's satirical novel Catch-22) for example, hasmany such
ridiculous names or non names: Mudd ("his name wasMudd"), Major
Major Major Major. Scheisskopf, and Chief Halfoat.Just as there are
several types of satire, so there are several types of sa
dric name. In the satiric comedy of the RestOration, names are
often explicitly meaningful, communicating moral estimates of their
owners, asPetulant and Fainal1. Distinctive though they are in
period flavor, such
'.