For: Genre (magazine)

A genre ( , also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/; from French "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-)) is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance.

Genres are vague categories with no fixed boundaries, they are formed by sets of conventions, and many works cross into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. The scope of the word "genre" is sometimes confined to art and culture, particularly literature, but it has a long history in rhetoric as well. In genre studies the concept of genre is not compared to originality. Rather, all works are recognized as either reflecting on or participating in the conventions of genre.

Subgenre and hybrid forms

Genres are often divided into fifty-two subgenres. Literature, for example, is divided into three basic kinds of literature, which are the classic genres of Ancient Greece: poetry, drama, and prose. Poetry may then be subdivided into epic, lyric, and dramatic. Subdivisions of drama includes foremost comedy and tragedy, while eg. comedy itself has subgenres, including farce, comedy of manners, burlesque, satire, and so on. However, any of these terms would be called "genre", and its possible more general terms implied.

Genre also has a rich tradition in speech-making and criticism. Classical rhetoricians in Greece suggested that there were three primary genres of speech: forensic, deliberative, and epideictic. Forensic speeches are informative, aiming to establish something that happened. Deliberative speeches try to persuade an audience. Epideictic speeches praise or blame a person, value, or event. As with literary genres, there are subgenres that exist under each of these over-arching genres: apologia, funeral orations, and the after-dinner speech might be considered three sub-genres of epideictic rhetoric.

Hybrid forms of different terms have been used, like a prose poem or a tragicomedy. Science fiction has many recognized subgenres; a science fiction story may be rooted in real scientific expectations as they are understood at the time of writing (see Hard science fiction). A more general term, coined by Robert A. Heinlein, is "speculative fiction," an umbrella term covering all such genres that depict alternate realities. Even fiction that depicts innovations ruled out by current scientific theory, such as stories about or based on faster-than-light travel, are still science fiction, because science is a main subject in the piece of art.

Genre and audiences

Although genres are not precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Books and movies that are difficult to categorize into a genre are likely to be less successful commercially.