Genre Criticism

Genre criticism is a method within rhetorical criticism for analysing speeches and writing according to the symbolic artifacts they contain. In rhetoric, the theory of genre provides a means to classify and compare artifacts of communication and to assess their effectiveness and/or contribution to a community. By grouping artifacts with others of similar formal features or rhetorical exigencies, rhetorical critics can shed light on how authors use or flout conventions in order to meet their needs. Genre criticism has thus become one of the main methodologies within rhetorical criticism.

While genres have been used to classify speeches and works of literature since the time of Aristotle, genre did not emerge as a critical tool to describe and analyze texts until the 20th century. Since then, genre criticism has taken three turns. The first turn, represented by Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, among others, focused on the formal features of communication. The second turn, represented by Carolyn Miller, among others, focused on recurring socio-cultural circumstances. In the latest turn, critics have begun applying formalist and socio-cultural concepts to new media artifacts that tend to resist classification in traditional genre categories.