Re: broader meaning for genre

[Mark Williams <WillmsMark@AOL.COM>]

Louise:

Interesting... I hadn''t actually given this a lot of thought until I read
your reply to another message.  I, too, was taught that genre applied to the
kind of material -- play, short story, novel, poetry.  But since some novel
(and other) forms do have rather specific conventions (I'm thinking of
romance novels, epic fantasy, historical fiction, roman a clef, etc., why not
broaden the use of genre to include those?  It would make a description much
more precise I think.  Instead of 'novel' including everything from V.C.
Andrews to Mark Twain to J.R.R. Tolkein to Donald Westlake, specific terms
like 'historical novel' , 'epic fantasy', 'trash fiction' (just kidding - I
think) would be more helpful to patrons.

What do you think?

Mark Williams
Librarian
Colton High School