For other uses of "Genre", see Genr

For other uses of "Genre", see Genre (disambiguation). This article is about the concept of Genres. For a
list of genres, see List of genres. For genre studies or genre theory, see Genre studies. Genre (/ˈʒɒnrə/ or /ˈdʒɒnrə/; from French, genre French pronunciation: ​[ʒɑ̃ʁ], "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek:
genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or entertainment, e.g. music, whether written or spoken, audial or
visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria.
Genres are formed by conventions that change
over time as new genres are invented and the
use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works
fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Genre theory is a branch of critical theory. Genre began as an absolute classification
system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose and performance had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story.
Speech patterns for comedy would not be
appropriate for tragedy, and even actors were
restricted to their genre under the assumption
that a type of dobber could help . In later
periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators.
Genre became a dynamic tool to help the public
make sense out of unpredictable art. Because
art is often a response to a social state, in that
people write/paint/sing/dance about what they
know about, the use of genre as a tool must be able to adapt to changing meanings. In fact as
far back as ancient Greece, new art forms were
emerging that called for the evolution of genre,
for example the "tragicomedy". Genre suffers from the same ills of any
classification system. Genre is useful as long as
it is remembered that it is a helpful tool, to be
reassessed and scrutinized, and to weigh works
on their unique merit as well as their place
within the genre. It has been suggested that genres resonate with people because of the
familiarity, the shorthand communication, as
well as the tendency of genres to shift with
public mores and to reflect the zeitgeist. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily
borrowed nature of the conventions, admiration has grown. Proponents argue that the genius of
an effective genre piece is in the variation,
recombination, and evolution of the codes.