Aristotle, the first observer

Genres are an attempt to classify literary works according to their constituent elements. The original theory that we have about it we owe to Aristotle, because in his Poetics he made a classification of the works that existed in his time and that today we know as literature. Through observation, research and speculation he concluded that if a text was literary it was because it followed certain "additional rules of a rhythmic matrix" (Garrido, 1988, p. 9), that is, verse.

As a result of his research he also warned that, even if a work was written in verse, it did not make it literature; because there were those who used verse to expound scientific topics, for example: Empedocles (Aristotle, Poetics, I, 1447b). Aristotle was the first to make a compendium of works in which he found common and differentiating features, as well as other peculiarities.

Literary genres are in constant evolution

Aristotle was far from imagining that the need that prompted him to analyze the works that today we call literature would continue, in some way, to be of interest to the studies of our time. It is enough to know that there is no previous reference because, as Tzvetan Todorov rightly states: "to continue to deal with genres may seem in our days an idle pastime as well as anachronistic" (1987: 31). Literary works have always existed, and as a subsequent process of studies following those of the philosopher, they were ordered and classified according to the features that constitute them. However, this is not a process that remains static; on the contrary, it obeys a specific social and historical convention and each moment in the evolution of literary works has been modified. There are genres that die so that others can be born.

Aristotle made the first approach to the study of literary genres

Todorov explains it as follows: "It is not, then, -the- genres that have disappeared, but the genres -of- the past, and they have been replaced by others. We no longer speak of poetry and prose, of testimony and fiction, but of novel and story, of narrative and discursive, of dialogue and diary" (1987: 33). In spite of this, there are three genres defined by Aristotle that have endured and are the foundational columns on which the entire literary universe is sustained: lyric, drama, and narrative. In turn, from these three, other subgenres evolve, thus generating a dynamic that is expressed in changes and modifications. Some modifications are radical and last over time; others are not so radical and fade away after a few years. An example of this was the literary avant-garde movement which, despite having been very important during the first half of the twentieth century, today is no more than part of the history of literature.

_{The referenced quote is found on page 33 of the photos above.}

Let's look beyond the horizon

The avant-garde comprised a period in which artists sought to break with aesthetic canons in order to express their own modes of creation; in other words, like other styles, it was born of a collective and social movement. But there is another factor that influences this emergence and re-emergence of genres, and that is that the artist incessantly seeks perfection, and to achieve it deviates from the referential model.

The historical and socio-cultural dimension of genres has different factors that influence it: the model that operates consciously or unconsciously, that is, the aforementioned reference model that occupies the author; the reader's horizons of expectations, which is associated with something called "reading pact" that leads the reader to assume, by the title of a work, whether it is written in prose or verse, the characters, among other elements, that it is "such and such" before reading it.

On the other hand, there are the institutions of literary consecration: the publishing houses, the specialized press, the academy, the literary critics, among others, which act as intermediaries between the author and the reader. Here the following excerpt from an essay by Virginia Woolf seems to be pertinent: "(...) In all other spheres of life, we can be bound by laws and conventions, but not in this one" (1926: 47), because from her own perspective, the final word that should determine whether a work is good or not should be that of the public. As the epigraph that heads this text warns, we must learn to see beyond the boundaries of genres in order to taste the exquisiteness of literature.

_{Woolf, V. (1977). "¿Como hay que leer un libro?” - La torre inclinada. (pág. 47)
Sorry for not putting the reference in English. It has been difficult to find the text of Virginia Woolf in English.}