Symposium and Genre in the Poetry of Horace

TLDR

The genre is a contested concept that varies across critical traditions, rooted in literary expressions of social needs whose differences arise from performance occasion and purpose, leading to distinct conventions and metrical patterns. The study aims to clarify genre methodology by defining the term from a cultural historian’s perspective. The author agrees that genres are as old as organized societies and universal.

Abstract

The concept of the genre is a problematical one, not least because each critical tradition uses the notion in different ways. My own approach is related to the needs and interests of the cultural historian; it will thus at least serve to clarify basic points of methodology if I first try to define what I mean by the genre. For me the genre takes its origin in the literary expression of basic social needs, and the differences between the genres begin as differences in both the occasion of performance and the purpose of performance. Thus to take classical examples, a tale of heroic exploits, a wedding song, a lament, a hymn to the gods, a drinking song, are performed on different occasions and therefore have different characteristics, different accompaniments of dance, ritual, music or action; but a particular event in each category will have similarities with other events in that category, and therefore appropriate conventions and appropriate metrical patterns will emerge. Similarly the purpose of the event will affect its presentation in a variety of ways: a hymn to the gods may praise or call for aid, a public speech may seek to expound a policy or to secure a condemnation. In this sense, and to this extent, I find myself in agreement with Francis Cairns: ‘The genres are as old as organized societies; they are also universal. Within all human lives there are a number of important recurrent situations which, as societies develop, come to call for regular responses, both in words and in actions.’