Genre

This week in class we talked about genre.  Miller proposes that genre spawns from ones social motives.  She thinks that exigences are not out there ready to be responded to like Bitzer, but more as if we as writers define our own exigences.  Her train of thought seems to be that writing could be placed into multiple genres and should not be systematically placed as Bitzer does.

Bitzer's approach appears to be like taking a list of qualifications and, based upon how many a work presents, placing this work in its appropriate genre.  While this way seems to be stringent and controlling, I like it more.  I agree that their are multiple purposes for why a work was written, but classifying them into multiple groups is confusing.

Lets say music genres were grouped in this way.  When looking for a band they could be located in political outcry, social message, reflections from childhood, or infinitely more categories.  In reality, each song from a group's album could be placed in separate genres based upon what the artist was trying to accomplish.

Ultimately I understand that their are multiple meanings and intentions to every work.  I understand that grouping them all into traditional categories based upon their characteristics is strict. However, I feel the tried and true method of taking something and basing its grouping by its characteristics just makes the most sense.

Here is also a cartoon that I found funny when looking for genre pictures.  Enjoy.