The aim of this book is to orchestrate “a generic reconstitution of literary studies” based on a comprehensive theory of genre and generic transformation. Taking “An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel,” a seventeenth-century broadside of sex and greed, Ralph Cohen analyzes the generic transformations―including Addison’s ballad criticism in The Spectator, The London Merchant, Percy’s ballad editing in Reliques, and Barnwell. A Novel―in which this particular ballad exhibits remarkable continuity over the next four centuries, culminating with his personal re-formation; what was considered non-literary criticism becomes literary. This unique literary history reconceives narrative as a component of genre rather than a genre itself, demonstrates the ineluctably mixed nature of genres and the literary nature of our humanness, and analyzes the shifting generic contexts for interpretation and gender relations. Incorporating theory consciousness into the literary genre he is regenerating, Cohen offers a brilliant example of how future literary histories might be written.
Author(s): Ralph Cohen, John L. Rowlett
Series: Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: Cham
Editor’s Foreword
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
About the Editor
Autobiographical Introduction
Bibliographical History of a Genre
The History of the Barnwell Ballad
Genres and Their Provenance
Genre and Its Kinds
The Social Structure of Genre
Ballad, Texts, Tunes, Material Culture
Genre as Combinatory Composition
Sexuality as Material Culture
Companion Genres: From Ballad to Chapbook
Intervention 1: Initiating Genres—Addison’s Ballad Criticism and Its Parody
The Spectator as Genre and Genres
The Social Basis of Addison’s Ballad Criticism
Generic Reversion and the Resistance to Ballad Elevation
Parody: The Ridicule of Addison’s Ballad Criticism
From Ballad to Tragedy: The Processes of Generic Conversion in The London Merchant
The Dilemma of Generic Conversion
Prefatory Genres: The Prologue, the “Dedication,” and “Dramatic Personae”
The Social Basis of Generic Conversion
The Function of Generic Components
The Genre of Victimization
The Generic Consequences of Ballad Conversion
Generic Combinations and Recombinations: Revising, Editing, Collecting, Anthologizing
Lillo’s Alternative Ending: Revision as a Genre
Editing the Ballad of George Barnwell: Editing as a Genre
“Authenticity” as a Historical Concept
Genre as Self-Revelation
Tragedy to Novel: Genre and Value
On the Conflict of Genres in the Novel
A Contestation of Genres
Affiliation as Network
A Generic Interpretation
Intervention 2: Problems of Generic Transformation
Undermining a Genre: Parody, Value Reversal, Counter-Genre
From False History to Historical Novel
Ballad Criticism, Genre Theory, and the Dismantling of Rhetoric
The Regeneration of Genre
Barnwell Bibliographies
Ballad Bibliography 1660–1800
Chapbook Bibliography 1690s–1840
Index
