theoryofliteratu00inwell

338 Notes [ff. 235-238
4. Harry Levin, "Literature as an Institution," Accent, VI (1946), pp.
159-68.
5. A. Thibaudet, Physiologie de la Critique, Paris, 1930, p. 184 ff.
6. But cf. C. E. Whitmore, "The Validity of Literary Definitions,"
PMLA, XXXIX (1924), pp. 722-36, especially pp. 734-5.
7. Karl Vietor, "Probleme der litearischen Gattungsgeschichte," Deutsche
Vierteljahrschrijt fur Literaturzvissenschaft . . . , IX (1931), pp.
425-47: an admirable discussion which avoids positivism on the one
hand and "metaphysicalism" on the other.
8. Goethe calls ode, ballad, and the like "Dichtarten," while epic, lyric,
and drama are "Naturformen der Dichtung"— "Es gibt nur drei
echte Naturformen der Poesie: die klar erzlihlende, die enthusiastisch
aufgeregte und die personlich handelnde: Epos, Lyrik, und Drama"
(Notes to West-ostlicher Divan, Goethe's Werke, Jubilaumsausgabe,
Vol. V, pp. 223-4). English terminology is troublesome: we might well
use "types" of our major categories (as does N. H. Pearson) and
"genres" of the species, tragedy, comedy, the ode, etc.
The word genre is late in establishing itself in English. In its lit-
erary sense, it does not appear in the N.E.D. (nor does kind) ; eight-
eenth-century writers, e.g., Johnson and Blair, commonly use species,
as the term for "literary kind." In 1910, Irving Babbitt (preface to
The Nezv Laokoon) speaks of genre as becoming established in English
critical usage.
Pedagogically, American practice seems to employ "types"—for
both the major kinds and their subdivisions. Cf. Irvin Ehrenpreis' The
Types Approach to Literature, New York, 1945, which follows a
survey of the history of genre theory with an account of American
literary education, collegiate and secondary, and its division of atten-
tion between "kinds," and periods, and other modes of organization.
9. "Plato is mightily aware of the ethical dangers of impersonation. For
a man damages his own vocation if he is allowed to imitate the callings
of others. . . ." James J. Donohue, The Theory of Literary Kinds
. . . , Dubuque, Iowa, 1943, p. 88.
For Aristotle, ibid., p. 99.
10. Hobbes, in Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century (ed. J. E. Spin-
garn), 1908, pp. 54-5.
11. E. S. Dallas, Poetics: An Essay on Poetry, London, 1852, pp. 81, 91,
105.
12. John Erskine, The Kinds of Poetry, New York, 1920, p. 12.
13. Roman Jakobson, "Randbemerkungen zur Prosa des Dichters Paster-
nak," Slavische Rundschau, VII (1935), pp. 357~73-