The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms

98 Globalization
it is removed to the category of ‘mass’
or ‘formulaic’ literature. This assertion
inevitably led to debates about the status
of ‘literature’ itself as a genre.
Another significant contribution to
genre theory is that of Northrop Frye
whose Anatomy of Criticism (1957) presents
a comprehensive typology of myth
and archetype.
The second major distinction is that
between genres defined in terms of ‘outer
form’ and ‘inner form’. These terms were
coined by Rene Wellek and Austin
Warren in their Theory of Literature
(New York, [rev. ed.] 1956), to describe
on the one hand specific metres and
structures, and on the other, attitude, tone
and purpose. They argue that genres
ought to be based on both inner and outer
forms together, though the ostensible
basis may be one or the other (e.g.
‘pastoral’ or ‘satire’ for the inner form;
‘dipodic verse’ or ‘Pindaric ode’ for the
outer). They maintain that it is only by
adopting some such complex definition
of genre that the confusions of neoclassical
criticism can be avoided. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
no attempt was made to discriminate
between the quite diverse criteria
involved in differentiation by subject matter,
structure, language, tone or audience.
So not only was it impossible to make
useful comparisons between particular
works, it was not even possible to say
what did or did not constitute a genre.
The advantage of Wellek and Warren’s
definition is that it allows for an important
distinction between, for example,
novels of The Oxford Movement, which
do not constitute a genre, and Gothic
Novels, which do. See also CHICAGO
CRITICS, FORMALISM, POETICS.
See D. Lodge, The Modes of Modern
Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the
Typology of Modern Literature (1977);
A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An
Introduction to the Theory of Genres and
Modes (1982).
BCL
Globalization The process whereby
individual lives and local communities
are affected by economic and cultural
forces that operate worldwide. In effect, it
is the process of the world becoming a
single place. Globalism is the perception
of the world as a function or result of the
processes of globalization upon local
communities.
Part of the complexity of globalism
comes from the different ways it is
perceived and understood. Some critics
embrace it enthusiastically as a positive
feature of a changing world in which
access to technology, information,
services and markets will be of benefit
to local communities, where dominant
forms of social organization will lead to
universal prosperity, peace and freedom,
and in which a perception of a global
environment will lead to global ecological
concern. For this group, globalism is a
positive term for an engagement with
global issues. Others reject it as a form of
domination by ‘First World’ countries
over ‘Third World’ ones, in which individual
distinctions of culture and society
become erased by an increasingly homogeneous
global culture, and local economies
are more firmly incorporated into a
system of global capital structured to
serve the interests of the wealthiest
nations. The chief argument this group
raises against globalization is that it does
not impact in the same way or equally beneficially
upon rich and poor communities.
As a field of study, globalization
covers such disciplines as international
relations, political geography,