ABSTRACT
In this chapter Anne Cranny-Francis discusses the uses of the genre as a literary category, to describe literary conventionality. In the realm of literary criticism sometimes the term is used pejoratively, to indicate a supposed lack of originality; other times it is used as a positive, descriptive reference point. Cranny-Francis uses the word ‘genre’ as a means not only to classify literary texts according to their conventional forms but also as a critical category with which to understand how they function. Genres carry all sorts of ideological messages, eliding their conventionality and their social messages under generic mantles such as (realism! In a sense, she argues, texts whose genres are ‘naturalised’ and which attempt to make social and cultural relations seem(natura V coerce their readers into particular ideological worldviews.
