header

 

Fun Fact:
"Genre began as an absolute classification system in ancient Greece. Poetry, prose and performance had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, and even actors were restricted to their genre under the assumption that a type of person could tell one type of story best."
-Wikipedia

 

 

Where am I?
Home -> The Evolution of Alice Interpretations -> Studies in Genre

Genre Studies (Structuralism)Structuralism Image

“Structuralism isn’t interested in what a text means, but in how a text means what it means” – Lois Tyson

Genre Studies are part of the Structuralist approach to literary analysis.  Lois Tyson defines Structuralism this way: “Structuralism sees itself as a human science whose effort is to understand, in a systematic way, the fundamental structures that underlie all human experience and, therefore, all human behavior and production” (209-210).  Literary Structuralists, therefore, are not so interested in interpretation, but rather attempt to find patterns and types that connect (ideally) all works of literature. One of the main branches is the study of genre.

Many Structuralist critics believe that all literature genres can be reduced to the retelling of a few basic myths. By creating this rigid structure of genre, Structuralists believe that we can recognize the commonality of human experience. However, as we’ll see in this section with Alice, it is not always an easy thing to do. Alice is a pretty tricky work that defies the conventions of most genres. However, it is still useful for us to examine the advantages and limitations of the various labels, as each potential “genre” highlights different, important aspects of Alice.

 

Alice as Children's Literature

Alice as Nonsense Literature

Alice as Play Literature

 

Want to Read More about Genre Studies?

Wikipedia Article on Genre Studies

An Introduction to Genre Theory by Daniel Chandler

 

 

<back to Alice Interpretations home>

 

Site created and maintained by Lauren Millikan (Lauren.Millikan@alumni.carleton.edu)
Carleton College, class of 2011
Last updated: March 1, 2011

Postings to Carleton's World Wide Web by individuals and student organizations reflect their own thoughts, interests, and activities; they do not implicitly or explicitly represent official positions and policies of Carleton College. Individual page maintainers assume responsibility and liability for the content of their documents.
To read more about Carleton's web policy, click here.

Please address all comments and other feedback to the owner of the pages, Lauren Millikan, Lauren.Millikan@alumni.carleton.edu. For further assistance, contact webmaster@carleton.edu.