Genre. I mean Whoa Man!

After discovering that there was a sub genre of fiction called nonsense literature, I'm curious to find other sub genres of fiction that I've never heard of before. Here, I am having grown up reading Dr. Seuss and Alice in Wonderland, and nursery rhymes, never knowing that they were nonsense literature.  And now that I know, I'm much better equipped to understand and analyze them.

I never realized how helpful genre can be in analyzing literature. Once you know the genre and the techniques that, that genre implements it's so much easier to find those techniques and understand why they were used.

So here are some other sub genres of fiction that you might not have heard of before. I chose some books that I'm familiar with to describe them:

Glitz/Glamour romance- a typical romance novel focused on the jet-set elite and celebrity. Think Gossip Girl

Quiet horror- subtly written horror that uses atmosphere and mood to create suspense rather than graphic description. Think Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

Technological thriller- in which technology has run amok. Think Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Bangsian Fantasy- Stories speculating on the after life esp. of celebrities.  Think The Lovely Bones

Cozy mystery/crime- a mystery that takes place in a small town with all suspects present and familiar with one another. Think Lacy Steele mysteries like Morning Cup of Murder.

What I found most amazing about these subgenres that I've never heard of before is that I have read books that fit under each of the categories. Whoa Man! If you want to read about more subgenres, check out this website.

Are motivational books literature?

Whenever I think of literature I think of poetry, novels, drama, and some non-fiction like biographies or travel writing. But rarely do I think of motivational books as literature. All of the above genres I mentioned, with the exception of motivational books, involve some sort of narrative or highly stylized grammatical structure in their specific genres. With motivational or self help books I think of strategies or procedures, maybe the occasional inspirational story. But I don't think there are enough stories in most motivational books to consider them to have a narrative structure however. So I decided to look up what defined literature to narrow down my analysis and figure it if motivational books met the criteria. Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines

Literature
1archaic : literary culture

2

: the production of literary work especially as an occupation

3

a (1) : writings in prose or verse; especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest (2) : an example of such writings <what came out, though rarely literature, was always a roaring good story — People>

b : the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age

c : the body of writings on a particular subject <scientificliterature>

d : printed matter (as leaflets or circulars) <campaignliterature>

4

: the aggregate of a usually specified type of musical compositions

So looking at this we can see that motivational books don't fit most of these definitions except for one. Definition c allows for motivational books to be considered literature because motivational books are centered on a certain subject. They are devoted to help people in their specific issues. So although motivational books lack many of the traditional conventions of literature they can still be counted as literature according to this definition. For me this might open other categories that I hadn't considered as literature such as self help books, blogs, articles, pamphlets and many more. As we start to consider what whether what we read is literature or not we we will be to analyze those works in a new light because we will be to use the techniques in literary criticism.

Exploring the Genre

While researching for my paper on James Bond I decided to check out the Harold B. Lee Library for resources. One of the books I was looking for was Harmon and Holman's A Handbook to Literature which was recommended by my professor as a good general reference book for our papers. After looking around for a few minutes I was able to find the newest edition of the book. I could see why my professor recommended the book as it has countless helpful definitions of genre and terms in the world of fiction. One that I found particularly helpful was this passage on Escape Literature: "Writing whose clear intention is to amuse and beguile by offering readers a strong world, exciting adventures, or puzzling mysteries. It aims at no higher purpose than amusement. Adventure stories, detective stories, tales of fantasy, and many humorous stories are frankly escape literature, and they exist for no other purpose than to translate readers for a time from the care ridden actual world to an entrancing world of the imagination.