Transformations of a Genre

The aim of this book is to orchestrate “a generic reconstitution of literary studies” based on a comprehensive theory of genre and generic transformation. Taking “An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel,” a seventeenth-century broadside of sex and greed, Ralph Cohen analyzes the generic transformations—including Addison’s ballad criticism in The Spectator, The London Merchant, Percy’s ballad editing in Reliques, and Barnwell. A Novel—in which this particular ballad exhibits remarkable continuity over the next four centuries, culminating with his personal re-formation; what was considered non-literary criticism becomes literary. This unique literary history reconceives narrative as a component of genre rather than a genre itself, demonstrates the ineluctably mixed nature of genres and the literary nature of our humanness, and analyzes the shifting generic contexts for interpretation and gender relations. Incorporating theory consciousness into the literary genre he is regenerating, Cohen offers a brilliant example of how future literary histories might be written.