The concept of “genre” in France of the XV – XVI centuries: from lexical diversity to codification of the term

Abstract

This article discusses formation of the concept of “genre” in France of the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, as well as codification of the corresponding term in literary language. The subject of this research is denominations of the category of genre used by the authors of theoretical treatises of the XV – XVI centuries, and the concept of “genre”, which was gradually introduced into the French theory of poetry. The goal is to determine the stages of development of the category of genre within the framework of French theoretical texts of the XV – XVI centuries, as well as denominations for the genre forms employed by the theoreticians, their similarities and differences. An attempt is made to identify at which point in French theory appears the interpretation of the term “genre” similar to the modern one. The novelty of consists in analysis of the concept of genre in diachrony based on the material of French treatises of the XV – XVI centuries. Majority of the texts considered in the article did not receive due attention within the Russian literary studies, which substantiates the relevance of studying French literary theory of the Renaissance Era. It is demonstrated that the authors of French treatises of the XV century denoted the concept of genre as “rithme”, “taille”, “manière”, “façade”, “espèce”, using them as synonyms within the framework of a single text. However, by the early XVI century, the genre form is viewed as a separate category; therefore, the number of denominations s is gradually reduced. For the first time, the term “genre” was used in the literary context in Pierre Fabre’s treatise of 1521; although at that time it partially keeps the meaning borrowed from Latin. The terms was codified later, in 1555, in Jacques Peletier’s “Art Poétique”; and from this point on it was applied by literary theoreticians for denoting different types of genre forms.