ABSTRACT
Like Rosalie Colie (see Chapter 9), whose work he often cites, Fowler's specialist field is Renaissance literature, to which his own approach to genre is especially attuned. The hermeneutic principles on which his theory rests are partly derived from E.D. Hirsch, to whom the book is dedicated: see Hirsch, Validity
in Interpretation (1967), especially pp. 68-126. Fowler's other publications include many studies of individual genres, and an ambitious History of English Literature (1987) designed to emphasise the role of genres and genre theory in literary history. This project has not been without its critics: for a critique of Fowler's 'ultimately conservative view' of literary history and of genre theory, see Mary Jacobus, 'The Law Ofl And Gender: Genre Theory and The Prelude', Diacritics, 14 (1984), 47-57. For a vigorous reassertion of the value of genre studies, and a refinement of his own definition of genre, see Fowler, 'The Future of Genre Theory: Functions and Constructional Types', in The Future of Literary Theory, ed. Cohen (1989). For other accounts of generic transformation (many of which Fowler cites, and seeks to integrate into his own scheme), see the selections elsewhere in this anthology from Tynyanov, Propp, Bakhtin, Frye and Jameson.
