Oldal 28 [28]
Part I. Interdisciplinary Approach to Storytelling ] 27
other, and that the characteristics of each genre may survive in other genres
endowed with new functions.
A new approach to the traditional system-oriented genre theory was
developed by the famous formalist literary theorist Frye, who traced the verbal
architecture that defines all human culture back to a structure that emerges
from the unconscious natural world. Frye (1957) situates genres within a
system of the cyclicality of nature, and concludes that there are only four kinds
of genres, which he calls mythois. In addition to the two basic Aristotelian
genres, he also names romance and irony. In Frye’s classification, comedy is
a narrative genre that corresponds to the archetype of spring and dawn: the
heroes confront the obstacles of the outside world and ultimately triumph.
Romance represents the fulfillment and power of the summer and the sun.
The archetypes of autumn, sunset, and death are embodied in tragedy, and
winter and darkness are expressed in irony, a parody of romance.
In the postmodern era, the genre classification of works became irrelevant
(Imre, 1996). According to reception aesthetics, the genre is not an inherent,
external set of rules, but is co-written with the text. The expectations of the
recipients of a given work include genre conventions, but the quality of a
literary work cannot depend on its place in the genre system but only on its
impact, ultimately on its reception. The aesthetic value of a work is determined
by the extent to which it is able to change the horizon of expectations of the
recipient (Jauf%, 1999).
2.5 Literary Canon
The act of storytelling cannot be considered without taking into account
the socio-cultural dimension. The question of what constituted a valid (i.e.,
intelligible) popular narrative form in each period and what has survived is
a matter of social judgment and cultural selection.
In the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian regions, literary canon theory was
formulated at the end of the 20" century to examine the expectations of a
given time in relation to works of art - including literary, cinematic, and
performative narratives. The primary focus of literary canon theory is to
examine which works, what paradigms and what modes of interpretation
become part of a nation’s cultural identity, its national canon, and how and
along what value system the experts validate and ultimately canonize a
work. The canon can therefore also be an instrument of ideological power.
Therefore canon formation is a crucial research area in reception studies,
discourse theory, and constructivism, which also take social relations into
account (Kulcsär-Szabö, 1996).