In response to Lewis Mumford’s article, the invention of printing, I agree that there are genres today that require standardization while others can allow authors’ personalities to come through. This is very important in ensuring that legibility and universality are achieved in art and literary expression, which also helps to maintain a certain level of neutrality and impersonality of authors from their work (Nichols, William Dee, et al., 390). Some genres today that require standardization include; poetry and drama. This paper, therefore, will compare two standardized genres to two non-standardized genres.
To begin with, poetry is one genre in art and literature that is standardized and should remain so for universality. Poetry conveys a thought in concentrated and lyrical arrangements that can be structured with rhythm and emphasis. It serves to share ideas, express emotions and create imagery. The rules and guidelines are set to ensure that poetry as a genre remains an important part of art and culture (Järlehed, 286). This is different from a non-standardized genre such as drawing, which allows the imagination and personality of the author to run wild. While poetry follows lyrical arrangements to achieve rhythm and emphasis, drawings can take any form. In a drawing, the author can choose how to express themselves without any restrictions, unlike the case in poetry. Drawings also are dependent on other arts, e.g. a preliminary sketch is the basis of all visual arts architectural drawings are the basis for all building constructions; on the other hand, poetry can exist on its own and does not depend on other arts to have meaning or pass a message (Gabrielsen, Ida Loading, Marte Blikstad-Balas, and Michael Tengberg, 30). In the drawing, the author’s personality and emotions can therefore come to life as it allows for the incorporation of symbols and fantasy, while in poetry, there are limits to how the author needs to have his/her work organized for it to qualify as a poem.
The other genre that needs to remain standardized is that of drama which features stories with high stakes and many conflicts. Drama as a genre is plot-driven and demands that every character and scene move the plot forward, unlike in non-standardized genres such as story, which allows for the author’s personality and emotions to run wild (Fleming Mike, 1). A story, unlike drama, does not have the plot to follow and can therefore be guided by the emotions and memory of the author. Drama needs to remain a standardized genre as it needs to follow a defined narrative plot structure while portraying real-life scenarios or extreme situations with emotionally-driven characters, unlike in a story where the author can choose to remain neutral or emotionally driven in their narration (Patea and Viorica, 18). Drama, therefore, features high stake narrations and many conflicts, unlike in the story genre, which can take any form that the author prefers or chooses.
In conclusion, for the universality and legibility of work, there are genres that need to remain standardized such as poetry and drama, for them to continue playing the significant roles they hold in our society. There are genres, however, that allow for the personality and imagination of the authors to come to life, such as drawings and stories, which are, therefore, non-standardized. Unlike poetry and drama, stories and drawings allow authors to express their inner selves and incorporate their fantasy and imagination to fully express themselves in literature and art.
References
Nichols, William Dee, et al. “Why Poetry for Reading Instruction? Because It Works!.” The Reading Teacher 72.3 (2018): 389-397.
Fleming, Mike. The Art of Drama Teaching: Classic Edition. Routledge, 2018.
Järlehed, J. (2018). Genre and metacultural displays. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal, 3(3), 286-305.
Gabrielsen, Ida Lodding, Marte Blikstad-Balas, and Michael Tengberg. “The role of literature in the classroom: How and for what purposes do teachers in lower secondary school use literary texts?.” L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature 19 (2019): 1-32.
Patea, Viorica. “The short story: An overview of the history and evolution of the genre.” Short Story Theories (2012): 1-24.
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