>I guess I'm asking, more than anything,
>if there is anything "inside" first-level genres that make them "what they
>are". And if there is, why is everyone still arguing after more than 2000
>years about what those essential qualities should be?
For fun?
How much does it matter? I have a book of short passages by Marguerite
Duras which I bought thinking it was a book of poems, but which is
described by itself as a story. I read it before I read the description,
as a poem; then I read it again, understanding it as "prose". The label
didn't make any difference to the experience of reading it, which was
very particular to itself.
Best
Alison
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