Generic Instability and Identity in the Contemporary Novel

Abstract

International audienceContemporary aesthetics is characterized by generic mixing on the level of both form and content. The barriers between different media and different genres have been broken down in all literary art forms, whether it be theatre, poetry, or the novel. While the publishing industry is increasingly keen to label novels according to genre or sub-genre, the novel itself (and novelists) persist in resisting generic categorizations as well as inviting them. Is this a move towards a new aesthetic liberty or does it simply testify to a confusion of identity? Thanks to theoretical approaches as well as analyses of specific works, this collection of essays aims to examine the concepts fo generic instability and cross-fertilization, of narrative postures and impostures, and their constant redefinition of identity, which contaminates the very concept of genre. It demonstrates the diversity of generic practices in the novel today and furnishes is with undeniable evidence of how generic instability is fundamentally constitutive of the contemporary novel's identity