Genre Criticism Obscured by Grandeur (Miller and Longinus)

After reading “Genre as Social Action” by Carolyn R. Miller, I found what I thought could possibly be a connection between her discussion of genre criticism and Longinus’ discussion of grandeur.  First, I compared my notes on both subjects.


According to Longinus (pg 347): Grandeur – “produces ecstasy rather than persuasion in the hearer”

o   “combination of wonder and astonishment” > combinations of “persuasive and pleasant”

§  “…persuasion is…something we can control whereas amazement and wonder exert invincible power and force.”

o   “is particularly dangerous when left on its own, unaccompanied by knowledge, unsteadied, [not stabilized], abandoned to mere impulse and ignorant temerity.”

§  In response to “greatness” and “natural products…[being] weakened by being reduced to the bare bones of a textbook.”

According to Miller (pg 151): Genre criticism is problematic because “there is too much distance between the text and the reader”

o   “Assessments are not fully responsible”

o   Invites:

§  Reductionism – “a philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts”

§  Rules

§  Formalism – “analyzing and comparing form and style” 

I concluded that perhaps the reason genre criticism is problematic, according to Miller, is due to factors such as grandeur. Perhaps “there is too much distance between the text and the reader” because readers would rather give attention to “wonder and astonishment” instead of the persuasive and pleasant.”

Works Cited

• Longinus. “From On the Sublime.” The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, Second Edition. Ed. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 344-358.
• Miller, Carolyn. “Genre as Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151-169.