The Metaphysical Foundations of The Literary Genres

Olavo de Carvalho - The metaphysical foundations of the literary genres
The metaphysical foundations

of the literary genres
Olavo de Carvalho
Translated by Pedro Sette Cmara
Author's note to the first brazilian edition (1991)

I. Formulating the question
II. Some contemporary opinions
III. The mode of existence of genres
IV. Ontological foundations
V. Verse and prose
VI. Narrative and exposition
VII. Species of the narrative genre
VIII. Species of the expository genre
IX. The lyrical genre. Conclusion
Pgina 1
Author's note to the first brazilian edition (1991)

The text of this small book is composed of four classes, delivered in April 1987 in my
course Introduction to Intellectual Life. In the oral exposition I was able to add
comments and developments which, even though omitted from the book, can be
hinted at by the footnotes.
Now, looking from a distance of four years at this work so full of good intentions as
it is of faults, I noticed at least two which, if cannot be completely remedied, should
at least be confessed.
The first is the use of the plural form which some call 'modest' and others 'majestic',
a vice I have forever abandoned.
The second is that the concept of number, so fundamental to my exposition,
remained vague and obscure. Perhaps the following clarifications will help it
become more exact: The concept of number, as I understand it, is at the same time
quantity (or a pure nexus undetermined in terms of quality, as Husserl defined it in
his Philosophy of Arithmetic) and form, or qualitative number as understood by the
ancient Pythagoric school (see Santos, Mrio Ferreira dos. Pitgoras e o Tema do
Nmero. 2nd ed. So Paulo: Matese, 1965. pp. 67-105). In this second meaning,
number can also be synonymous with order and relation (or system of relations). In
the text, I go from one meaning to the other without any ceremony or previous
warning. I know that I explain it, even though I do not justify it, by saying that the
text was originally intended to be read only by my students, who, being used to the
double understanding of the word, would not face any difficulty in making the
correct choice according to the context.
I thank Ana Maria Santos Peixoto for the priceless effort she devoted to the
publishing of this book.
Olavo de Carvalho
Rio de Janeiro, August 1991.
--
Pgina 2
The question of the literary genres has been disputed for centuries. It is
one of the most important matters in the Theory of Literature. While
excusing ourselves from the narration of the historical evolution of the
debate, we will present a summary of the problem and of the solutions
we will offer.
Should those solutions seem scandalously new to scholars in the field,
we assure that any attempt to novelty is far from our intention. We have
limited ourselves to applying to the study of an old question the
ontological principles which are old as the world.
I. Formulating the question
The first reason we have to believe that there are the literary genres is
that many authors, such as Aristotle and Boileau, have written treatises
to expose the rules that define them.
The second reason is that these rules have been followed by thousands
of writers for many centuries, and so, for that reason, we are able to find
works which perfectly exemplify the classic conception of Lyric, Tragedy
etc.
The first reason we may have for believing there are no the literary
genres is that there is an equally large amount of works, old and
modern, but above all modern, that do not fit perfectly in any of the
genres defined by the treatises.
The second reason is that some authors, the Italian philosopher
Benedetto Croce as a case in point, say that genres do not exist . In the
Pgina 3
understanding of these authors, only individual works exist1, which are

taken account of by history, and a posteriori can be subjected by the
scholar to some dubious classification according to their differences and
similarities, which, being in their turn so varied and large in number as
the works themselves, do not amount to groups constant and distinct
enough to be labelled as 'genres'.
The third reason is that many writers, knowing the first two reasons,
decided to write their books in a way that deliberately escapes the rules
and regulations of all known genres. Thus exception has become rule
and rule exception; and the systematic mess that followed seemed to
provide extensive confirmation to Croce's argument.
The problem of genres is similar to the dispute between Realism and
Nominalism: do universal concepts express realities which exist by
themselves, extra mentis, or are they just a mental assembling of
common characteristics that a more or less happy circumstance allowed
us to distinguish in various individual beings? Are universals 'real
beings' or mere 'reason beings'? Is there a horsehood or just horses? Is
there a trianglehood or just triangles? Likewise, are the literary genres
universal and necessary structures underlying all possible literary
invention, or are they nothing more than mere formal conventions laid
down by habit, comfort, and sometimes by pretentiousness?
II. Some contemporary opinions
Some contemporary scholars are inclined to compromising solutions. In
their work, Theory of Literature, today a classic, Ren Wellek and
1
Croce, Benedetto. Estetica come Scienza dell'Espressione e Linguistica Generale. 11th edition. Bari:
Laterza, 1965. I:IV, pp. 40-44
Pgina 4
Austin Warren state that.

'The literary kind is an 'institution' - as Church, University or State is an
institution. It exists, not as an animal exists or even as a building,
chapel, library, or capitol, but as an institution exists. One can work
through, express oneself through, existing institutions, create new ones,
or get on, so far as possible, without sharing in polities or rituals; one
can also join, but then reshape, institutions.
Theory of genres is a principle of order: it classifies literature and
literary history... by specifically literary types of organization and
structure...
Do genres remain fixed? Presumably not.2
This position deserves the credit of distinguishing between a physical,
individual mode of existence, and a non-physical, or 'institutional' mode
of existence, putting genres in the latter. It is certainly better than
denying the existence of genres after looking for signs of them where
they were not to be found. However, all in all, this distinction is no other
than the same there is between individual works and genres - between
horses and horsehood -, names only changing. Individual works exist
like animals and buildings exist; genres, like institutes of zoological
research and schools of architecture. That does not absolutely explain
where genres come from, or whether they emanate from a necessity
inherent to the real order of things, or from a mere human desire of
systematisation and comfort. The problem continues: in order to know
about the origin and worth of zoology institutes, it is not enough just to
2
Wellek, Ren and Warren, Austin. Theory of Literature, 3rd. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
1956. pp. 226-227
Pgina 5
realise they are not a kind of animal.

The Brazilian critic Masaud Moiss, giving a very up-to-date account of
this debate, comes a little closer to the solution when he says that
genres are born from 'a kind of natural imposition, something like the
adjustment of the individual to the cosmic rhythm, marked by an
unchanging regularity3. However, even though he explains that 'the
reiteration of an expressive module obeys an innate tendency to order
that exists in man', and even though he quotes in his support Emil
Staiger, to whom genres 'represent fundamental possibilities of human
existence in general4 , he does not explain what is this 'something', nor
what is the intrinsic relationship between genres and the cosmic
rhythm. So it is that the 'thing', being so vague and imprecise, does not
offer the least resistance to his writing lines after that that genres were
'invented by certain writers', apparently without realising he's
contradicting himself. In fact, were it the way he puts it, we would have
to believe that until someone had the kindness of inventing genres, all
writers lived outside the cosmic rhythm, and that would have been quite
a disaster. It is therefore clear that we must distinguish between the
'cosmic phenomenon' of genres (man's innate tendency to reiterate
certain expressive modules, in obedience to an implacable regularity of
nature) and the formal concept or verbal definition of genres, which
simply translates in logical language the more or less consistent
appearance of this phenomenon. The concept, the verbal definition,
may have been invented by men, but the actual phenomenon, if it comes
Moiss, Massaud. A Criao Literria. Introduo Problemtica da Literatura. 5a ed. So Paulo:

Melhoramentos, 1973. p.37
4
Staiger, Emil. Conceptos Fundamentales de Potica. Spanish translation. Madrid: Rialp, 1966. p. 213,
quoted in Moiss, p. 37
Pgina 6
from nature, was not invented by anyone, unless we are talking about
God or we understand the verb 'to invent' in its original Latin meaning inveniere meant 'to discover', 'to find' -, depriving it of all connotation of
creation and artificial construction. And the problem in dispute is
precisely that of knowing whether the concept of genres, as it has been
set forth by 'certain writers', actually portrays a real relationship
between human expressive modules and the cosmic regularity, or if, on
the contrary, genres are nothing but a set of arbitrary rules, beings of
reason with no fundamentum in re. If the relationship exists, genres are
a necessity, a 'constant of the human spirit'; and the fact that people
eventually write books that do not fit in any genre does not deny in any
way the existence of genres just like the existence of illnesses does not
deny the laws of physiology, rather demonstrating them through a
contrario proof: no matter how occult and disguised they may be under
the thick layers of inventive and extravagant combinations, genres will
always remain the fundamental principles of all literary composition. If,
on the contrary, the relationship does not exist, then genres do not
reflect any cosmological or ontological necessity, being nothing but a
rule invented after the preferences of a certain time, which we may
follow or not as we please, running no risk at all of subverting the
cosmic order.
The whole problem amounts, therefore, to knowing if there are
ontological or cosmological laws of which genres are an extension, a
manifestation or expression at the level of the literary and linguistic
microcosm, or if they just do not exist at all.
Pgina 7
III. The mode of existence of genres

In our understanding, such laws do exist; and the mode of existence of
genres, if it is not similar to that of animals, is neither similar to those of
'institutions' of human society, which are contingent and more or less
conventional. Genres exist, not like the Rotary Club or the city budget,
but in the same way that the laws of logic exist. These laws are
immutable in themselves, but can be indefinitely applied and combined,
even in ways that can lead to perfectly illogical results. The fact that
people may perform wrong ratiocinations does not prove that they are
thinking 'without' logic, but only that they, even with logic, think poorly,
being unable to handle the laws of reason, which they even so cannot
escape; for, if they could, their illogical reasoning would never allow
itself to be refuted as being wrong, since there would be no criteria for
correct reasoning; and, actually, the study of wrong ratiocinations is
part of the science of logic.
The literary genres neither exist 'in themselves', like substances in the
scholastic understanding of the word, neither are a posteriori
generalisations obtained from more or less fortuitous similarities
among individual works, neither rules dictated by the arbitrary taste of
an age. They are sets of possibilities5 for the organisation of literary
works. Their mode of existence and action consists in establishing the
boundaries of the possibilities of literary invention, differentiating it in
a certain number of directions and orientations which, once taken,
necessarily bring specific consequences to the posterior development of
the work, restricting the author's range of arbitrary decision; and the
5
On the notion of 'sets of possibilities', see Santos, Mrio Ferreira dos. A Sabedoria dos Princpios, So
Paulo: Matese, 1968.
Pgina 8
ability the author possesses to account for these consequences without

distancing himself from his central goal produces a final standard of
internal coherence, which is the means which will render us able to
judge the work according to its own laws, freely chosen by the author
among the number of possible genres and combinations.
We can say that genres exist and differ among themselves like the
directions of space. If a man goes North, he necessarily distances
himself from South; and even though he might come and go as many
times he wants, North will always be opposite to South, and
perpendicular to East and West. The pattern of the trail depends on
each one's liberty, but it is necessarily staked out by the extreme
directions. Genres are thus the extreme differences among the many
possibilities of literary structuring; as we advance ourselves coherently
along one of those lines of direction, the harder - but never impossible it becomes to combine it with others: the more the essential nucleus of a
work is strictly committed to the rules of a genre, the harder it will be, in
composing the rest, to escape those rules or to combine them in a
creative and effective manner with those of some other genre. It is like a
chess game: once a direction for the game is defined, an ever greater
skill is required to be able to revoke the consequences which threaten to
follow irrevocably suit at every new turn6 . The artist's ability consists
either in coherently following up to the end the rules of the chosen
direction, or in intelligently combining them with other possible
6
Carlos Bousoo (Teoria de la Expresin Potica. 4th ed. Madrid: Gredos, 1966. pp. 31-32) remarks:
'Each sentence the author conceives as definitive grants the poematic movement an irrevocable direction
which naturally excludes, simply by the means of its existence, many others possible at the moment, from
which different impulses could have arisen, and which now are inaccessible. The poem, in its
development, ordains in growing proportion the general arrangement of its unfolding, and all the poet
does is to particularise this arrangement, to pick a card that is offered to him from the board, less and less
thick at every moment.'
Pgina 9
directions7, creating mixed textures. However, even in the richest and

most inventive mixture, the laws of genres would, at least latently,
always remain active as articulating principles and minimum elements
of which the mixture is composed.
But Wellek and Warren's emphasis on the difference between the mode
of existence of individual works and that of genres still can prove worth
a look. Individual works are beings, or substances, produced by man.
They exist because they were written, and they only exist after being
written. Genres, in their turn, are sets of possibilities, and as such exist
before and independently of anyone doing anything whatsoever. For a
possibility to exist, it is enough that it not be impossible - and being
theoretically possible, escaping the absolute impossibility even if
through a little tiny fringe of possibility, is certainly easier than actually
writing a book, as anyone who has ever tried knows well. For a set of
possibilities to exist, it is enough that it remains sufficiently
distinguishable from other sets; for the mode of existence of a set of
possibilities consists in nothing more than being a clear standard of
differentiation between some possibilities and others; as long as this
difference exists, the set exists. If that is so, genres are indestructible, no
matter how many mixed works are written and how difficult it may
become, in practice, to distinguish them inside the mixture. Only the
Purism and an intelligent combination of different genres can both deliver good results. The two
greatest literary works of the Portuguese literary renaissance - Antonio Ferreira's Castro and Lus de
Cames's Os Lusadas - follow each one these two strategies, respectively. Ferreira wished to write a
tragedy that attained in the strictest fashion to Aristotelian rule, and with that he obtained the
tremendous dramatic concentration that makes his play one of the works of greatest impact in
Portuguese language. Cames, in his turn, unable to follow by the book the model of mythical (Homeric)
epope in face of the chosen historical topic, articulated mythical narrative with historical chronicle,
producing a work with two parallel strata without match in world literature. On Os Lusadas as an
'impure epope', see Saraiva, Antnio Jos. 'Os Lusadas e o ideal da epopia'. Para a Histria da Cultura
em Portugal. 5th ed. Lisbon: Bertrand, Vol.I, pp. 81 ss.
Pgina 10
absolute impossibility - in theory, not in practice - would authorise us to

speak of the 'non-existence of genres'. But this will obviously never
happen, because genres derive from an ontological necessity, that is,
from the conditions that stake out and determine the physical cosmos
wholly considered; and their suppression, were it possible, would result
in an actual cosmic mess. It is not by chance that the difficulty to define
genres and the following proclamation of their extinction arrive at the
peak of an age that harbours every sort of eschatological omens.
IV. Ontological foundations
The modern quest for 'interdisciplinarity' sometimes makes us forget
that, for the ancient peoples, all knowledge was always interdisciplinary.
They simply could not conceive of some 'specialised' piece of knowledge,
independent from universal principles, through which each science
always maintained a net of necessary relations with all other sciences,
not mattering whether they were neighbour, superior or subordinate to
each other.concept of Aristotelian, Scholastic, Chinese or Islamic
sciences, it is necessary to render it back to the universal, metaphysical
principles in which it is grounded, for any such concept never is
anything other than their explanation or example in a specific and
restricted domain8 .
After that, it is necessary to find out what is the level, what is the place
of this concept - of the thing conceptualised - in the 'great chain of
Being', that is, in the scale of planes of reality that descend from the
8
See our 'Introduction to the concept of traditional sciences', in Astrologia e Religio. So Paulo: Nova
Stella, 1987, Cap. IV: 'Traditional sciences are the body of methods and knowledge which, in every known
civilisation - including the West up to the sixteenth century - unfold in coherent manner in every
direction from a central core of metaphysical principles, and which intend to reveal, on all more or less
contingent orders of reality, the eternal and immutable validity of these same principles' (p. 53).
Pgina 11
Absolute to the most particular and contingent domains of experience.

The acceptance of metaphysical principles in every science, and a
cosmology that divides the universe in an indefinite number of planes
or concentric spheres, are characteristics present in all ancient or
traditional cultures.
If we do not consider this, any concept of the ancient science we might
study will be floating in space like some gratuitous and inexplicable
enigma, an arbitrary creation of a primitive and barbaric mind that
turned science into a slave of taste and fantasy. And obviously we do not
believe that contemporary men are the first intelligent people ever to
appear on the face of this Earth, or that the fact that we came after the
ancients grants us a feeling of superiority absolutely unjustified by our
deeds. Much of the modern attitude towards genres comes simply from
the ignorance of their ontological foundations in the old science.
The metaphysical principal par excellence is the Absolute, or Infinite, or
Universal Possibility. The Infinite - as we will call it from now on - is a
necessarily unique principle (for we cannot conceive of two infinites),
unlimited in every direction, necessary by definition (for a contingent
infinite would be a limited infinite, therefore finite). We speak of the
metaphysical Infinite and not of a presumed 'mathematical' infinite,
which is limited to quantity and for that very reason is not an infinite
properly speaking, but only a metaphorical one, or of second degree:
infinitum secundum quid, 'infinite under a certain aspect', as used to
say the Scholastics9 .
On the distinction between 'infinite' and 'mathematical infinite' or 'indefinite', see Gunon, Ren. Les
Principes du Calcul Infinistsimal. Paris: Gallimard, 1946. Chap. 1. The distinction was also highlighted
by Descartes on 27 of Philosophy Principles.
Pgina 12
The Infinite comprises and transcends, in its absolutely unlimited

possibility, all dimensions and directions of the finite. And finite beings,
being derived from the Infinite, thus can neither be identical to it, nor
be radically different from it, that is, not have any point of contact with
it. Beings are neither identical nor different from Infinite: they are
analogous to it. The main connection between finite beings and the
Infinite is the notion of oneness, which is a characteristic common to
both. All that exists has oneness, because if it does not possess oneness,
it is two and therefore has no consistency, no cohesion. The attribute
'being' and the attribute 'oneness' are, for that reason, said to be
mutually convertible: to all that is attributed being, is also attributed
oneness and vice-versa. Ens et unum convertuntur. However, the
oneness of the Infinite is absolute (being inseparable) and simple (not
being composed of parts), whereas that of finite beings is composite
(always being constituted of parts or aspects) and relative (being
separable, when the being is extinguished)10.
Hence that every finite being, whatever be its place in the 'great chain of
Being', has with Infinite two kinds of simultaneous relationships: on the
one hand, the essential continuity, that is, the ultimate oneness of its
essence with the Infinite's essence, for we could not, without
contradiction, conceive of a being which essence is totally separated
from Infinite; on the other hand, the existential discontinuity, because
finite beings, being one with Infinite through their essence, are
distinguished and distanced from it according to their conditions,
10
For an exposition of Oneness from the logical and ontological point-of-view, see Santos, Mrio Ferreira
dos. A Sabedoria da Unidade. So Paulo: Matese, 1968; from the point-of-view of the mystic and
sapiential doctrines, see Burckhardt, Titus. An Introduction to Sufi Doctrines. Wellingborough:
Thorsons, 1976, Chap. VII.
Pgina 13
forms, levels, planes and modes of existence, which, descending from

universality to particularity, from necessity to contingency, from
permanence to fleetingness, compose precisely what is called 'the great
chain of Being'11.
Thus from the absolute limitlessness of Universal Possibility to the most
restricted areas of contingent existence are disposed successive degrees
of possibility, or 'worlds'. Each one of these worlds is therefore defined
by a set of limitations or conditions that define what, in their proper
domains, is possible or impossible.
That which we call 'our world', the world of sensible human experience,
is defined by three conditions: time, space, and number or quantity.
There is nothing, in the whole extent of the physical world, that is not
subjected to the imperious law that ordains it to be in some place and
not in other, during some time and no more, and to be limited to a
certain quantity under all aspects12.
These limitations evidently do not befall only on beings, but on all their
actions and manifestations as well. So it is that human intelligence, even
though it may even be able to grasp some mysterious, instantaneous
and unexpressed realities that are well above the conditions of time,
space and number (without which it would never be able to grasp the
notions of 'Infinite' or 'essence'), will have to subject itself to these same
conditions in order to be able to manifest or express itself, in the form of
thought, speech or action. Now, the written manifestations of the
11
On the concepts of essential continuity and existential discontinuity, see Schuon, Frithjof. Forme et
Substance dans les Rligions. Paris: Dervy-Livres, 1975, pp. 53-86.
12
The traditional astronomical and astrological symbolism is the integral representation of the
coexistence of these three conditions. See Burckhardt, Titus. Clef Spirituelle de l'Astrologie Mussulmane.
Milano: Arch, 1978; and also our work 'Natural and Spiritual Astrology', in Astrologia e Religio, op. cit.,
Cap. II.
Pgina 14
human mind would not be able to escape these universal conditionings,

nor how to exist without differentiating themselves in patterns defined
according to time, space and number. These patterns are precisely the
principle of genres.
The three 'conditions of bodily existence' mentioned by the traditional
and particularly Hindu doctrines frame and shape all structures of
human perception and action. For that very reason there is not, among
all functions of perception and action, any one that cannot, ultimately,
be reduced - at least in its logical concept - to some modality of number,
space and time (eg. vision remits us to simultaneity, hearing to
succession, walking to succession, apprehension to simultaneity,
generation to number etc.). The same, necessarily, happens with
language. From the basic distinction between name (simultaneity) and
verb (succession), everything refers to combinations and complications
obtained from these three principles. Similarly, when man first began to
write down his thoughts, the modalities in which he could do it had to
be differentiated according to the three conditions of bodily existence.
V. Verse and prose
The most general of genres, comprising all others (and for the same
reason, being 'genres of genres', should be more properly named
categories) are verse and prose. The distinction between verse and
prose mirrors on the level of the literary microcosm the condition of
'number' or quantity. No matter what scholars may have been saying for
the past hundred years in endless discussions, the fact is that the
distinction of verse and prose is only a distinction between the two most
general forms of quantity, continued and discontinued. A verse is a
Pgina 15
verse as long as some principle of discontinuity or sectioning, be it

either rhythmic or metric, prevails, performing some sort of sound
reiteration; and prose is prose as it flows without ever returning. Verses
are like rain drops, sprinkling repetitively, whereas prose is a river
running without interruption. Hence there is a certain 'superiority' in
verse, because it 'comes from the heavens' like the discontinued and
enigmatic speech of angels and oracles, whereas prose slides along the
ground like the everyday talk of men.
This distinction reflects, therefore, the principles of the essential
continuity and the existential discontinuity between the Infinite and the
finite.
The traditional symbol of the circle can make it all the more clear. If we
represent Being, unique and infinite, by a point, the rays that emanate
from it represent its distinct possibilities of manifestations in many
directions; they are the qualities or properties that prolong its essence
without being separated from it. If, from this point, we draw many
concentric circles, they will represent the various levels of nearness and
farness in which every point and segment of the rays can be in relation
to the central point. The rays represent the essential continuity, and the
circles the existential discontinuity; the rays, the oneness of reality; the
circles, the multiplicity of planes or levels13 . This figure applies to the
distinction of verse and prose in a double way, according to the rule of
traditional symbolism that always allows for the coexistence of direct
and inverse symbolism14. We can say, on the one hand, that the rays
13
Cf. Bakhtiar, Laleh. Sufi. Expressions of the Mystic Quest. London: Thames & Hudson, 1979. pp. 10-11;
and Gunon, Ren. Symboles de la Science Sacre. Paris: Gallimard, 1962. Chap. VIII-XIII.
14
Gunon, Ren. Le Rgne de la Quantit et les Signes des Temps. Paris: Gallimard, 1945. Chap. XXX.
Pgina 16
express the continuous flow of prose, and their sectioning by the

concentric circles the rhythm of verse. On the other, we can see the
figure in reverse sense, and say that prose revolves or goes about
continuously like planets in their orbit, and that the rays of verse section
or scan rhythmically these circles according to the directions of space.
The possible combinations of distinct shades of verse and prose must
not make us lose the essential distinction, because every combination,
no matter how complex, will always be made of continued and
discontinued elements.
The most recent critical trend is to forget the key role of the quantitative
factor - metric or rhythmic - in the distinction of verse and prose, and to
search for a semantic type of distinction. That is, with or without
metrics and rhyme, a text is considered to be 'poetic' or 'prosaic'
according to whether a 'connotative' or 'denotative' use of language
prevails; verse is supposed to speak in modo obliquo and prose in modo
recto15 . This new distinction arose from the need to account for the great
amount of works written without any commitment to metric. But, on
one side, denotation and connotation are nothing but the semantic
equivalents of continuity and discontinuity, as we can see from the
direct or indirect - continued or discontinued - reference from signifier
to signified. On the other, this is a derived and secondary distinction,
and not a primary one. For millennia, poetic works have possessed
metrics and rhyme, being either connotative or denotative (even
treatises on science and philosophy, which semantically we would call
prosaic, were written in poetic forms, without calling the attention of
15
The exclusively semantic distinction is argued by Massaud Moiss, op. cit., Chap. IV.
Pgina 17
anyone). We could admit, so as to wrap up the question, a fourfold

classification, patterned after the crossing of semantic and phonetic
criteria: thus, we would have continued-connotative and continued-denotative; discontinued-connotative and discontinued-denotative;
and the gradations of these four would easily account for all possible
combinations without further complications, which by the way could
have been solved from the beginning by the realisation of the
ambiguous meaning of the word 'prose', understood as opposed, on one
side, to 'verse', and on the other, to 'poetry'.
However, according strictly to their origin, verse and prose are not
modes of signification, but rather modes of elocution. To avoid any
further confusions, we'll say that an intensely 'connotative' text lacking
in any sort of rhythmic or metric reiteration, is not verse: it is poetic
prose or something alike; and a purely 'denotative' text, such as some
purely prosaic and informative lines in the tragedies of Shakespeare and
Racine - not to speak of the old treatises of Geometry and Physics
composed in rhyme - is verse. In short: continued text, either
connotative or denotative, is prose; and discontinued text, either
connotative or denotative, is verse, be it 'poetic' or not. If anyone wishes
to change that, preferring to employ the semantic criterion, it will not
make the least difference; only, in behalf of clarity, we recommend
bearing in mind that the distinction of verse and prose refers primarily
to elocution, and secondarily (metaphorically, or secundum quid) to
signification; and that in going from the direct employment of a concept
to its metaphorical employment it is necessary to make adjustments and
compensations in order to avoid cheap, mechanical and unintelligent
Pgina 18
transpositions.
From this point of view, we'll see that theoretically all the literary genres
can be indifferently put into prose or verse (or in distinct gradations in a
combination), and that they in fact have been, according to the taste
and the preference of the ages. If today it seems a bit strange to write
treatises on Physics with metrics and rhyme, to the ancient Greeks
symbolist poetic prose would not seem less strange.
We insist that the existence of various gradations of mixture, and even
of nearly undecomposable mixtures, does not change anything of the
general concept: the fact that Northeast is neither to the North nor to
the East does not suppress the existence of North and East, which must
remain in place in order for someone to be able to stand in the
Northeast. The obsessive cult of exceptions - which ultimately can
always be reduced back to the rule, if such a work were worth - does not
come from any other thing than the taste for what Ortega y Gasset used
to call 'the philosophy of grey cats.'
Before we enter the discussion of specific genres, we must explain that
the distinction of genres is altogether different from that of verse and
prose. It is a two-folded difference:
1. Verse and prose are differentiated according to number - or order, or
relation -; whereas the literary genres are differentiated as they reflect
the categories of space and time and the various modalities of space and
time. Verse and prose are 'categories', or genres of genres; they
comprise all genres just as number comprises space and time.
2. If genres are bodies of possibilities, and if these bodies are distinct
Pgina 19
from each other, then each body defines itself as a principle or rule for
the structuring of matter taken as a whole, while verse and prose are
principles for the structuring of the smallest parts - sentences and
periods - separately considered. A tragedy is a tragedy because the
totality of the events narrated necessarily concurs for a tragic outcome
according to the rule of tragedy, even though there may be, here and
there, along the work, pleasurable or comic elements. But verses are
verses because their sentences are sectioned and sewn, one by one,
according to some kind of reiterative module; and prose is prose
because its sentences follow each other in a continuing flow, with no
commitment to reiteration. In order to know whether a work is written
in verse or prose, it is enough to read some paragraphs, or even to just
look at the text's disposition in the page, whereas to know whether a
work is a comedy or a tragedy, unless it is stated on the cover, we must
read it entirely and get to know the intimate connections among its
elements and levels of meaning.
Genres, as we were saying, are bodies of possibilities for the
combination of literary matter, and these bodies distinguish themselves
from each other as they reflect in their inner structure the two other
great dimensions of bodily existence: time and space. Hence the first
great division of genres: the temporal or successive mode is expressed
in the narrative genres, and the spatial or simultaneous mode in the
expository genres. The internal subdivisions of these genres - or, if you
will, their species - will be defined, therefore, according to the many
modalities of space and time, modalities which, in their turn, are
distinguished by number: continued and discontinued. Continued - or
unterminated - time, discontinued - or terminated - time: such is the
Pgina 20
criterion for the distinction of the narrative genres. Continued space - or

encompassing totality -, discontinued space - or subdivided in distinct
places -: such is the criterion for the distinction of the expository genres.
VI. Narrative and exposition
If, as we were saying, the narrative genres manifest the dimension of
time, they can, in principle, be rendered either in verse or prose by the
very fact that this dimension contains an aspect of continuity as well as
another of discontinuity: time flows irrevocably and uninterruptedly,
but is sectioned by the quantitative and qualitative distinction of its
various moments.
Similarly, expository genres can appear in verse or prose as they reflect
continued extension or the differentiation in dimensions, planes, places,
lines and points (the point, in geometry, coincides both structurally and
symbolically with the temporal notion of 'moment' and the arithmetical
notion of 'zero'. It is in this 'zero' that dimensions meet, it is in it that
their differentiation according to quantitative patterns of continuity of
discontinuity begins).16
In order to understand what we are about to say it is necessary to bear
in mind that these principles of genres are ontological and not
psychological; they need not be present in the author's mind as he
writes his work; they stay, so to speak, behind the act of literary
creation, staking out its field of possibilities. Any author who is deeply
16
See our work 'Questions of Geometrical Symbolism', in Astrologia e Religio, op. cit., Chap. V; and
especially the study by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy about the number zero, to be quoted later. See also
Kandinsky, Wassily. Point-Ligne-Plan. Contribuition l'Analyse des lements Picturaux. Paris: Denoel,
1970, which, very much to our purpose, defines the geometrical point as 'the ultimate and unique union
of silence and word' (p. 33).
Pgina 21
aware of these principles certainly can make deliberate use of them as

technical elements; however, even if he does not have the slightest idea
about them, they will nevertheless exercise their delimitating action. It
may also happen that the artist harmonises himself with them in a
totally unconscious way, sufficing that he remains faithful to the formal
intention that is his inspiration, for making art is but to give form, and
man cannot give form but according to his own form of existing,
perceiving, and making.
We say that the narrative genre expresses the dimension of time not
because all narratives elapse in a uniform flow of time, but rather
because even though they may consist of a continued duration, or of a
crossing of psychological lapses of time, or of comings and goings
between past and present, or of moments of minimum and indefinite
extension atomistically taken, and not mattering the immense variety of
the modes for the treatment of time in historical or fictional narratives,
the most important structuring factor of the narrative is time, and the
narrative is the narrative because of it and of nothing else.
The eventual interference of expository or spatial elements - as it
happens, for example, in the description of settings, in the profiles of
characters, or even in the small philosophical essays that authors such
as Tolstoi and Dostoievski insert in their novels - does not deprive the
work of anything of its narrative character; their presence is explained,
ultimately, by the fact that for man there is no other way to perceive and
represent time than through the reference of a spatial frame and some
movement in it, as anyone who possesses a clock may realise. Strictly
speaking, there is no 'pure narration', made only of succession, without
Pgina 22
any reference to space or simultaneity. Time is time and space is space,

but man is man, and in him these two dimensions cross, articulated by
number or order.
Likewise, expository genres are 'spatial' to the extent that they reflect
the simultaneousness of the elements in a logical (or ontological, for it is
the same thing) hierarchy. The expository genre is shaped by logical
order, abstracting itself, in principle, from the temporal element, from
chronological succession. However, just like there is no 'pure narrative',
there is no 'pure exposition', because the oral or written exposition of an
idea, even when this idea has been grasped in a completely
simultaneous way, demands that it be successively unfolded in the
forms of reason and speech. Here, impurity too comes from the nature
of things: being symbols or manifestations of the cosmic dimensions of
space and time, genres could not possess all the notes that define these
dimensions, because in that case they would be identical, and not
analogous17 .
VII. Species of the narrative genre
The narrative genres will then differentiate themselves in species
according to their internal divisions or modes of temporality. These
modes are expressed basically through verbal tenses.
The two major modalities of time are defined by the two forms of
quantity: continued and discontinued. In almost every ancient language
- such as Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Greek, for example - verbal
17
On the subject of analogy, see our work 'Symbolical Dialectics', in Astros e Smbolos. So Paulo: Nova
Stella, 1985. Chap. II, and also Santos, Mrio Ferreira dos. Tratado de Simblica. So Paulo: Logos, 1964.
Tema III, art. 5.
Pgina 23
tenses are divided in two basic forms: one that expresses continuing
verbal action, pure flow, without reference to any specific moment,
being a kind of 'continuous present' that speaks of an action more or
less perennial or cyclical; and a second one that expresses verbal action
fixed in a moment of time. Therefore, these two forms manifest,
respectively, continuity and discontinuity. This division is quite varied
in all languages, but always follows a basic pattern. In Greek, as a case
in point, there are primary verbal tenses and one secondary tense:
primary tenses are present, past and future, which place the action in
distinct moments; the secondary tense is called aoristo, or pure verbal
action. In Arabic, the division is even more radical, only two tenses
being acknowleged strictly speaking: terminated (mdi'), 'action
terminated in a remote time, which result is manifested at this
moment', and unterminated (mudari), 'which action does terminate in
the present, continuing into the future18; there is also the imperative
('amr), completely independent from tense and time. Sanskrit follows a
division more or less similar to that of Greek.
In order to understand these properties of the ancient languages, and
their consequences for the theory of genres, it is necessary to be
acquainted with the traditional doctrine of 'triple time', which can be
found with insignificant variations in the metaphysical teachings of
Greece and the East. According to this doctrine, the relations between
18
Sfady, Jamil. A Lngua rabe. So Paulo: Sfady, 1950. p. 120. See also on this point Gardet, Louis.
'Concepes muulmanas sobre o tempo e a histria', in Paul Ricoeur et al. Brazilian translation. As
Culturas e o Tempo. Petrpolis: Vozes, pp. 229-262; especially p. 232. For an explanation on Greek
verbal tenses, see Horta, Guida Nedda Barata Parreira. Os Gregos e seu Idioma. Rio de Janeiro: di
Giorgio, 1983. Vol. I, pp. 152-153. Aoristos literally means 'indefinite', 'undetermined'. It is derived from
orisma, meaning 'limit', 'frontier', 'term' and 'definition', from which are also derived the words 'hour' and
'horizon'. The study of Greek myths related to the horizon as limit between Heavan and Earth shows the
inseparable link between the 'unterminated' verbal tense - aoristo - and the perennial time of mythology.
Cf. Souza, Eudoro de. Horizonte e Complementaridade. So Paulo: Duas Cidades, 1978.
Pgina 24
time and being are echeloned in planes or levels. The highest is eternity,
the complete non-existence of time or any kind of flow, the absolute
simultaneousness of all moments. Universal Possibility is eternal: the
transformations that go in the inferior planes do not diminish nor alter
even slightly the infinitude of the possible.
In the other end, at the level of particular and sensible beings, there is
temporality, the continuing and irreversible flow of individual events
that are not repeated. The past does not come back; it is the realm of
necessity and destiny, the realm of factum. Between these two zones
there is the intermediate zone of cyclical time, a realm that, even though
it is subject to flow and to ruin, is periodically reinvigorated by the
restoration of the initial possibilities at the moment the cycle is closed,
for it is the same moment that it is reopened. It is the realm of
perenniality, the intermediate world of archetypal images, the mundus
imaginalis, where they live and move according to the laws of perennial
return of the mythical beings - such as the signs of the Zodiac and the
characters from mythological epopes - that express in forms
apprehensible by the cognitio imaginativa the archetypes that stake out
possibilities of the temporal world19.
Eternity is the realm of the divine by excellence, from where descend,
through the mediation of the Logos or Divine Intelligence, the
determinations which, taking live forms progressively defined in the
19
On 'triple time', see Coomaraswamy, Ananda K.. French translation. Les Temps et l'Eternit. Paris:
Dervy-Livres, 1976, especially the appendix 'Kha et autres mots signifiant 'zro' dans leurs rapports avec
la mtaphysique de l'espace', pp. 117 ss.; and Gunon, Ren. La Grande Triade. Paris: Gallimard, 1957.
Chap. XXII. On the restoration of possibilities, see Eliade, Mircea. Le Mythe de l'Eternel Retour.
Archtypes et Rpetition, Paris: Gallimard, 1969. Chapters. I and II. On the mundus imaginalis and its
perfectly real inhabitants, see Corbin, Henry. En Islam Iranien. Aspects Spirituels et Philosophiques.
Paris: Gallimard, 1971. T.I, pp. 167-185.
Pgina 25
funnel of perenniality, are finally crystallised as irreversible facts in the

temporal order. Eternity is fiat; temporality, factum; and perenniality,
the perpetual in fieri.
Structurally, therefore, the narrative must express - not necessarily in
its content nor in its technique, but always in the principle or
establishing rule that makes this technique possible - either perenniality
or temporality, because the imperative, the 'amr', is above the
possibility of being narrated, or can only be narrated by the mediation
of its image in perenniality.
So, just as the temporal order is the realm of particular facts, and
perenniality the realm of myths and symbols which group these facts in
categories that remit to Universal Possibility, the first division of the
narrative genres is that existing between factual narratives and symbolic
narratives. Factual narratives express what has already happened, is
already finished and cannot return. Symbolic narratives express events
which, even though they may be metaphorically placed in the past (as
they must be in modern languages, deprived of aoristo or mudari), in
reality represent possibilities destined to be reactualised. This division
corresponds more or less to that which is imprecisely called 'historical'
narrative and 'fictional' narrative; we say 'imprecisely' because what
distinguishes these two species is not properly the real or fictional
nature of events, but rather the fact that the reality of the historical
narrative is in that the events have really happened in a past moment,
whereas the 'reality' of fictional narrative is in the possibility of a
psychological reactualisation of its symbols in the act of reading. When
Carlyle tells the story of the death of Louis XV, he wants to make clear
Pgina 26
that this has already happened and will not happen again; however,
when the evangelist tells the story of Christ's death, what he has in mind
is not the finished fact, but rather the possibility of its ritual
reactualisation in the soul of the Christian; and Desdemona's death,
which in fact never happened, is intended to happen in the soul of the
spectator when he watches the play. Now, Christ's death was a historical
fact as much as the death of Louis XV; the difference is that the
evangelist talks about it as a symbol, as a repeatable archetype, while
Carlyle only speaks of a past fact. Thus, the narrative of the Gospel and
of Carlyle are both historical, while that of Desdemona is fictional; but
the Gospel and Othello are symbolical narratives, while Carlyle's book is
a factual narrative.
The factual narrative comprises thus all the facts which, belonging to
the order of temporality and irreversibility, are narrated as such. This
includes the works of testimony, chronicles, and memoirs as well as
works of History itself. The difference between memoirs and works of
History is in the interference of a spatial factor, the narrator's point of
view. The writer of memoirs tells things from his own point-of-view,
while the historian collects various testimonies (among which can
evidently be his own). We can still bring in another spatial difference
between the books of memoirs and those of testimony or chronicle,
because the first are narrated from the point of view of the author of the
actions, whereas the latter are narrated from an observer's point of
view. Even though these divisions are spatial in principle, they also have
a temporal counterpart to the extent that there is a differentiation
between a subjective or personal temporality and a social chronology -
Pgina 27
being therefore intersubjective.

The symbolic narrative species are also divided according to the
continued and the discontinued, the terminated and the unterminated.
The unterminated species is drama, which, even though narrating an
action metaphorically placed in the past, reproduces it in the present by
means of the actors' performance on stage.20 The terminated modality is
what we call epic, or properly narrative (myth, legend, novel, etc.),
which does not reproduce the action in the present, but simply evokes it
or narrates it as past21.
The species of drama is also divided according to the terminated and
the unterminated. The terminated subspecies reports itself to the
factum, the time that unfolds in the direction of the irreversible
concatenation of causes and consequences: it is tragedy, celebrating the
victory of necessity and fate over man. When, on the contrary, the chain
of factum can be broken by Providence, returning to man initial
possibilities which would be lost under the effect of irreversibility, we
have the subspecies of comedy22 .
Likewise, terminated narrative or epic genres are divided according to
the modality of time that informs them:
1. The mythical subspecies expresses events that occurred 'in that time'
20
It is therefore obvious that film narrative is included in the subspecies 'symbolic unterminated species'.
It is also obvious that romances and short stories written in the present tense are inspired in a
technique that is ultimately cinematographic; and that, as in them the present tense of verbs does not
grant real actuality to events which are really just being narrated and not shown, the supposed 'present
time' is metaphorical and not real as in theatre. But, in a certain way, the 'present time' of film is also
metaphorical, because the actors are not really acting at the moment the spectator watches the movie.
22
We see no need to deepen in the essence of every particular genre, for this is not the purpose of our
work; we only intend to show the ontological foundation of the very idea of genres. Maybe it would be
interesting for the reader to compare our arrangement with that of Northrop Frye in Anatomy of Critic,
Chapter IV, whose angle is different from ours, but not opposed.
21
Pgina 28
(in illo tempore), that is, in the mythical time of perenniality and of the
mundus imaginalis. This is the real time of the Biblical and Koranic
narratives, as well as of the Greek myths.
2. At the other end, we have the novelesque genre (novels and short
stories), which is definitely delimited by terrestrial temporality (no
matter how creative is technical treatment the narrator gives to time).
3. Between both, we can admit an intermediate species, composed of
jests and legends, which, dealing essentially with the divinisation of a
human hero, establish a bridge between temporality and perenniality.
Novels of 'initiatic' content are evidently likely to offer difficulties for
classification, hesitating between the novelesque and the legendary.
What's best, in almost all cases, is to call them legends disguised as
novels.
The enormous development of the novelesque species in the modern
age, parallel to the retraction of legends, is a sign of the progressive loss
of the sense of perenniality in our civilisation. This loss occurs
concomitantly to the spread of modern European languages deprived of
aoristo, and to the loss of symbolical understanding of the universe in
favour of a more terrestrial experience, temporalised and empirical, in
the transition from the medieval worldview to that of the Renaissance.
VIII. Species of the expository genre
Just as narratives are classified according to the continuity or
discontinuity of time, the expository species are also differentiated
according to the continuity or discontinuity of the spatial and
simultaneous whole that represents the logical and ontological order. If
Pgina 29
the continuity and the discontinuity of time were expressed in the

concepts of 'terminated and unterminated' and in the corresponding
verbal tenses, the concepts equivalent to the spatial order are the
notions of whole and part, and of inclusion and exclusion.
We will provide here but a schematic outline of the expository genre,
but we believe that these minimum criteria can be indefinitely applied
in successive divisions of species and subspecies, accounting for all
possible combinations.
Expository works then are divided at first on those dealing with the
'whole' and those dealing with 'the part'; and each of them is subdivided
according to whether its subject is dealt with in an 'including' or
'excluding' manner.
The notions of 'whole' and 'inclusion' give the shape of all literary
species that possess a nature of list, of index, of inventory, of
accumulation and enumeration, which model is by excellence the
enciclopdia. They are works that are ultimately destined to contain
'everything', or as much possible: de omne re scibili. Belonging to this
species are all subspecies of didactic and informative works, ranging
from Natural History by Plinius the Old, to the Encyclopdia
Britannica, including Saint Isidore's Etymologies.
Opposed to the indiscriminate encompassing of the list, the idea of
system, or of organisation, is also aimed towards a 'whole', but a whole
that is separated and ranked in its parts, aspects and dimensions, being
therefore subjected to a sequence of 'exclusions'. This is the treatise or
systematic species. Aristotle's Organon, for example, is a treatise, and so
Pgina 30
is the Summa Theologica by Saint Thomas of Aquinas, or Euclides's

Elements; each one these works intends to enclose the totality of a
subject, but systematising it according to its constitutive and intrinsic
parts, and not just list them after some casual, extrinsic and convenient
order as in the encyclopdias.
On the other end, we have the works patterned after the idea of part or
aspect. These are works which focus on a specific phenomenon, or
group of phenomena, an idea or a particular group of ideas, without the
purpose of creating a system of total knowledge. But even this approach
to the part can be done according to two modalities: inclusion or
exclusion.
On one side, there are the works which, dealing with a particular
subject, intend to insert it in a pre-existent body of knowledge, which
has already been systematised. For example, when Apolonius of Perga
writes his treatise on Cones, he does not intend to build a complete
geometric system, nor to just throw a few ideas: he intends to fit these
ideas in a precise place of the pre-existent body of geometric science;
and this goal directs and informs the treatment he gives to his subject,
which must be a systematic treatment according to the concepts and
norms admitted in Geometry. This species of works is denominated
thesis, which comes from a Latin verb that means 'to put'. He who
makes a thesis is putting a piece in a pre-existent frame, and the piece's
shape must be perfectly adjusted to the specific hole it intends to fill.
However, if the idea to be presented has no formal or decisive
commitment with a pre-existent system of knowledge, then what the
author does is to freely add one more idea to the extensive and vague
Pgina 31
repertoire of human ideas. This is precisely what the species essay does.
The differentiation of the expository species may thus go on indefinitely,
by means of the sheer application of the criteria of whole and part,
inclusion and exclusion. There is an infinity of possible mixtures as well.
It is unnecessary to proceed with the enumeration, for we believe to
have proved the effectiveness of the criteria. Just to give an idea of the
possibilities of developments: the essay species can be subdivided
according to whether the essay is more or less committed to some
pre-existent scientific criteriology: Science as Vocation, Politics as
Vocation and other works collected in Weber's Essays of Sociology differ
thus from Montaigne's Essays because the first are closer to 'exclusion'
and the second to 'inclusion'. And so on. It is not necessary, at this
moment, to carry the criteria forward to more detailed applications.
IX. The lyrical genre. Conclusion
It really is necessary to say a word about the lyrical genre, which seems
to have been mysteriously left out of our arrangement. What happens
with lyric is that, strictly speaking, it is not patterned after simultaneity
or succession, neither after space or time. On the contrary, it is defined
precisely by its supra-spatial and supra-temporal character. Either in
the form of verse or prose, lyric expresses the only terrestrial equivalent
of the dimension that surpasses both perenniality and temporality; it is
structured after the aspiration for eternity, and its formal module is the
concept of 'moment', having 'point' as a spatial equivalent, an
expression of what arithmetically is the unit.23 Lyric takes a moment in
time, a point in space, and projects it in the non-time and the
23
See note #16.
Pgina 32
non-space. That in order to do this it has to make use of verbal

instruments derived from space and time, from continuity and
discontinuity, from the successive and simultaneous, is what defines
precisely the limits of the humanly expressible and the mutual
annihilation of time and space in the crossing of the 'point' or 'moment'.
Lyric is, therefore, the purest expression of relation, or order, or
number, that is, the dimension that articulates, comprises and contains
space and time.
The literary genres, strictly speaking, are archetypical realities: they
frame and guide the multiplicity of facts in literary history, without ever
being manifest in their whole purity - for temporality imitates
perenniality without being able to identify with it - and also without
ever totally vanishing away, no matter how unrecognisable they may be
behind the usually confusing multitude of particular facts and
variations.
The
difficulty
felt
by
the
contemporary
man
in
understanding genres and recognising them in the midst of the

confusion of empirical data is exactly the same he has to find any
archetypal meaning in the facts of a daily life that has been entirely
trivialised and reified, cut from the realm of archetypes by the smoke
and the noise of commercial and industrial instantaneousness, as well
as by the polluting distortions the mass communications industry
criminally introduces in the world of images and symbols. The difficulty
in seeing in the subject and not in the object.
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