The challenge of genre: hybridization in postmodern British poetry

Abstract

The aim of this article is to highlight the fact that the contemporary lyric mode often shares the generic hybridity that distinguishes Postmodern literature, and that this genre eclecticism usually involves an ostensible burring or diffusion of the lyric subject.In addition, and according to the descriptive nature of recent (Duarte, 1999; Cohen, 2000) and less recent (Hernadi, 1972; Fowler, 1982; Perloff, 1989) genre theory, the analysis of the above-mentioned eclecticism or combination of the 'natural' modes triggers off the necessity of using a no less hybrid or mixed methodology (formalist, functionalist, cultural) which both attests to and helps to cope with the complexity inherent in the study of Postmodern lyric poetry.With these premises in mind, three instances of generic description (and further interpretation) are provided in order to show the fruitful contribution of genre theory to the analysis of individual poetic texts.