Part III: Genre: The Types of Biblical Poems

Genre is a word that can baffle people, but the idea is simple. The word “genre” comes from the Latin word genus, which means “type” or “kind.” So, a genre is simply a type or kind or category of literature. It groups texts that share common characteristics. People use the word for various types and categories, and that can create problems because you are not always sure what the category is. So, it is important to be clear about what the genre categorizes.

We often divide literature into prose and poetry and talk about them as different genres/types of literature. With its regular rhyme and rhythm, traditional English poetry stands in sharp contrast to prose that lacks these regular features. A reader noticing the regular rhyme and rhythm brings different expectations to the text. Biblical poetry, as we have seen, moves by parallel lines. Once readers notice this in a text, they begin to expect it and look for it. While the division between prose and poetry can be helpful, it is not the only category. Homer told his story in poetry, while biblical stories are mainly in prose.

Stories are another category or genre of literature. As Aristotle famously observed in his Poetics, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end (Ch. VII). The beginning introduces the main tension; the middle heightens the tension even as it prepares for the resolution, which brings the story to an end. A story is then a sequence of events with three essential moments: tension, development, and resolution. Typically, characters must resolve minor tensions before the overarching tension finds its resolution, and sometimes the resolution becomes the new tension for a new story.

In his Republic, Plato divided literature into three genres, which today are called narrative, drama, and lyric (Ch. 3, 7 §394c). While Plato’s categories were more complicated, this threefold division provides a helpful starting point by using the story’s sequence of events and its mode of presentation as the basis for the genre.

• Narrative or story is a presentation of events moving from tension to a resolution, told by a narrator.
• Drama is a presentation of events moving from tension to resolution, presented directly by the characters themselves.
• Lyric is not a story, but a thought or reaction presented directly by a single speaker whom the audience, as it were, overhears.

Narrative and drama differ in their mode of presentation. The narrator presents a narrative while the characters in a drama present the story themselves. Lyric, like drama, is a direct presentation but without a story.

These are not the only possibilities. The three can combine in various ways. The storyteller may present exactly what a character says rather than giving us a summary. Likewise, a lyric may presume a story as we find in a victory hymn, such as Exodus 15 or Judges 5; both presume the hearer already knows the story.

Herman Gunkel (1862-1932) first pointed biblical scholarship toward a study of genre, which in German is called “Form.” As a result, “form criticism” serves as the typical biblical term for the literary study of genres. Gunkel began with the stories of Genesis, and his work highlighted the relationship between biblical stories and those of the ancient Near East and world literature.

For the Book of Psalms, Gunkel introduced a list of categories that continues to be used in various ways. However, his categories are not consistent. He bases some on linguistic elements and others on their subject matter. This mixing has created some confusion. The royal psalms, for instance, are psalms related to kings, but some are hymns addressed to God, and others are the king’s petitions to God. Claus Westermann later consolidated Gunkel’s insight into two primary genres: praise and lament, which we shall take up below.

Genre is not just a matter of lining up ducks. Genre gathers together texts with similar functions and expectations. If we are familiar with the genre, then we have an idea of how they work and what they hope to accomplish. When we realize that someone is telling us a story, we begin to expect a tension and a resolution.

Newspapers have often been examples of different genres. On the front page, we expect to find stories that give us an objective reporting of the facts, which may or may not lead to a resolution of the tension. The editorial page gives us the opinions of the editors and other commentators. Movie reviews offer opinions about a movie. The sports page gives us both stories about the results of games as well as opinions about almost everything. Cartoons can make us laugh and sometimes make us think. Genres are then categories of likeness.

Since our familiarity with genre brings expectations, these categories also help us to see how each text is different and unique. Typically, storytellers and poets are looking to transform the genre, to do something new, to defamiliarize. By knowing the traditional expectations, we can identify how a text deviates from our expectations. The difference can be the main point.

Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian literary critic, has pointed out that literary genres are based on “speech genres” used in ordinary communication. He asserts that everyday language is full of “typical forms of utterances” that allow us to understand what others want to communicate (“Speech Genres,” 78-80). Literary genres often have their roots in our ordinary language.

Vocabulary