The Emblem as a Literary Genre

This chapter examines the emblem as a literary genre. Emblems, once dismissed as popular, trivial, and visually second-rate, have become the object of an independent specialism. Yet there is still little agreement as to what constitutes the emblem as a genre. And, now that literary criticism threatens to merge into media studies, the emblem is increasingly treated from a visual viewpoint, with consequent neglect of its literary aspects. The chapter then looks at how far emblems belong to literature, and constitute, indeed, a literary genre. As with any literary genre, we are faced with the diversifications of historical existence. Literary kinds have a diachronic dimension: change discloses, fashion fashions them. It is precisely innovation, in fact, that makes generic form apparent. And the emblem is no exception. It, too, came about through gradual transformation of earlier genres, and went on changing.