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What struck me was that both readings, though arriving at their destinations by completely different routes (one through the digital age, one through ancient history), managed to depit genre as something fluid from the very begining --no matter what human beings attempt to mold it into. Neither author put on the appearance of believing that genre is (and was) just as simple as a division into epic, lyric, and dramatic.

So genre is fluid, and I find this reasonable and logically given the evidence our authors presented. But rarely do I sit or stop myself, analyzing every feeling I have and recognizing every separate thought. I should think it would be impossible! So as human beings we organize the world into a 'false' genre, with solid walls, and marked boundaries, even as we realize that everything goes much deeper, and is much more connected.

As I read I wondered (complexly, naively) is this must mean that bookstores and libraries are not dealing with the 'real' genre, the fluid genre, but the rigid kind? Maybe a better word would be classification, or just the acceptance that genre is not a word for the way the world is, but a word for how we think about the world? (Using a broader term than just in association with literature.)