Ancient and Modern Apocalypse from a Genre Theory Perspective

2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Keyword(s):  
Genre Theory

John among the Apocalypses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of John ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Synoptic Gospels ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
And Function

The central place of revelation in the Gospel of John and the Gospel’s revelatory telling of the life of Jesus are distinctive features of John when compared with the Synoptic Gospels; yet, when John is compared among the apocalypses, these same features indicate John’s striking affinity with the genre of apocalypse. By paying attention to modern genre theory and making an extensive comparison with the standard definition of “apocalypse,” the Gospel of John reflects similarities with Jewish apocalypses in form, content, and function. Even though the Gospel of John reflects similarities with the genre of apocalypse, John is not an apocalypse, but in genre theory terms, John may be described as a gospel in kind and an apocalypse in mode. John’s narrative of Jesus’s life has been qualified and shaped by the genre of apocalypse, such that it may be called an “apocalyptic” gospel. Understanding the Fourth Gospel as “apocalyptic” Gospel provides an explanation for John’s appeal to Israel’s Scriptures and Mosaic authority. Possible historical reasons for the revelatory narration of Jesus’s life in the Gospel of John may be explained by the Gospel’s relationship with the book of Revelation and the history of reception concerning their writing. An examination of Byzantine iconographic traditions highlights how reception history may offer a possible explanation for reading John as “apocalyptic” Gospel.

“Modern Biography”: Form, Function, and Celebrity in Eighteenth-Century Genre Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-55
Author(s):  
Eve Tavor Bannet
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Genre Theory ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Proper Selection ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Form Function ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Periodical Essays

This essay outlines the comprehensive theory of “modern” eighteenth-century biography that was articulated throughout the century in the often lengthy prefaces to collections of lives, disseminated in periodical essays, and applied in reviews to stand-alone lives. This theory addressed the proper selection, presentation, and treatment of both individual and collected “lives.” It gave biography national, historical, commercial, and educational functions; detailed the components of its life-historical narrative and of its critical portions; set standards for what constituted “a fair and full account” of a character, life, and works; and contained in embryo virtually all aspects of biography that would later be singled out as the primary or most valued characteristic of biographical writing. This essay describes the ways biographers and theorists confronted and resolved two ubiquitous difficulties arising from their consensus that “fame or celebrity among us in their generation” was “the grand principle” on which biography was founded: first, how to “do justice” to a person on the basis of sources and testimonials that reflected the partisanship of a country “rent by faction” since the Reformation; and second, how to represent people who had been celebrated in their own time, but not in the biographer's later generation.

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