Practice question · Multiple choice
Croce insists that only singular works exist, yet a reader opening an elegy already anticipates grief and consolation. What resolves this tension between the nominalist critique and the practical reality of reading?
Hints
- Does the reader's expectation happen before or after the text is engaged?
- How can an organising principle guide comprehension without being an essentialist rule?
Show the answer
B. Genre acts as a horizon of expectation shaping interpretation
Why
Croce rightly denies that genre forms a rigid metaphysical box, but overlooking its role as a pre-interpretive horizon ignores how readers decode meaning. Meaning emerges from the dialogue between text and anticipation, not taxonomic purity.
Practise Genre Theory
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