The Literary Interview: Toward a Poetics of a Hybrid Genre
(2014) Poetics Today : an international journal for theory and analysis of literature and communication — Vol. 35, n° 1-2, p. 1-49 (2014)
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- This article brings together the scattered research from the French, English, and German research traditions on the literary interview, that is, the extensive personal interview given by (or in some cases also conducted by) a literary author. The literary interview can be regarded as a hybrid genre for several reasons. First, it belongs to both the media and the literary domains. Second, its authorship is not only divided between interviewee and interviewer but also affected by editing and publishing interventions. Third, it mixes features of an oral interaction and of a written or edited communication. As a result, the literary interview as an object of study raises important questions about notions like genre, authorship, authorial positioning, and discourse at large. From a literary perspective, moreover, new light is also thrown on some of the basic characteristics associated with the personal interview in general: the “pact” or assumption of authenticity; the tension between format, on the one hand, and spontaneity, on the other hand; and the formal strategies used to (re-)create the encounter in the interview text. Both as a historical object and as a present-day, culture-specific practice, the literary interview is an interesting case of the dynamic interaction between the media and literature in contemporary cultures.
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Masschelein, A., Meurée, C., Martens, D., & Vanasten, S. (2014). The Literary Interview: Toward a Poetics of a Hybrid Genre. Poetics Today : an international journal for theory and analysis of literature and communication, 35(1-2), 1-49. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-2648368 (Original work published 2014)