Genetic Criticism of Literature

The genetic criticism in its current usage initiated when some of the critics and those who were interested in manuscripts, especially French manuscripts, founded the “Institute of Works and Manuscript Preservation” and published a specialized journal in this field named “ Origin”, and by this they practically started their studies on avan-texts and the way the works come into being. Despite the other kinds of criticism which work on the final text as something fixed and established, genetic criticism, on the other hand, starts its job from movement to fixity. Avan-texts, including handwritings, letters, notes, expanded plans to write a text, memories and so on, are the truth and the silent movements of the published text. The study of these factors reveals the author’s unfinished words, the possible world, probable creativities, plans, expected methods, obsessions, and temptations which are not present in the published text and pave the ways to the other critical approaches. At this point, a genetic critic attempts to delineate the borders between the texts, and to clarify how the mechanism of each work functions to flourish creativity.