„Den var ikke onkelagtig nok”. En empirisk undersøgelse af læserrespons på genresignaturer

Abstract

Abstract In the survey 115 participants read one of four books by Svend Age Madsen, Lars Skinnebach, Pia Juul and Maja Lee Langvad, respectively, and were asked about their valuation, expectations and own generic classification of the work. The books all have a singular, non-standard genre label (genre signature), and the main hypothesis was that this paratextual marker would have an effect on the expectations and experience of the readers. The hypothesis was only partly confirmed, but other findings were made among which two are to be highlighted: 1) The participants had difficulties generically classifying in an unambiguous manner suggesting that the self-claimed extraordinary genre status is reflected in the actual texts. 2) In general, the participants did not like the books, though these are all critically acclaimed. This points towards the old distinction between low and high culture still being relevant and suggests that the genre signature might be a marker of the latter. The article ends with a discussion of the role of empirical studies within literary theory.